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Creativity Quote by Gil Kane

"All of the penciling was consistently done by one person and the inking was whoever could finish on time"

About this Quote

A whole industry’s romance collapses into a production schedule in Gil Kane’s deadpan aside. The line is funny because it’s not trying to be. It treats comic-book craft - penciling, inking, the alchemy fans love to mythologize - as a blunt logistics problem: one steady hand for the core drawing, then a rotating cast of sprinters to hit the deadline. That casual “whoever could finish on time” is the punchline, and it lands like a confession.

Kane is pointing at the assembly-line reality of mid-century American comics, when publishers ran on speed, low margins, and a relentless appetite for pages. Penciling “consistently” signals authorship and continuity: the penciler is the controlling intelligence, keeping characters on-model and the storytelling coherent. Inking, often celebrated as the finishing touch that defines mood and texture, becomes contingent labor - not artistry chosen for style, but labor chosen for availability.

The subtext is about credit and power. Fans argue about who “really” made a book; Kane reminds you that the workplace often decided. When the inker changes issue to issue, the reader experiences it as aesthetic variation. The shop floor experiences it as triage. It’s also a quiet indictment of how comics historically treated inkers as interchangeable, even when their choices could reshape a penciler’s intent.

Kane’s phrasing refuses nostalgia. He’s not romanticizing a golden age; he’s documenting a system where time, not taste, was the final editor.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Kane, Gil. (n.d.). All of the penciling was consistently done by one person and the inking was whoever could finish on time. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-of-the-penciling-was-consistently-done-by-one-61539/

Chicago Style
Kane, Gil. "All of the penciling was consistently done by one person and the inking was whoever could finish on time." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-of-the-penciling-was-consistently-done-by-one-61539/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"All of the penciling was consistently done by one person and the inking was whoever could finish on time." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/all-of-the-penciling-was-consistently-done-by-one-61539/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.

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Penciling: Consistency, Inking: Timely - Insights from Gil Kane
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Gil Kane (April 6, 1926 - January 31, 2000) was a Artist from USA.

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