Welcome to Day 16 of this year’s Jack Kirby Tribute Month. The prompt for today is Karnilla, the Norn Queen.
While I’ve drawn other characters from Jack’s Journey into Mystery/Thor run for previous Jack Kirby Tribute Months, this is the first time I had a prompt to draw Karnilla. She plays an interesting role in Jack and Stan’s JiM/Thor run. She’s a witch-queen, basically, and in the villain camp (she often would help Loki with his plots). But at the same time, she loved the noble Balder the Brave, Thor’s best friend, who would never betray Thor or the gods of Asgard.
Initially, Jack kept Karnilla’s design pretty simple. Lots of dark blues. But later in his Thor run, he began to mix things up and give her different looks. Not quite as wide-ranging as the outfits Odin showed up in, but still interesting. So I combined a few ideas together for Karnilla’s look here. Plus I thought the little pet dragon would be a fun thing to include.
I hope you enjoyed my take on Karnilla. As always, feel free to swing by again tomorrow to see who comes up next.
The other thing you didn’t mention was the disagreement between Stan and Jack about how to portray Karnilla. Early in the run Jack drew her as an older woman but later on she’s younger. I remember a story John Buscema shared, where he told Stan let’s decide what Karnilla’s going to look like now, before I start drawing this book. It’s funny, because Gerry Conway didn’t really use her a lot when he wrote the book and the character went into limbo.
Lyle, you’ve hit on something I didn’t know about. I imagine Stan requesting Jack make her younger because he wanted to play the romantic angle with Balder (Stan was never one to pass up the romantic/soap opera angle when the opportunity presented itself). Which admittedly made for an interesting added dynamic.
I guess one of the things that happens over the course of a comic’s lifespan is that characters come and go. Later creators sometimes don’t know what to do with certain characters they inherited, so those characters kind of fade out, while new characters are introduced.
Great Dragon. I really like this choice of the day. Her costume contrasting the green of the dragon really catches my eye. Reminds me, I need to get going on the Dragon yard art as the northern summer dwindles. Aha, the malleable characters of Jack are fun. It gives him character. He definitely was not Norm al. Thanks Mark.
“Norm al.” Ooh!
It was fun taking a crack at drawing her, figuring out what kind of outfit to go with. And when I saw a pet dragon in one depiction, I knew I had to include it.
Usually, I probably would not have put a green dragon with a green background. But when I was experimenting with the BG color, I was surprised to find this worked so well.