Was John Buscema His Own Best Inker? 1 1

[Brian Peck]

15 hours ago, aardvark88 said:

John Buscema's career was very long and each genre he drew had above average inkers:

1. Dan Adkins (Silver Surfer)

2. Todd Klein (Avengers)

3. Tom Palmer (inks a bit too heavy on Avengers for my taste)

4. Ernie Chan/Chua (Conan comic or mag)

5. Alfredo Alcala  or Rudy Nebres (Savage Sword of Conan)

You mean George Klein who inked him on Avengers

[Brian Peck]

I love John inking himself but I don't think he the best one inking his pencils. For me George Klein is John's best inker. I do love Palmer over John but he has a very strong style which can be over powering. I like his brother Sal over JB. When I did the book John Buscema Michelangelo of Comics, I was able to get scans of most everyone who has inked John, pretty much everyone who had inked for Marvel from the 60s to the 90s. A wide variety of styles some really close to John's pencils like Sal and others like Sienkiewicz. While I loved Ruby Nebres and Alfredo Alcala, their inks were very over powering , plus later in John's career he did layouts for inkers which had more of the inkers style in the finished product.

I feel Buscema could have been a great inker but he stopped inking himself when he returned to Marvel. That was somewhat due to his writers and editors like Stan and Roy having others ink him. Plus John looked at comic as a job and when he inked his [pencils it took him longer so he made less money. He would usually ink a few issues a year but not regularly. He did do Conan covers but I feel he didn't ink on a regular basis to really improve. When he was working for Dell on Indian Chief in 1951 he inked himself and looked great but I think he let his inking skills whither. Here is an example of his Del pencils and inks.

 

 

[lobrac]

[drdroom]

14 hours ago, lobrac said:

To me, that's basically an Alcala page. There's very little of John Buscema left. Here's an example of Buscema pencils. Direct and clean, not fussy, not baroque.

[Lucky Baru]

I enjoyed the work that Bill Sienkiewicz did on Wolverine with Buscema.  It is around 5 or 6 issues.

Edited March 3, 2018 by Lucky Baru

[All-Star Squadman]

While I'll agree with Palmer, Cockrum did ink him on a couple of Avengers issues that I think look amazing.  If you ever have an opportunity at one of those J Buscema/D Cockrum pages do not let it slip away!

Edited March 5, 2018 by 35CentEra

[zhamlau]

On 3/2/2018 at 11:55 AM, lobrac said:

I tried to bid on that page but all i did was help move that bid up. I still love this but wow that price seems nuts.

[lobrac]

21 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

I tried to bid on that page but all i did was help move that bid up. I still love this but wow that price seems nuts.

The price per Alcala line isn't bad. That's one way of looking at it. 

[MarvelComicsArt]

Expect this page to sell between 6-7k easily , the 4k is not a crazy price at all not even close . 

This is a splash from savage sword , they hardly ever come up for sale.

They had a bunch in the early 1980's at the supersnipe comics store .

This particular run that Buscema and Alcala did was highly sought after in the mid 1980's to early 1990's by the military personnel

whenever they would visit San Diego comic con. They came from a nearby base where they were stationed at and their main collecting 

choice for original art was always Conan. Most of these guys never sold anything after they purchased it. So its in a black hole collection.

Except for one (former military ) Conan collector who now resides in the florida area, he sells every 10 years or so a page or two.

This is a great example of both penciler and inker .I would have loved to have seen Alcala ink Kirby on Thor.

That was always my dream scenario !

 

 

   4 hours ago, zhamlau said:

The price per Alcala line isn't bad. That's one way of looking at it.  

•  

Edited March 5, 2018 by MarvelComicsArt
incorrect spelling

[Panelfan1]

so - I am not sure if this page was inked by Buscema - but I suspect it might have been as it all came in a package when I got it some 20 years back. I am not sure what its from and perhaps if anyone knows - you can let me know here. the writing on it says amazing spider-man annual. but not sure which one, if at all.

what makes this piece interesting to the discussion is the 3 stages of drawing Big John went through to create this.

