The Eighth Day of Classic Comics Christmas 2011

[Cei-U!]

Sometimes a picture really is worth the proverbial thousand words:

#5. George Perez and Jerry Ordway

Cei-U!
I mean, c'mon!

[icctrombone]

Sometimes a picture really is worth the proverbial thousand words:

#5. George Perez and Jerry Ordway

Cei-U!
I mean, c'mon!

This team just missed my list. Ordway is a wonderful inker, but I always felt that Perez drew pages that looked cluttered. Ordway did a nice job of fixing that flaw. Although I did love Perez' work in the Jla/Avengers crossover.

[icctrombone]

#5 JACK KIRBY AND VINCE COLLETTA

Kirby was the master, and all action based artwork was built on his back. Colletta was much maligned but inking Thor over Kirbys pencils is what He was born to do. His softening style added to the Mythical feel of the Fantasy based Asgard and its inhabitants. Other inkers make Kirbys art more frenetic and out of control , but Colletta had a way of containing the action and, in a strange way, making it more explosive. His romance style made the Jane Foster subplot like a love story always drawing you back for more.

Here is the Love story-




And here is the Action-

[Scott Harris]

Note: I am restricting my selections to the greatest comic book ever produced by mankind -- The Avengers.

Coming in at number 5: John Buscema and Tom Palmer





Pretty much everything that needs to be said about these guys has already been said by the people who have listed this team previously, but for me, this is the Avengers. That's in large part, of course, to the fact that the cover shown above was my first issue of the book. But these guys really are the standard by which other Avengers teams are judged.

[shaxper]

In case you’ve missed it, since I've only just begun to appreciate art teams in the comic world, I've decided to limit my scope and stick to what I know. Therefore, my list will consist entirely of favorite Batman penciler/inker teams.

5. Alan Davis and Paul Neary

While most of the penciler/inker teams I’ve selected thus far were chosen for their rich usage of inks, what actually impressed me most about Paul Neary was how selectively he used his. Mike W. Barr’s greatest gift to the dynamic duo was the dual layers he gave to their characterization. They could be fun, flamboyant, and care-free on the surface, but there was rich darkness just beneath that surface, barely held in and aching for release. It’s for that reason that the Davis/Neary team was perfect for Barr’s early Detective run. Davis kept the visuals simple, light, and fun, (borderline cartoonish, really) and Neary would wreck it all with extreme menacing shadows at those rare moments when the inner darkness would break through (or threaten to), retracting back to a bright and simple world when order restored itself.

[Roquefort Raider]

Klaus Janson, according to a lenghty interview in The Daredevil Chronicles, had always wanted to draw DD. And he did so with great flair, either on his own or in partnership with several pencillers. He certainly was a major influence in setting the tone of the book for a decade, and I think his style was especially appropriate for the dynamic pencils and daring panel dispositions of Frank Miller.

Frank Miller and Klaus Janson used New York city as a gymnasium for DD to jump into. They used panel frames as elements of the decor, having DD jump out of them just as his calisthenics freed him from gravity and the two-dimensional grid of the town.



Although it doesn't count for our countdown to christmas, I think it's quite neat that Janson also colored his work and extended his ink working with the color one. Great results, there.

[Polar Bear]

From Strange Tales #168:





They also collaborated on Captain America #110-111:



From which we get this much-homaged image:



Steranko, for all his strengths (and he is one of my favorite pencilers), occasionally failed to pay enough attention to facial expressions, or made his muscle lines with not quite enough attention to anatomy. Sinnott clarified the emotions and defined the characters' musculature, bringing a cleanness of line to Steranko that allowed his strengths to shine through unimpeded. The definition of the lines reduced the visual distractions that Steranko's few weaknesses might have created.

In a way, their collaboration worked for the same reason that Bissette and Totleben's did, with Steranko's unusual layouts and the finished beauty of Sinnott's inks working together to create something new. I'm not an art student; I can't explain it well. All I know is that I like it. A lot.

