Lieber, Sal, Rawhide Kid, paste-ups, and other arcane matters

[InfoBroker]

It[Rawhide Kid] beats Silver Surfer #4 by a couple of months (although I don't know which was actually drawn first).

Interesting. In the early to mid 60s Stan used the Westerns (and sometimes Millie) as testing ground for new talent. See if they could handle deadlines. Roy Thomas, Denny O' Neil, and both Friedrichs start there. It was about the last space left with short stories, except for Tales of Asgard, and that one wasn't going to be drawn by any newbies in that timeframe.

By 1969, I thought Stan was using other comics (like Captain Marvel, even Shield) for new creative talent to be incubated. Rawhide Kid was the only western remaining and Larry Leiber had that bi-monthly locked down. Clever of Stan to "test" Sal's inking prowess there.

Thanks for adding to my info to broker Kimosabe. I'll try rustling up some silver bullets for you and Tonto to shoot at people, or leave as calling cards, or to use for other forms of questionable economic sanity.

-jb the (I originally thought your reference to "RK" meant Robert Kanigher) ib -

[Red Oak Kid]

It says the Sal inking of Larry Leiber was from Nick Caputo. I was just wondering if he has access to Marvel records or has he spoken to Sal and Larry or is it just an educated guess on his part?

I couldn't ID Sal's inks if my life depended on it.

[InfoBroker]

RATS! My Rawhide Kid comics stop at 65.

Wait! I could actually get to my Marvel western comics. I should be cheering!

One thing favoring it NOT being Larry inking Larry...
...he didn't do much inking.

Herb Trimpe, John Tartaglione and Vince Colletta were tag teaming Larry and Dick Ayers' interior pencils for the dozen or so issues prior to this. Hey Kimo, does Sal get printed credits for the interior work?

I'm wondering why he(Caputo) doesn't give this cover to Syd Shores (like he does the 67). Sal used a lot of pen in his early ink work, and he didn't feather things. Course I'm also wondering why he pulled Syd Shores name out of the hat.

Me, I'm thinking this cover and 67 could be Tartaglione or Colletta and I'm leaning towards Vince here on 68. Especially looking at the hands and cape and comparing those similarities to some of Vince's credited inking on other RK comics close by.

One thing I am pretty confident about, that is NOT Vince Colletta's inking on the cover to 66. I'll bet one of my red sable #6s that is Tartaglione's brushwork.

-jb the ( my copies of ish 66 and 67 must be roaming in another box still to be unpacked, because I definitely had those ) ib -

[Red Oak Kid]

Me, I'm thinking this cover and 67 could be Tartaglione or Colletta and I'm leaning towards Vince here on 68. Especially looking at the hands and cape and comparing those similarities to some of Vince's credited inking on other RK comics close by.

-jb the ( my copies of ish 66 and 67 must be roaming in another box still to be unpacked, because I definitely had those ) ib -

On RK 68, I see the Colletta effect on the cape, but looking at the muscles on the horse's legs, that inking looks like Buscema. It does remind me of the Silver Surfer inking. If Colletta had inked that horse it would look like the horse was made of wood.

The Colletta look of the caped figure may be Lieber's pencils trying for that Kirby look he always went for.

[Lone Ranger]

It says the Sal inking of Larry Leiber was from Nick Caputo. I was just wondering if he has access to Marvel records or has he spoken to Sal and Larry or is it just an educated guess on his part?

I couldn't ID Sal's inks if my life depended on it.

Here's the reply to the email I sent more than a year before the date they credit to Nick Caputo.

Sal is credited on the title page -so it didn't take much detective work on my part.



From: tonyrose1@comcast.net Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book
To: "Scott Mahaffy" <scott_mahaffy@yahoo.ca>, gcd-errors@lists.comics.org
Subject: Re: GCD Error Report - Rawhide Kid #68 inker
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 17:01:56 +0000
Thanks for the kind words, Scott. Correction has been made and we look forward to more contributions from you.




Tony Rose, Error Squad and Board of Directors


-------------- Original message --------------
Hello

Big fan of the site - have contributed covers, hope to contribute more.

I just wanted to point out that the inker on the lead story "When Stalks the Cougar" is Sal Buscema, not John Buscema.

