What Makes a Great Ink Job? 0

[Rick2you2]

For those of you who like to generally think about OA, and have a little time on your hands...

What makes an ink job great? We have all seen great looking inked pages, but if you separate the ink from the pencils, what exactly does the inker do to improve the piece? A pencilled piece is easy to figure out in the sense that the penciller works with a blank piece of paper. The inker, however, is part of a "sandwich" between the penciller and the colorist. He doesn't get to use shades, like a penciller, nor colors, like the colorist. But inkers do get the blame by some pencillers if they don't think their work was well inked. Supposedly, Mike Sekowsky used to complain about that regularly, but to be frank, his weird anatomical positioning of characters can only be his own fault. 

And about "greatness", I don't mean something generic, like the inker "pulls out the pencils". I mean specific things you have seen by specific artists which demonstrate greatness as an inker. How they do something different which sets them apart. If anyone has inked two copies of the same pencil page, that would be a terrific way to show the difference. But whatever your thoughts, have some fun with this.

 

 

[Twanj]

Isn’t there an Inkwell challenge where someone’s pencils are inked by a ton of inkers then it’s auctioned off for charity? I think there was a Jim Lee Superman a few years ago...

[Rick2you2]

32 minutes ago, Twanj said:

Isn’t there an Inkwell challenge where someone’s pencils are inked by a ton of inkers then it’s auctioned off for charity? I think there was a Jim Lee Superman a few years ago...

Don't know, but it sounds interesting if anything is posted.

[Twanj]

1 hour ago, Rick2you2 said:

Don't know, but it sounds interesting if anything is posted.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/03/14/the-inkwell-challenge-features-joe-sinnott-and-jim-lee/

 

Unfortunately, the images are small.

 

If you search "jim lee inkwell" on http://www.comicartfans.com/SearchResult.asp you'll find some too.

[Panelfan1]

There is also the art of inking book by steve rude - that has inking examples of the same art by many different artists. Some look like the pencils, some add details and some add line quality.

[BCarter27]

+1 on Gary Martin's book-

https://www.darkhorse.com/Books/10-709/The-Art-of-Comic-Book-Inking-2nd-Edition-TPB

[Rick2you2]

Since I know there are some inkers who pop up here, any of them care to comment?

[Spidey 62]

Here is the link to the Inkwell Awards caf page.  I find it interesting to see how the inker will sometimes overwhelm the pencils with their style. 

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=35444

[drdroom]

To address the topic: I think there are three categories of great ink job. Number 1, most often committed by the penciller, perfectly expresses the vibe of the pencils. That is, as close as possible, considering that, as Erik Larson once commented, "ink KILLS pencils." Examples of this category of great inks include John Buscema (and his master, Hal Foster), Neal Adams, Barry Smith, and R. Crumb inking themselves, and Mike Royer inking Kirby. Number 2 are inks that even transcend this standard, inks that outdo the nuance of the pencils, art that truly comes into it's glory as ink laid down on paper. Again, this will almost always be the same artist who did the pencils, but here the greater genius shows itself in the inks: Frazetta, Toth, Booth, Ketcham, Caniff, Godwin, Wrightson, Jeff Jones. Finally, the third kind of great ink job, IMHO, is the ink job that improves on the pencils, or adds another value to the pencils without losing anything they already had. So maybe Wood over Kirby, certainly Wood over Bob Brown. P. Craig Russell did some remarkable work over very minimal, late Ditko pencils.  I have an Infantino page with remarkable Nino inks. Wrightson over Adams or Kaluta is nearly as good, yet different, as those artists inking themselves.

[Rick2you2]

7 hours ago, drdroom said:

Finally, the third kind of great ink job, IMHO, is the ink job that improves on the pencils, or adds another value to the pencils without losing anything they already had.

How can an ink job not lose value from straight pencils? Inks are (with rare exceptions) black line or no line. They only vary by thickness and can be used for fill. Pencils have shades of grey. 

[GreatEscape]

2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

How can an ink job not lose value from straight pencils? Inks are (with rare exceptions) black line or no line. They only vary by thickness and can be used for fill. Pencils have shades of grey. 

Wrightson is a great example of these "rare exceptions" where his feathered inks span the entire black vs. white (no line) continuum.  So, an inker can reflect various lighting and textures (sky, stone, wood, metal, water and flesh) in a distinct manner even if all the "lines" are just one basic color (black).  To me, this adds so much to straight pencils as you can see from a random Swamp Thing page splash (not mine)....and Wrightson's Frankenstein plates take it up another level!

 

[drdroom]

Wrightson is a great example, but any pro inker can do the basics of tonal range. It's line thickness and hatching basically. To Rick2You2's point above, yeah, it's a translation not an exact reproduction.