Cropped Will Cardini artwork

October 16th, 2019

For the Love of Indie Reviews Urscape #1

Filed under: Press — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 9:28 pm

Back in early September, Drew reviewed Urscape #1 in an episode of his indie comics podcast For the Love of Indie! Click here to listen via Apple Podcasts or you can read the episode notes and listen on other platforms here.

Draw talks about Urscape in the context of the larger Hyperverse mythos and says the Hyperverse “is a new Fourth World.” I’m blushing! I love Jack Kirby’s comics and his Fourth World creations are a big inspiration for my work. Thanks to a recommendation from my brother, I read the black-and-white Mister Miracle and New Gods collections back in the early aughts. Even without color, they blew me away with their inventiveness and energy. Kirby’s story of what happens after Ragnarok is visionary reimagination of mythology that he sadly was never able to complete as he intended. Fortunately I recently acquired the color trade paperbacks of New Gods, Mister Miracle, and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen that DC released to celebrate the centenary of Kirby’s birth and they were even better in color. I hope that DC releases a similar edition of Forever People, which I haven’t had a chance to read.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a book review on my blog but I occasionally post reviews on Goodreads. I wrote a little bit more about those three Kirby comics there. Also, if you’ve read one of my comics, I’d appreciate a rating or review! Those can really help an author out. You can see my reviews and my comics from my Author Profile.

Bonus: here’s another animated GIF I made from an Urscape page.

Urscape 1 animation of an interior page

May 29th, 2012

Catch Up on Sale; Kirby’s Influence on Art Comics

Filed under: Press — Tags: , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:21 am

Whew, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog. I’ve gotten lost in drawing comics and I haven’t had time to put anything here but I’ve met most of my deadlines so I’m going to get back to my regular schedule of Tuesday/Friday blog posts. I’ve got two things to tell y’all about today:


Catch Up Winter Issue, cover by Max Bode.

The Catch Up Winter Issue is for sale. Josh Burggraf and I are the comics editors for this issue of the poetry/comics journal. It has comics by Box Brown, Victor Kerlow, Andrei Molotiu, Jo-Jo Sherrow, and others. You can buy it here.


A Jack Kirby drawing of a Celestial from the Eternals comics.

Robert Boyd, local Houston art critic and former Comics Journal staff member, has written a lengthy blog post discussing Kirby’s impact on art comics, in which he compares Vortex to comics by Jesse Jacobs and Jesse Moynihan. I’m honored to be discussed in such good company.

August 28th, 2009

Happy Birthday Jack Kirby

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 7:48 am

Today would be Jack Kirby’s birthday if he was still alive. There’s a great gallery of his work over at The Comics Reporter.

June 2nd, 2009

Kirbytecture

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: — William Cardini @ 4:38 pm

Jack Kirby panel from Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers

From Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers #1.

May 19th, 2009

TCAF Panel on Inkstuds and Kirby’s 2001

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: — William Cardini @ 12:13 am

Robin McConnell of Inkstuds has just posted the audio from a panel that he was on at TCAF with Frank Santoro, Dash Shaw, Robert Dayton, and Dustin Harbin. The panel’s an awesome discuss of how mainstream comics have influenced alternative comics (definitely true for me), especially work like late-seventies Jack Kirby and James Steranko.

One thing that Frank Santoro reminded me of (that I haven’t thought about since Austin Books started their renovation and hid their back issues, a problem that will soon be resolved!) is Jack Kirby’s late seventies 2001 series. The first couple issues are loosely based on concepts from the movie but then it just goes in this other wild direction of vaguely connected vignettes.

Here’s a sample page, pulled from Inkstuds:

December 22nd, 2008

Quote – Eternals Annual #1

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: — William Cardini @ 9:15 pm

“All we are doing is taking humanity to the next level. Unifying the race. No more prejudices. No more conflicts. No more have’s and have-not’s. No more us and them. That’s why we chose Madripoor as the point of ascension, where rich and poor are so rigidly divided between hightown and lowtown. But soon there will be just the one. Just the Terran.

“I… don’t understand. You’re making… a celestial?”

“Of course. What did you think celestials were?”

Eternals page by Jack Kirby

Eternals page by Jack Kirby

“They are uni-minds of entire planets. Clad in armor.

Jack Kirby look what you’ve spawned.