Fantastic Four Panel Appreciation 3 3

[thehumantorch]

11 minutes ago, KirbyJack said:

It isn't easy to draw The Thing, and it isn't easy to capture subtle facial expressions.

Here's another reason Kirby is King. I cannot express how much I love this panel.

Hey Magno-Man, there's a horseshoe in your noggin.  

[piper]

Great thread!

[Ken Aldred]

On 19/06/2017 at 10:55 PM, Mackenzie999 said:

That woman looks worried. She probably should be.

 

 

Well, that explains a lot.  I always wondered why his designs and patents were so lucrative.

[VintageComics]

On 2017-06-19 at 5:42 PM, Mackenzie999 said:

I had heard GRR Martin (Game of Thrones) had published letters in FF as a kid. Here's one, just as whiny and pedantic as you'd expect:

 

I'd be more interested in reading the letter above it where they talk about the Vulgate! Do you have it?

[VintageComics]

On 2017-06-19 at 5:48 PM, Mackenzie999 said:

More sexism from the humbly-named Mr. Fantastic:

"Here honey, I couldn't be bothered to actually go out and buy you any, but I found these nearby. Do they get me out of the dog house?"

 

Kirby dots! Where was this?

[VintageComics]

On 2017-06-19 at 5:52 PM, Mackenzie999 said:

Jack's drawing style evolved over the years as we all know. This particular panel is the very first one in the book that feels like true mid-period Kirby in his prime. Nothing particularly awesome about this, but the characters just feel solid and weighty, that hand feels like a real Kirby hand. Maybe it's just the inking but it feels like he turned a corner here.

 

 

Heavier inking. Sinnott?

[KirbyJack]

Stone, I think.

Beautiful.

[Unca Ben]

7 hours ago, KirbyJack said:

Stone, I think.

Beautiful.

Yep. Stone.  FF 37, "Behold a Distant Star."  Great title and story.  The FF travel to the Skrull homeworld to avenge the death of Sue and Johnny's father.  Jack and Stan hitting on all cylinders near the beginning of their greatest period on "The world's greatest comic magazine."  (A period which started, for me, on or around issue 35)  

[Ken Aldred]

15 hours ago, KirbyJack said:

Stone, I think.

Beautiful.

+1 

One of Kirby's best inkers.  Their artwork on Thor / JIM is often quite superb.

[trmoore54]

On ‎6‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 7:27 PM, thehumantorch said:

Hey Magno-Man, there's a horseshoe in your noggin.  

Early Surfer prototype??

[KirbyJack]

16 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

 Jack and Stan hitting on all cylinders near the beginning of their greatest period on "The world's greatest comic magazine."  (A period which started, for me, on or around issue 35)  

People often like to say the "best" issues of FF start around #44. I'm guilty of this, too.

I have not given issues 35-43 their due. Some spectacular work in there; the Stone inked books are great, but even those by Colletta are blockbusters. The Thing/Doom battle in #40 is under appreciated. 

[Unca Ben]

1 hour ago, KirbyJack said:

People often like to say the "best" issues of FF start around #44. I'm guilty of this, too.

I have not given issues 35-43 their due. Some spectacular work in there; the Stone inked books are great, but even those by Colletta are blockbusters. The Thing/Doom battle in #40 is under appreciated. 

Yep.  I think Dragon Man is a great character, first brought to life by Diablo in FF 35.  FF #35 started one long, continuous story that went on for dozens and dozens of issues.  

Before this there was an established continuity; but with FF 35, stories actually flowed from one issue to the next with events from one issue triggering the events in the next, or later, issues.
Dragon Man was introduced in ish 35 and was an important factor later on in issues 44 - 47 with the introduction of the Inhumans.
Reed proposes to Sue at the end of ish 35, and #36 begins with Reed & Sue announcing their engagement to the public.   Of course, ish 36 also introduces the Frightful Four.
Issue 37 has them avenging Franklin Storm's death, and at the end of the issue Sue & Reed have their wedding rehearsal.
FF 38 has the Frightful Four return and defeat the FF, resulting in the FF losing their powers.  Which leads into issues 39 & 40 with the fantastic Battle of the Baxter Building, with the powerless FF pitted against Doctor Doom.  Because Ben allows Reed to turn him back into the Thing in order to defeat Doom, this leads into the next 3 issues (41-43) with a disgruntled Ben joining the Frightful Four (with help from the Wizard).
Then the wedding of Sue and Reed in the FF annual - which leads right into FF 44, "What a Way to Spend a Honeymoon!" and the Inhumans storyline.
And of course FF #48, that many regard only as an introduction to the Silver Surfer & Galactus, actually devotes its first act to concluding the Inhumans storyline, which then sets up Johnny's continuing struggle to rescue Crystal from the Negative Barrier surrounding the Great Refuge (such as in FF 54).  

And so on.  Never before had continuity been so tight in an ongoing comic book series.  It started with FF #35.  

Edited June 25, 2017 by Unca Ben

[Aman619]

Lots of fun in this thread.  As for Kirby's artwork in general, using Marvels reprints to compare his early work is deceptive because many of not most of the early issues were retraced (from published comics) by the bullpen guys when published in the early annuals.  The artwork has a watered down look, badly drawn as you see in some of the first panels you selected. Much worse than the overal lack of detail  Ayers provided in the first dozen of so issues.

