HA February Auction 6 6

[I am not Glenda]

4 hours ago, Brian Peck said:

Agree anyone would be rusty. One of his last things he did in comics before working in commercial advertising art was Indian Chief run. Those pages were amazing not just pencils but his inks were great. Many don't care for John inking himself, I love his inks but do agree there are better inkers over him like George Klein and his brother Sal. But with John he was primarily a penciler. He did maybe one or two issues a year where he inked himself. He did have a run on Conan The Barbarian where he penciled and inked a number of covers. But that is still a very small amount of work as an inker.
John loved to draw but was not a big fan of drawing Super-Heroes, he looked as it more of a job than some other artists. But for someone who loved to say he hates comics he can draw so much better than many who love to draw comics. He didn't ink his work as much because it wasn't used to doing it and he felt it slowed him down and in trun wasn't making as much money as he did when he penciled. I wish he did ink more because I feel he would have gotten much better at it over time. Here are two examples of his Indian Chief work from 1958. I for one love the inks!

 

 

 

1958 wow! some stunning work!

[delekkerste]

1 minute ago, Frank Mozz said:

1958 wow! some stunning work!

Jeez, how high is the contrast cranked up on these scans...his later inking looks NOTHING like this!!!

[Brian Peck]

1 hour ago, Frank Mozz said:

Absolutely not true many artist musicians poets have a peak in their career where they are hitting on all cylinders and in my opinion JB had a pretty long run of high quality output from the late 1960s well in the early 1980s as his Conan stuff still stands the test of time. Does anyone here think Kirby, Ditko, Adam,s Cockrum didn't have a peak???

The peak I think is also in combination with the writers like Roy Thomas and Stan Lee. They were were hitting all cylynders wting some calssic stories with Silver Surfer and Avengers.

[Brian Peck]

2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Jeez, how high is the contrast cranked up on these scans...his later inking looks NOTHING like this!!!

Here are new scans of the pages.

 

[romitaman]

13 hours ago, Bronty said:

That's an interesting point and an anecdote I hadn't heard and I'm willing to listen to that POV, but I googled JB 1966 and this is the first piece of OA I found.   I'm not dazzled.

hey i own this one...LOL

I believe this is John's very first piece of penciled art for Marvel.

This and a strange tales story i believe came out the same month as his first Marvel credits.  (this splash is inked by John Tartaglione so lets cut him some slack) LOL

I will say, Johns first 8 issues of Sub-Mariner are masterpieces.... as well as his Avengers run in the late 60s early 70s,

his sinnott inked FF run is stunning as well, and his early thor run not inked by colletta is some great stuff to look at.

same with johns EARLY Conan art in the 30s-50s issue run.

I do agree with others that i never cared for johns inking on himself.

Edited March 14, 2019 by romitaman

[I am not Glenda]

6 hours ago, romitaman said:

hey i own this one...LOL

I believe this is John's very first piece of penciled art for Marvel.

This and a strange tales story i believe came out the same month as his first Marvel credits.  (this splash is inked by John Tartaglione so lets cut him some slack) LOL

I will say, Johns first 8 issues of Sub-Mariner are masterpieces.... as well as his Avengers run in the late 60s early 70s,

his sinnott inked FF run is stunning as well, and his early thor run not inked by colletta is some great stuff to look at.

same with johns EARLY Conan art in the 30s-50s issue run.

I do agree with others that i never cared for johns inking on himself.

 Dead on with this post! Speaking of peaks.............. what years do you think Kirby was at his all-time best? 1964 up to the New Gods, maybe? Or the would you think his Golden age Stuff?

[zhamlau]

On 3/12/2019 at 8:45 AM, delekkerste said:

Hulk #181 crashed hard (9.8s went from like $25K to somewhere in the $6-9K range at their nadir, IIRC), but, are now setting record prices in all grades again. A 9.8 recently sold for $59K and change, which blasted past another recently set record in the mid-$40Ks.   

I'd say that nearly $60K for a Hulk #181 9.8 is the stupidest thing I've seen in the comic/OA hobby in 2019, except that a Werewolf by Night #32 9.8 just sold for $50K the other week.   

