Today in Comics History, January 7: Happy birthday, Karl Kesel!

I'm here to wish Karl Kesel a very happy birthday, even though I can never get through on the line to Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! and I would really love the chance to have my answering machine message read...oh. I've made another one of my silly mistakes. That's Carl Kasell, the radio show host. Today's the birthday of Karl Kesel, the comic book writer and inker on such books as Superman, Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman, Superboy, and Superboy and the Ravers. Plus lots more! Boy! Is my face beet red. (I've just been eating beets.)

Karl was one of the earliest artists featured in Marvel Age's "New Talent Department" spotlight, and gets some constructive criticism in technique by veteran inker Joe Rubinstein:




from Marvel Age #9 (Marvel, December 1983)



"I'm sure he'll be inking for Marvel before you know it," says Rubinstein. Well...no! Because soon he was inking for DC! As far as I can tell his first work for them was in the aptly-named New Talent Showcase, which provided us with this short bio of KK:


from New Talent Showcase (1984 series) #5 (DC, May 1984)
And because I always try to balance out using an artist's "New Talent" artwork with later, more experienced work, here's a Karl inking scene I especially like from the much more recent (and a personal favorite of mine) Future Quest:



from "Mine-Crash!" in Future Quest #3 (DC/Hanna-Barbera, September 2016), script by Jeff Parker, pencils by Aaron Lopresti, inks by Karl Kesel, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Dave Lanphear
Karl's one of the co-founders of the short-lived but much-missed Gorilla Comics imprint from Image Comics, for which he co-created Section Zero:


from Section Zero (2000 series) #2 (Image/Gorilla, July 2000)
He's also co-created the recent, super-fun Impossible Jones! (highly recommended!):


from Impossible Jones! v.1 (Panic Button Press, November 2020)
Kesel was such a huge part of the Superman line of books in the 1990s that Clark 'n' Lois invited him to their wedding! I hope he didn't try to ink them.

from Superman: The Wedding Album one-shot (DC, December 1996), pencils by Dan Jurgens, inks by Jerry Ordway, colors by Glenn Whitmore, letters by Bill Oakley
Click top picture to honeymoon-size
Happy birthday, Karl Kesel!