{"id":900,"date":"2007-12-19T19:04:01","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T23:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=900"},"modified":"2007-12-19T19:04:01","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T23:04:01","slug":"from-the-longbox-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=900","title":{"rendered":"From the Longbox – 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Second in a series<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s topic is short and sweet:<\/p>\n

What the Hell Happened to Kilian Plunkett?<\/strong><\/p>\n

OK, so here’s the short answer: he went on to draw a bunch of Star Wars comics and character designs for animation.<\/p>\n

But, before that he illustrated the Aliens: Labyrinth<\/em> series, written by Jim Woodring.\u00c2\u00a0 (Yeah, you read that right, Jim Woodring of Frank<\/em> and Jim<\/em>.)\u00c2\u00a0 But before that<\/em>, though, he did a book called The 8th Wonder<\/em> for Dark Horse and when I ran across this going through my old comics, I remembered really liking it.\u00c2\u00a0 The story was originally serialized, I think, in Dark Horse Presents<\/em> starting in maybe ’94 and then, once the series was complete, it was issued as a 24-page one-shot.<\/p>\n

\"8th_wonder.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If The 8th Wonder<\/em> had come out a few years later, it would certainly have been labeled “steampunk.”\u00c2\u00a0 In ’94, though, just four years after The Difference Engine<\/em> came out, this wasn’t a term known to most folks other than SF enthusiasts.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe I’m way off-base here, but I can’t think of an earlier example in comics of something that one could accurately call steampunk before 8th Wonder<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 The hyper-detailed but largely unreadable comics series Steampunk<\/em> would appear a few years later in 2000 and of course The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen<\/em> thereafter.<\/p>\n

What neither of the above books, though, had was a visual style that really matched the feel of the story, and that’s part of what makes 8th Wonder<\/em> such a good read. \u00c2\u00a0 This early incarnation of Plunkett, done just in black and white, shows a lighter, more fragile line, with spotted blacks applied mainly as color\/design choice rather than as shading–both of which, when combined with some well-placed stippling, yield a very European “clear line” look that gives the book just the right combination of fragility and grit.<\/p>\n

\"8th_wonder_spread.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Second in a series.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s topic is short and sweet: What the Hell Happened to Kilian Plunkett? OK, so here’s the short answer: he went on to draw a bunch of Star Wars comics and character designs for animation. But, before that he illustrated the Aliens: Labyrinth series, written by Jim Woodring.\u00c2\u00a0 (Yeah, you read … <\/p>\n

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