[Kan-Man]

5. George Perez and Pablo Marcos

Once again I'm choosing a team already chosen by others and once again I won't be able to add anything profound or eloquent to the conversation. It was during his initial run on The Avengers where I first discovered George Perez. It's one of my favorite runs of the title (it might be my favorite, but my addled brain is having trouble separating the Perez issues from the Byrne issues). I especially enjoyed the depiction of both Wonder Man and the Beast (one of my favorite characters and for my money, nobody drew him better than Perez). In researching this choice, I noticed there are some inkers that did Perez no favors (Frank McLaughlin, for one) but Marcos seemed to be a nice compliment and the combination of the two produced some beautiful work.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

5.Irv Novick and Joe Giella

--Batman.



For me the biggest shake up in Batman wasn't the New Look--I arrived after the New Look had started, so this was how I thought Batman should look--and it wasn't the O'Neil/Adams/Giordano stories and definitely not Frank Miller's Dark Knight. No, the big shake up for me was when Frank Robbins took over as writer and the team of Irv Novick and Joe Giella became the regular art team on the Batman title (ousting Bob Kane and his ghosts).



Joe Giella, of course, had inked Infantino and the Kane ghosts (Moldoff, Stone) on previous issues of Detective and Batman, and he had even handled both pencils and inks on the Batman newspaper strips--but as far as Batman goes I think Giella's best pairing was with Novick. Next to Irv himself (who did full art on many of the covers back then), Joe was my favourite inker for Novick's pencils.



The first story from this team in Batman 204 and 205--the two part "Operation Blindfold"/"Blind as a Bat"--blew my mind. The art was inspired by Carmine Infantino's Batman, but with a new New Look. Gotham City had a slightly greater gritty realism, Commissioner Gordon had a new moustache (although in fact Gil Kane was the first to introduce this soup strainer). And layouts were bold and brave.

[dan bailey]

5. Gil Kane & Wally Wood, Teen Titans #19, House of Mystery #s 180 & 184, Captain Action #s 2, 3 & 5.

Yet another instance of Wally Wood's ability to mesh his unmistakable inks with an equally distinctive penciler's portrayals.

Most of these (barring only, I think, that first Captain Action) I was fortunate enough to buy straight off the spinner racks, & even though at age 8 or 9 I wouldn't have known Gil Kane or Wally Wood if they'd shown up at our front door for supper, I knew that their pages looked a lot niftier than most all the art in my comics.

[Paulie]

George Perez day here... Though my team is George Perez and Romeo Thanghal.

To respond to the Ordway and Marcos voters... I love these teams too... but I went with Thanghal because in New Teen Titans, X-Men copy that it was, DC finally got a series where the characters weren't cardboard cutouts and I think Thanghal really brought out something in Perez's pencils... perhaps it was emotional content, that lasted for 4+ years.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

It's kind of sad that Wally Wood--a great all around artist--spent so much of his time inking other people's work.

[Cei-U!]

It's kind of sad that Wally Wood--a great all around artist--spent so much of his time inking other people's work.

Remember, though, he used his inking fees to finance his own publishing projects like Witzend and The Wizard King.

Cei-U!
I summon the ulterior motive!

[MDG]

Remember, though, he used his inking fees to finance his own publishing projects like Witzend and The Wizard King.

I always got the feeling Al Williamson became a "utility inker" in the 80s-90s was to take it easy after the grind of a daily strip for years.

[MDG]

Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin

Usually I don't like overly-fussy, fine-line inking, but with Marshall Rogers, it's really the only way to go. And I immediately glommed on to Rogers in the late 70s as being one of the few artists--with Miller--who was really doing something interesting with the storytelling aspect of art. His panel compositions were unusual, but within a pretty traditional page layout and driven by the needs of the story.

In their Detective run, Austin did a great job fluctuating line weight and spotting solid blacks (more successfully here than in their collaboration a few years back). Also, I don't recall Austin using zip-a-tone as often or effectively anywhere else.

This is still probably my favorite superhero run.

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