1st is the loose layout page drawn on regular 11x17 paper.

2nd is a slightly tighter pencil piece on marvel board

finally the inked page.

as you can see - he made some changes to the shots -but the most striking thing for me is the fact that the earlier stages are far more lively. On the other hand -the inked page seems to have lost a lot of that energy and life that existed in the rough work.

 

[Brian Peck]

2 hours ago, Panelfan1 said:

so - I am not sure if this page was inked by Buscema - but I suspect it might have been as it all came in a package when I got it some 20 years back. I am not sure what its from and perhaps if anyone knows - you can let me know here. the writing on it says amazing spider-man annual. but not sure which one, if at all.

what makes this piece interesting to the discussion is the 3 stages of drawing Big John went through to create this.

1st is the loose layout page drawn on regular 11x17 paper.

2nd is a slightly tighter pencil piece on marvel board

finally the inked page.

as you can see - he made some changes to the shots -but the most striking thing for me is the fact that the earlier stages are far more lively. On the other hand -the inked page seems to have lost a lot of that energy and life that existed in the rough work.

 

Yup its inked by Big John

 

[Chaykin Stevens]

It's page 1 from the Amazing Spider-Man 1999 annual, pencilled and inked by Big John.

[Panelfan1]

13 hours ago, Chaykin Stevens said:

It's page 1 from the Amazing Spider-Man 1999 annual, pencilled and inked by Big John.

thank you.

[comicinkking.com]

Absolutely his own best inker.  That said, quality varies over the years.  But when he was on his game, he was his own best inker.  This is true of most artists IMO.

Edit: Added "proof"!  See attached image.

Edit #2: If the owner wants to sell this cover, contact me.

Regards,

Tony

Edited March 20, 2018 by comicinkking.com
added image

[comicinkking.com]

On 3/1/2018 at 6:47 PM, drdroom said:

Sorry to be late to a party I unwittingly started! I'm not the collector you're thinking of, I'm a medium-time collector, CAF gallery Aaron N. The obvious reason for a penciller to be their own best inker is that the penciller has the best understanding of their own artistic intent and can ink accurately OR continue to develop the work creatively as they ink. In the case of a mediocre artist maybe this doesn't matter, and in that case by all means get Wood or someone to ink it and make it better. But John Buscema was a truly talented penciller, and his own inks best reflect the way the pencils look. Look at his inks on the Conan sketch at bottom right  (I didn't search a long time for this example, I know I've seen better ones). Compare the inked arm to the un-inked arm: the inks have as much of the character of the pencils as ink CAN. Yes, the pencils are a bit light and the inks reflect that. I'll take accurate inks over the wispy pencils of the later stuff any day over  Alcala's gross over-inking.

A note on Kirby: he was absolutely his own best inker prior to about 1960. Then he stopped inking almost entirely, and never really took it up again, so we don't know for certain. Royer is my pick for his best post-1960 inker, and I also like the later Sinnott. 

I concur with everything you said, but I put Kirby inkers at Sinnott #1, Royer #2

[JBfan]

I'm a huge Buscema fan and I've followed his work for over 40 years. I didn't like his inking much when I was a kid. I loved Klein and Palmer. Later I loved Alcala because of the lush detail but it was as much Alcala as Buscema. Did not like DeZuniga. Loved Colletta on his Thor but not much else. I think he ruined just about everything else he touched except Kirby which had the structure to hold his hamfisted line - Kirby is hard to ruin its so solid and doesn't require delicacy. Don Heck, as someone else noted, also never enhanced another artist though I admired his early work. I still love all the guys I used to love but I appreciate Big John's early inking on Avengers which was my main point of reference. i seem to remember him inking some Thor's which were beautiful and I think his later inking on Conan is unmatched. Each of his best inkers has their virtues. when it gets to a certain level it's like trying to chose between any great masters in the history of art Michelangelo or Leonardo, Gaugin or Van Gogh.   

