Sal Buscema

[devildinosaur]

No offense, Steven, but Sal Buscema's been one of the most expressive artists in comics for a long, long time. He may not be revered like his brother, but he's revered by me! He's been consistently great since I was but a wee lad. Just thought I'd stick up for the man.

[Rod G]

No offense, Steven, but Sal Buscema's been one of the most expressive artists in comics for a long, long time. He may not be revered like his brother, but he's revered by me! He's been consistently great since I was but a wee lad. Just thought I'd stick up for the man.

Hear,hear!

[bh123]

I am a very big fan of Sal Buscema, as I explain here...

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryRoom.asp?GSub=14694

I'd certainly enjoy getting more original artwork by him in the future.

[devildinosaur]

I am a very big fan of Sal Buscema, as I explain here...

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryRoom.asp?GSub=14694

I'd certainly enjoy getting more original artwork by him in the future.

Cool link, Ben. Our Pal Sal WAS very under appreciated. He consistently turned out great work while working on multiple titles. I collect Spider-Girl just because of Sal's inking (although having Frenz on pencils isn't exactly half bad, either).

[Paul McEnery]

The first comics art I ever really noticed as art was Sal and John together on The Avengers. And after that, it was Sal I followed.

There are two sides to the work. One is the sharpness of the line. And in some ways that really is attached to the 70s as a feel, because it's so cool, like in Birth of the Cool -- classical, unemotive, zippy, and pop. You could be listening to the hard-edged space around Phil Spector's instrumentation with all that clarity.

But then there's Sal's content, which shines through when he's inked by Klaus Janson (whose style was the opposite, a fuzzy detail which emphasized emotional humanism, with a touch of existential bleakness). People are always arranged around the scene the way they actually would be -- as in, for instance, a courtroom; it's not just that the scene is right, it's that the angles he picks emphasize the power relationships in the room while foregrounding the actors in such a way that it's their relationship to power that matters, placing the reader right in the middle of the action, drawn into being those characters while at the same time kept at that cool objective distance. Neat trick.

And the characters are always dynamic, even if it's a small bit of business with a glass in the hands, or body language as two characters in the background are in conversation. Now that's something people forget to do on a regular basis, and again, a neat trick that brings you into the picture while keeping you at a distance, like a kid watching his parents interacting with their friends from the banisters -- a wide-angle shot he uses a lot, with quite the emotional kick for a young audience.

Sal doesn't get noticed the way flashier artists do, but I figure it's the same as with Kingsley Amis (compared to his son). There's no less craft involved in being simple -- rather more, actually; and it displaces the artistic movement away from the surface of mere style and into the actual substance of the work.

And it's a style that's a lot more influential than most people credit. When you think of Starlin, you first off notice the way he blends Kirby and Ditko. It's not so obvious that he's utilizing Sal's skills at mise-en-scene and body language. Not to mention getting different bodies expressing individuality as much as different faces. At a time when Marvel's characters (just to pick on them) all look and act interchangeably, I yearn for the old days.

And besides, if there's one comics image that's burned into my brain, it's the proto-Defenders story with Submariner, Silver Surfer and The Hulk, all floating on the board, with Hulk danging his feet like a little kid, IIRC. Small touch, but you've got the character in a nutshell right there. And it's a picture that makes me go back to comics in the hope of getting the same thrill that I got when I first saw it.

Cool but human, static but dynamic, direct but nuanced, distant but close.

Can't touch that.

[devildinosaur]

The first comics art I ever really noticed as art was Sal and John together on The Avengers. And after that, it was Sal I followed.

There are two sides to the work. One is the sharpness of the line. And in some ways that really is attached to the 70s as a feel, because it's so cool, like in Birth of the Cool -- classical, unemotive, zippy, and pop. You could be listening to the hard-edged space around Phil Spector's instrumentation with all that clarity.

But then there's Sal's content, which shines through when he's inked by Klaus Janson (whose style was the opposite, a fuzzy detail which emphasized emotional humanism, with a touch of existential bleakness). People are always arranged around the scene the way they actually would be -- as in, for instance, a courtroom; it's not just that the scene is right, it's that the angles he picks emphasize the power relationships in the room while foregrounding the actors in such a way that it's their relationship to power that matters, placing the reader right in the middle of the action, drawn into being those characters while at the same time kept at that cool objective distance. Neat trick.

And the characters are always dynamic, even if it's a small bit of business with a glass in the hands, or body language as two characters in the background are in conversation. Now that's something people forget to do on a regular basis, and again, a neat trick that brings you into the picture while keeping you at a distance, like a kid watching his parents interacting with their friends from the banisters -- a wide-angle shot he uses a lot, with quite the emotional kick for a young audience.

Sal doesn't get noticed the way flashier artists do, but I figure it's the same as with Kingsley Amis (compared to his son). There's no less craft involved in being simple -- rather more, actually; and it displaces the artistic movement away from the surface of mere style and into the actual substance of the work.

And it's a style that's a lot more influential than most people credit. When you think of Starlin, you first off notice the way he blends Kirby and Ditko. It's not so obvious that he's utilizing Sal's skills at mise-en-scene and body language. Not to mention getting different bodies expressing individuality as much as different faces. At a time when Marvel's characters (just to pick on them) all look and act interchangeably, I yearn for the old days.

And besides, if there's one comics image that's burned into my brain, it's the proto-Defenders story with Submariner, Silver Surfer and The Hulk, all floating on the board, with Hulk danging his feet like a little kid, IIRC. Small touch, but you've got the character in a nutshell right there. And it's a picture that makes me go back to comics in the hope of getting the same thrill that I got when I first saw it.