Re-read the book yesterday, and Sal's name is in the credits on the title page.

Thanks very much
Scott

[Lone Ranger]

On RK 68, I see the Colletta effect on the cape, but looking at the muscles on the horse's legs, that inking looks like Buscema. It does remind me of the Silver Surfer inking. If Colletta had inked that horse it would look like the horse was made of wood.

The Colletta look of the caped figure may be Lieber's pencils trying for that Kirby look he always went for.

I should noted that I narrowly lost an auction for the original art to that cover.

I eventually got the cover art to RK #90, so the story has a happy ending.

[InfoBroker]

but looking at the muscles on the horse's legs, that inking looks like Buscema

Yea, could indeed be. In fact, Sal may have done what inkers are suppose to do, and clean up what might have been an awkward pose by Larry. Those horse muscles definitely "bicep" in a patented Buscema brothers kinda way.

Given how much covers got doctored at Marvel - many mischievous hands could be at play here, some real and (given the quality of the scan) some imagined.

-jb the ("Scan me up Scotty") ib -

[Lone Ranger]

Yea, could indeed be. In fact, Sal may have done what inkers are suppose to do, and clean up what might have been an awkward pose by Larry. Those horse muscles definitely "bicep" in a patented Buscema brothers kinda way.

Given how much covers got doctored at Marvel - many mischievous hands could be at play here, some real and (given the quality of the scan) some imagined.

-jb the ("Scan me up Scotty") ib -

Here's the original art:

From what I could tell from an even larger image is that the only things changed (on top of whiteout) are the Cougar's hands and perhaps the position of the Kid's right foot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/scottandkat/smRK68.jpg

[Red Oak Kid]

Without colors to obscure the inked lines, the horse on the original art looks even more like the work of Buscema, especially the head.

But I see no evidence of Buscema in the figure in the tree.

Thanks for the original art scan.

[InfoBroker]

WOW what a difference that makes. Thanks Kimo.

OK, scratch Colletta, I see early Sal inking everywhere in that cover. The rocks, the tree, the horsie, and the leaves.

Based on the the highlighting on the gun and holster, and that I see a lot more pen strokes here than I could see in the cover scan, especially as the shading fades on the cape, along with a few other pieces and parts. I think Sal is there too.

But I'll stand to my claims about issue 66's cover being inked by JT not VC. And here's another thanks for the nice scan LR, I'm right clicking on it now...

-jb the (eating a bit of inked crow) ib -

[T GUy]

ROK re Rawhide Kid 68 cover: Without colors to obscure the inked lines, the horse on the original art looks even more like the work of Buscema

Roger that.

Infobroker:
OK, scratch Colletta, I see early Sal inking everywhere in that cover. The rocks, the tree, the horsie, and the leaves.

Don't the hands of the guy in the tree look like Colletta to you? And the inking on his leg next to the holster?

On the other hand, there's not enough there that looks enough like Colletta for me to state categorically that he had anything to do with it.

[Lone Ranger]

But I'll stand to my claims about issue 66's cover being inked by JT not VC. And here's another thanks for the nice scan LR, I'm right clicking on it now...


You are most welcome JB - it just took a bit of web-fu.

Here's the art to #66 - I just love this cover. It's obvious that quite a bit of the Kid was redrawn.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/scottandkat/RK66-sm.jpg

[MWGallaher]

Don't the hands of the guy in the tree look like Colletta to you? And the inking on his leg next to the holster?

On the other hand, there's not enough there that looks enough like Colletta for me to state categorically that he had anything to do with it.
Did I miss something? Isn't it obvious from that scan of the original that the entire section of art behind the logo is a pasteover? You can see the lines quite clearly above the logo and cutting across both of "the Cougar" 's hands. It looks quite obvious to me that Vince whipped up art to go on the top section of the cover, touched up the boundaries (accounting for the portions of the hand not in the paste-over section also showing evidence of Colletta) and then the logo was pasted on over all that.

[Lone Ranger]

This top portion of the cover is all sorts of craziness, but I am not sure how much simply has to do with the logo and the pasteovers used for the redrawn hands.