[grapeape]

On 3/1/2018 at 6:05 AM, delekkerste said:

DrDroom (IIRC, this is longtime collector w/initials A.S.) posited to me that John Buscema is "so obviously his own best inker" in another thread:

My question to the Boards is:  do you agree?  I know other longtime collector B.P. has been a leading proponent of this notion, but, I have never been on board with this.  Personally, I prefer Palmer over Buscema the most, but, also Sinnott, Giacoia, Sal B., Klein, Adkins, Alcala...well, I guess I'm just not a fan of JB's own inks.  To me, his line just did not have enough weight to it - it was often very loose and wispy and just not strong enough.  This is very evident in much of his '80s era Conan work, but, you can also see it in his '70s work as well, such as the Conan #94 (1978) cover that was at auction not long ago - that cover desperately needed stronger, bolder inks to really make the image pop.  

My take on it is that this idea that "pencillers are almost always their own best inkers" is largely a romantic notion that is often not grounded in reality.  I don't see what "obvious reasons" there are for this to be true.  Just because they may have a particular vision of what the art should look like, doesn't mean that they are the best one to execute all aspects of it.  Some inkers are just better at that job. 

As I said in the Neal Adams thread, it is true that the penciller is sometimes his own best inker (there are also many artists who were never/rarely inked by anyone else, so, by default, I guess you would lump them all in this category, even though we wouldn't really know if their work could be improved upon by someone else).  But, in many other cases, it is the case that this notion is not so.  Almost no one would argue that John Byrne was his own best inker.  Jim Lee, though a very good inker, was/is not his own best inker in the minds of most (that honor goes to Scott Williams, despite his protestations to the contrary).  Jack Kirby, not his own best inker.  Gil Kane, not his own best inker. 

Personally, I think one can admire other aspects of John Buscema's artistry (composition, storytelling ability, character design, etc.) without necessarily being a big fan of his inking. 

So, what sayest thou??

H E L L  N O

[grapeape]

On 7/29/2020 at 6:53 PM, JBfan said:

I'm a huge Buscema fan and I've followed his work for over 40 years. I didn't like his inking much when I was a kid. I loved Klein and Palmer. Later I loved Alcala because of the lush detail but it was as much Alcala as Buscema. Did not like DeZuniga. Loved Colletta on his Thor but not much else. I think he ruined just about everything else he touched except Kirby which had the structure to hold his hamfisted line - Kirby is hard to ruin its so solid and doesn't require delicacy. Don Heck, as someone else noted, also never enhanced another artist though I admired his early work. I still love all the guys I used to love but I appreciate Big John's early inking on Avengers which was my main point of reference. i seem to remember him inking some Thor's which were beautiful and I think his later inking on Conan is unmatched. Each of his best inkers has their virtues. when it gets to a certain level it's like trying to chose between any great masters in the history of art Michelangelo or Leonardo, Gaugin or Van Gogh.   

Alcala my favorite on Savage Sword although DeZuniga inked my favorite story Savage Sword 26-27. Joe Sinnott on JB Thor, Dan Adkins on JB Silver Surfer and Palmer on JB Avengers.

[vodou]

8 hours ago, grapeape said:

Alcala my favorite on Savage Sword

That's the correct way to put it, cuz there's really no Buscema in there anymore.

Some collector/dealers have been trying for ages to market this marriage as a match made in heaven (at large increased asks, naturally )

Naw, it's just "Alcala on SSOC". And UGH too IMO

[vodou]

9 hours ago, grapeape said:

and Palmer on JB Avengers.

Worthy comment of being broken out separately. Are you referring to "early" or "late" Palmer over JB on Avengers?

Because, if the latter...it's really just Palmer.

Anybody have uninked photocopies of what JB supplied to Palmer in the late 1980s for Avengers?

I bet it's the same chickenscratch (beautiful undercarriage though) as those endless other 1980s layouts we see floating around from John, usually Conan.