Cool but human, static but dynamic, direct but nuanced, distant but close.

Can't touch that.

I'm quite certain Sal would appreciate those comments. I also love the angular, sharpness of his line. For me, Sal's 8 year run on Spectacular Spider-Man made my late teen/early twenties a fun time.

[Zombie Uatu]

I don't post here often, but I felt I ought to respond to this column.

For me, the Sal Buscema \ Klaus Jansen art team literally defined the way Spider-man looked for me as a kid. The only other artist on the Spider-books in the early-mid 90's who I was a big fan of was Mark Bagley, and together these 2 represented the two 'looks' of Spidey, one crisp, clear and heroic, the other... well, I always remember thinking that the art literally 'looked like webs'. There are panels that stick out in my memory in a major way from Sal\Klaus, and yes, I really do believe he deserves more credit than he gets.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Many times over the years, mostly on CBR's Classic Comics forum, I've talked about my appreciation of Sal Buscema's work. Now, it's certainly true that not everything he ever did was great, but pretty much everything of his I've ever seen that wasn't at least good was pretty obviously drawn extremely quickly and probably under so ridiculous a deadline that nobody else would have even tried. People often forget that for a while there, Sal was sort of the go-to guy when some book was behind schedule and/or some other scheduled artist was unavailable.

People that don't Sal apparently don't get that his style is more that of a cartoonist than a classical illustrator, They also ignore his great skill at depicting emotion and expression, and the very kinetic nature of his drawing.

I won't claim that Sal is one of the greatest comics artists ever, but he is nonetheless very, very good.

[Steven Grant]

I won't claim that Sal is one of the greatest comics artists ever, but he is nonetheless very, very good.

I think that's what I said...

- Grant

[bh123]

Some of Sal Buscema's best storytelling ever was in Spectacular Spider-Man when J.M. DeMatteis was writing the book. Buscema had some incredibly dramatic layouts and stark detail that really brought forth the emotional intensity of DeMatteis' stories. IMHO, it was definitely a high-water mark in Buscema's career.

[devildinosaur]

People that don't Sal apparently don't get that his style is more that of a cartoonist than a classical illustrator, They also ignore his great skill at depicting emotion and expression, and the very kinetic nature of his drawing.

I won't claim that Sal is one of the greatest comics artists ever, but he is nonetheless very, very good.

Well said. Sal WAS more of a cartoonist than, say, Charles Vess is an illustrator. Moreover, he was able to perfectly capture facial emotion every time. But I do think his ability to produce such consistently eye-pleasing work over so many years under so many deadlines qualifies him as one of the great Marvel artists. Nice post, Jeffrey.

[Paul McEnery]

People that don't Sal apparently don't get that his style is more that of a cartoonist than a classical illustrator, They also ignore his great skill at depicting emotion and expression, and the very kinetic nature of his drawing.
.

I just went back to Essential Defenders 3 to show The Buggins what I was talking about. It's funny how much you don't think about what Sal does because his whole style was about getting out of the way of the storytelling. But when you're thinking about what he's doing, suddenly it all pops out of the book.

I mean, the freaking evil faun, for goodness' sake. Even there he catches the expressions perfectly. You know it's Jack Norris in Nighthawk's costume, because he holds himself differently. (Which does pose the question of how none of the characters manage to spot the various switcheroos in the plot, but lets gloss over that...)

Which in my eyes makes Sal one of the greats every bit as much as an Adams or a Steranko.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I think that's what I said...

- Grant

Yeah, I wasn't so much commenting specifically on your comments about Sal so much as I was just commenting on Sal being a lot better artist than many people credit him. I personally think he's among the more sadly underrated of the comics artists of his time, so I always take any opportunity to praise the virtues of Sal's work.

However, I do think Sal's work has more to it - and perhaps a bit more of that "it" quality - than you credit him with.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I just went back to Essential Defenders 3 to show The Buggins what I was talking about. It's funny how much you don't think about what Sal does because his whole style was about getting out of the way of the storytelling. But when you're thinking about what he's doing, suddenly it all pops out of the book.

I mean, the freaking evil faun, for goodness' sake. Even there he catches the expressions perfectly. You know it's Jack Norris in Nighthawk's costume, because he holds himself differently. (Which does pose the question of how none of the characters manage to spot the various switcheroos in the plot, but lets gloss over that...)

Sal is also great at capturing a character's essence while using minimal detail to do so. One of my favorite Sal comics, which I always get back to when discussing him, is an issue of HULK in which the Hulk is going to get Jarella's body back from the military base where it's being held, and he ends up fighting Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) due to a misunderstanding. I agree with you that Starlin appears to have cribbed some elements of his iconography from Sal (though I think it's probably more a case of both being influenced by Gil Kane), but in this instance Sal refers back to Starlin stylistically but without really drawing one's attention to it. The poses he picks for Mar-Vell convey the sort of dignity and grace with which Starlin drew the character while also remaining true to Sal's own very kinetic style. Similarly, when Marvel's cosmic awareness kicks in, he merges the way Starlin depicted that abilty seamlessly with his own style.

Another good example was in, of all places, the X-Men guest appearance in ROM. Though he doesn't ape Byrne's style, Sal nonetheless does a great job of capturing the facial expressions and a lot of the characteristic gestures/movements of Kitty Pryde, Wolverine and others in a manner consistent with Byrne's versions of those characters. This helps create the sense that this is more a "real" X-Men story, vs. just a marketing gimmick, because the characters have a feel entirely consistent with the way they were being depicted in their own book.

[Michael P]

I loved Sal's art on Spectacular Spider-Man until Bill Sienkiewicz started inking it.

Two talented men, but boy do those styles not mesh.