 

To be fair, WWBN 32 had a MUCH shorter print run and is very dark cover with lots of runs of Jet black along the spine by the staples (well bottom anyway if memory serves). That book is very hard to get in 9.8, and i believe had a MUCH smaller print run then a relatively popular Hulk book. There are only 18 total 9.8s (and no 9.9's) of WWBN32 as opposed to well over 100 Hulk 181's in 9.8 (with 9.9 out there too). Highest grade on a somewhat major character from a very difficult book to find that is highly condition sensitive. I get the WWBN 32 if just based on its scarcity.

[zhamlau]

On 3/13/2019 at 10:40 AM, Bronty said:

That's an interesting point and an anecdote I hadn't heard and I'm willing to listen to that POV, but I googled JB 1966 and this is the first piece of OA I found.   I'm not dazzled.

I keep thinking of Wayne Boring superman art when i look at his upper body. This is a rough one for sure.

[glendgold]

My favorite John Buscema story is Marvel Spotlight 30, the Warriors Three issue.  Totally classic in execution, drama and humor.  Also: never seen a page to that issue, but I recall the cover showing up, all stained and in terrible shape, waaaaaay back in the '90s.  

[stinkininkin]

A "later" John Buscema book that doesn't get much run is his Tarzan work.  The first two issues I remember as superb, and in the Joe Kubert vein of rough but gorgeous Buscema inks.  Some of the later issues that Klaus Janson inked art pretty sweet too.  These are probably in a lot of dollar discount bins, and worth checking out.

[stinkininkin]

2 hours ago, zhamlau said:

I keep thinking of Wayne Boring superman art when i look at his upper body. This is a rough one for sure.

That Wayne Boring reference is a good call!    Tartaglione inks or not, not one of JB's finest hours.

[Rick2you2]

3 hours ago, stinkininkin said:

That Wayne Boring reference is a good call!    Tartaglione inks or not, not one of JB's finest hours.

If this Hulk stood up straight, he'd have a little pot belly.

[aokartman]

Hulk has many iterations.  Here is a nice Hannigan Giacoia cover for your perusal.  David

Edited March 14, 2019 by aokartman
update

[Unca Ben]

I'm in the love Big John camp.  Top 5 artist?  No. In my top 10? Likely, or very close.
As Mike said, the Hulk page was John's earliest work for silver age Marvel, tied with his Nick Fury story. 

His super-hero anatomy got better fairly quickly, once Stan showed John what was expected:

as for electric, I always thought this cover was pretty darn charged with energy:

I would give my eye-teeth to own this cover (or any of the art shown in this thread):

[I am not Glenda]

On 3/13/2019 at 10:29 PM, Bill C said:

reading comprehension should be improved before going the drama queen route (imo)

No doubt my reading comprehension surely need to be improved, however, anyone writing a paragraph about the physics of how a comic cover should work is surely the true drama queen among us. 

[Carlo M]

8 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

I'm in the love Big John camp.  Top 5 artist?  No. In my top 10? Likely, or very close.
As Mike said, the Hulk page was John's earliest work for silver age Marvel, tied with his Nick Fury story. 

His super-hero anatomy got better fairly quickly, once Stan showed John what was expected:

as for electric, I always thought this cover was pretty darn charged with energy:

I would give my eye-teeth to own this cover (or any of the art shown in this thread):

These three covers speak for themselves, really.  Now whether this is top 5 or top 10....the problem is that it makes no sense to be overly restrictive.  In my opinion - and I am really talking only about super hero comic art - once you go beyond Kirby and Ditko, you might as well talk about the next layer being 10-15 artists (Wood, Steranko, NAdams, JBuscema, GKane, BWS, Byrne, Miller, Perez, JStarlin, Jim Lee, McFarlane, Sienkiewicz...). I would find it very hard to leave any single one of these names out of a roster of important artists for the medium, clearly each of them for specific reasons.   In fact, I would even include Sal Buscema in there....And then you have those artists whose impact was totally disproportionate to the body of their work (say Golden, Art Adams, Giffen, PSmith, FBrunner).

[Bronty]

Nitpicking but if you are talking strictly super hero art as you say, there’s surely no reason to include Wood

[Rick2you2]

Just now, Bronty said:

Nitpicking but if you are talking strictly super hero art as you say, there’s surely no reason to include Wood

How about Toth?

[Bronty]

What do you think?   I love Toth but ..

[rsonenthal]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

Nitpicking but if you are talking strictly super hero art as you say, there’s surely no reason to include Wood

Doesn't he get credit for Daredevil?