Also his inkers in the beginning did not translate Kirby's pencils as lavishly as SInnott and Stone did. So they don't become the established tight Kirby look until the 30s and 40s issues. The Kirby dots may have always been in the pencils, in varying forms of perfection but not inked the way Sinnott did them which solidified the tight Kirby look.

ive often meant to sit down and research which reprints match the original comics and which were redrawn.  As for why they did this, boils down to necessity -- can't find the art or the negs? Who cares, Trace it... has to be at Sparta next week.  At some point they got their act together and organized all the pages and film/negs.

[mackenzie999]

On 6/25/2017 at 0:04 PM, Aman619 said:

Lots of fun in this thread.  As for Kirby's artwork in general, using Marvels reprints to compare his early work is deceptive because many of not most of the early issues were retraced (from published comics) by the bullpen guys when published in the early annuals.  The artwork has a watered down look, badly drawn as you see in some of the first panels you selected. Much worse than the overal lack of detail  Ayers provided in the first dozen of so issues.

Also his inkers in the beginning did not translate Kirby's pencils as lavishly as SInnott and Stone did. So they don't become the established tight Kirby look until the 30s and 40s issues. The Kirby dots may have always been in the pencils, in varying forms of perfection but not inked the way Sinnott did them which solidified the tight Kirby look.

ive often meant to sit down and research which reprints match the original comics and which were redrawn.  As for why they did this, boils down to necessity -- can't find the art or the negs? Who cares, Trace it... has to be at Sparta next week.  At some point they got their act together and organized all the pages and film/negs.

Yeah the retracing is kind of off-putting. I'd have also preferred they use cheaper, or at least non-glossy, paper, make it feel more like a comic book.

[Unca Ben]

On 6/25/2017 at 9:04 AM, Aman619 said:

Lots of fun in this thread.  As for Kirby's artwork in general, using Marvels reprints to compare his early work is deceptive because many of not most of the early issues were retraced (from published comics) by the bullpen guys when published in the early annuals.  The artwork has a watered down look, badly drawn as you see in some of the first panels you selected. Much worse than the overal lack of detail  Ayers provided in the first dozen of so issues.

Also his inkers in the beginning did not translate Kirby's pencils as lavishly as SInnott and Stone did. So they don't become the established tight Kirby look until the 30s and 40s issues. The Kirby dots may have always been in the pencils, in varying forms of perfection but not inked the way Sinnott did them which solidified the tight Kirby look.

ive often meant to sit down and research which reprints match the original comics and which were redrawn.  As for why they did this, boils down to necessity -- can't find the art or the negs? Who cares, Trace it... has to be at Sparta next week.  At some point they got their act together and organized all the pages and film/negs.

This is the first I've heard of this.  Are you sure it was the early Marvel annuals that were redrawn?
I know of only a few instances, such as the redrawing of the Torch in reprinting the FF origin story in Annual #1, along with other minor touchups.  These edits were usually just that - touchups, not complete recreations.

I know Marvel Masterworks and Omnibuses contain extensive recreations and that one of the reasons given for this practice was that the original film to those stories was duplicated over and over again in the '60s '70s and '80s for various reprint comics.  This would imply the early reprints used the original art (or film) and not recreations.

Now , there's no doubt some of the early reprints in the Marvel annuals and reprint books such as Marvel Tales and Marvel Collectors Item Classics suffered from poor reproduction, but I can't imagine Stan or Martin having bullpen-ers spending time (& money) meticulously retracing those stories in the '60s and '70s when part of the appeal for the publisher was the low cost of reprint comics - already having the stories and art paid for.

I suspect you may be confusing the later Marvel Masterworks and Omnibuses with the early Marvel Annuals.   If not, please let me know - I'd really be interested in this information!  

Edited June 26, 2017 by Unca Ben

[Aman619]

you can "dupe" stats and film over and over again and there will be loss, but the lines themselves are the same .  Im talking about hand redrawing of the black lines to be recolored again for reprints.  And the problem that forced tracing by the bullpen was missing and/or misplaced artwork pages and stats under deadline.  Check out the early Marvel Tales and compare with first printings.

 

[Aman619]

Ok. I became more ineterested to do some followup research on my statement about early redrawn marvels s for reprints.  I have seen many examples of badly redrawn pages, however I cannot honestly say where they were taken from.  Many were internet images without saying where they were taken from.  Ive tried to find them, and see that many online images were just overly cleaned up scans for clarity , losing details in order to remove the "dated" 60s printing dot look, but clearly taken from the printed comics.

i also looked thru all the pages of the first six Marvel Collectors Item Classics this week.  And all the pages appear to be originals. I haven't looked at more recent issues because if they had the earliest issues artwork or stats to work from, chances are later ones weren't missing either. Nor have I dug out early Marvel Tales issues or the individual titles Annuals

So, sorry for my misleading statement earlier.  I know Ive seen bad re tracings, just thought they were in the earliest annuals. they have been used a lot, But I honestly can't say for sure where.  I think I'll try the Masterworks next. Computers were around by then and I recall techniques like Theakstonizing etc, which were considered better methods to use than the early stat and film days. But since these involved starting with colored pages, digitally stripping away the colors tends to mess up the black lines. At that point they'd have to either leave a messy line, or clean it up causing a badly hand drawn or digital vector line instead.

 

unca Ben, I didn't quote your post before typing, but you covered it well. I agree with all of it.  

[mackenzie999]

Letter from Dave Cockrum! There was another one a few issues later

[mackenzie999]

Guess Mr. Fantastic isn't the only one a little full of himself...

[mackenzie999]

Hahaha I love that the way to punish Triton is to pump sewage into his fishbowl