At first I thought that maybe they used pasteover to simply repeat the foiliage rather than draw all of it, but I am not so sure - there are a few layers here and I have a hard time seeing what's on top of what without have the actual art.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/scottandkat/RK68-l.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/scottandkat/RK68-r.jpg

[Lone Ranger]

Sir Tim - maybe it's time to move copy and paste the Lieber-centric part of this discussion into a separate thread.

We have drifted badly here.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Sir Tim - maybe it's time to move copy and paste the Lieber-centric part of this discussion into a separate thread.

We have drifted badly here.

Done. I hope no one minds the title of the new thread. :)

[Lone Ranger]

OK

Since we've got our own little weird thread here, I'll add the original art to #67, which JB mentioned earlier.

It really does help to see the original black and white, as quite a bit does get lost in the colouring (#66 is a prime example).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/scottandkat/RK67.jpg

The GCD says it's Syd Shores - and I can see that is some parts (the 'heavy' look to the back of the two gunmen) - but not at all in the rest of the cover. I'd lean towards Tartaglione, actually.

I've got quite a few RK interior pages inked by JT and I noticed some similarities (although JT could go quite feathery at time, too.

Hmm... this is all very confusing - I used to think I was good at this stuff.

[InfoBroker]

Did I miss something? Isn't it obvious from that scan of the original that the entire section of art behind the logo is a pasteover? You can see the lines quite clearly above the logo and cutting across both of "the Cougar" 's hands. It looks quite obvious to me that Vince whipped up art to go on the top section of the cover, touched up the boundaries (accounting for the portions of the hand not in the paste-over section also showing evidence of Colletta) and then the logo was pasted on over all that.

Concur that there is a lot of pasting going on. Luckily,Paste-Pot Pete is a Marvel Trademark property. I'm thinking it was mainly a matter of the "KID" part of the logo was over on the left when the cover was drawn and inked (and it was paste-up already at that point), later for balance they decided to move it to the right. Enter the production department and devious hands to clean and correct.

Could have been almost anyone doing the touch ups and mechanical fixes to get it camera-ready.

-jb the (rubber cemented and whited out) ib -

[InfoBroker]

The GCD says it's Syd Shores - and I can see that is some parts (the 'heavy' look to the back of the two gunmen) - but not at all in the rest of the cover. I'd lean towards Tartaglione, actually.

I've got quite a few RK interior pages inked by JT and I noticed some similarities (although JT could go quite feathery at time, too.

Got any of with horses? Cause the horse on the cover looks more Syd Shores to me in this B&W form,as well as the foreground figures that you mention. Of course that might not be fair to compare too much, as a lot more effort would have gone into the covers.

And the figure of the Kid on the cover of #66 looks like Herb Trimpe, less like JT, especially in the face.

-jb the (yea I thought I was pretty good at this too - now I'm all wishy and washy) ib -

[Red Oak Kid]

I think the gloves are misleading people to think Colletta inked this. After looking at the enlargements, I don't think these are common Colletta fleck marks. I think they are indicating the gloves are furry. The rest of his costume might have a similar look. Those marks appear to be made with a brush and I think Colletta's flecks are made with a pen.

I also don't see much evidence of Colletta on the RK 66 cover either. It looks like it is mainly smooth brushwork which I don't associate with Colletta.


I was posting the above when the rug was pulled out from under me.

RK 67 looks like pure Syd Shores to me. I remember his run on Red Wolf quite well.

[Lone Ranger]

Here the one I really wanted to post.

This is the cover I own - I'd appreciate input on inkers. Who done it?

This whole conversation has left me a wee bit confused.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/scottandkat/RK90.jpg

[InfoBroker]

My initial and most likely choices would be Herb Trimpe and/or Larry Lieber.

That's based mainly on what I see happening with with the line quality on the main characters.

- jb the ("who are those guys") ib-

[Cei-U!]

I dunno. The linework on the horses say Tartaglione to me but the background detailing reminds me of Trimpe. Maybe it's Lieber solo, I've only seen one previous full art job by Larry so I can't say. Then again, maybe it's a jam.

Cei-U!
I summon the useless input!

[Red Oak Kid]

I'm not familiar with Lieber's inking style, but no other obvious inking style jumps out at me from the art so I'll go with Lieber as the inker. Lieber pretty much had this title to himself during this period so he probably did it all.