Our Favorite Penciller/Inker Teams: A Classic Comics Christmas 2011

[berk]

So did Tom Palmer ever ink Jack Kirby?

I'm picturing something between Kirby/Royer and Kirby/Shores.

[Rob Allen]

So did Tom Palmer ever ink Jack Kirby?

Not even on a cover, as far as I know. I thought it was fairly ironic that the top penciller and top inker never worked together. For that matter, I can't recall the #2s, John Buscema and Terry Austin, working together either.

True about Kirby & Palmer never working together, but Buscema & Austin did a few things. There was a period when Austin was assisting Dick Giordano, and the GCD records two issues of Thor and four of Conan in 1975 with Buscema layouts finished by Giordano on the figures and Austin on the backgrounds. Then in 1980 and 81 there were three Conan covers signed by Buscema & Austin. And in the second Superman/Spider-Man treasury, John pencilled and Terry is one of ten background inkers.

Here's the GCD Advanced Search link; it lists some things that don't actually qualify but you have to click thru to the details to find out:

http://www.comics.org/search/advance...s_indexed=None

[foxley]

Don't actually care much for Adams (shocking, I know) and my favorite John Buscema inker is John Buscema. Had it been a list of 20, though, Buscema/Klein would definitely make the cut.

Cei-U!
I summon the might-have-beens!

No accounting for taste, I suppose. Personally Jack Kirby's art does nothing for me and I cannot understand what other people see in it.

[CromagnonMan]

True about Kirby & Palmer never working together, but Buscema & Austin did a few things. There was a period when Austin was assisting Dick Giordano, and the GCD records two issues of Thor and four of Conan in 1975 with Buscema layouts finished by Giordano on the figures and Austin on the backgrounds. Then in 1980 and 81 there were three Conan covers signed by Buscema & Austin. And in the second Superman/Spider-Man treasury, John pencilled and Terry is one of ten background inkers.

Here's the GCD Advanced Search link; it lists some things that don't actually qualify but you have to click thru to the details to find out:

http://www.comics.org/search/advance...s_indexed=None

Buscema and Giordano did Savage Sword of Conan #25 "Jewels of Gwalhur" adaptation

edit: i dont think this is related to what you were discussing though, sorry

[Roquefort Raider]

Buscema and Giordano did Savage Sword of Conan #25 "Jewels of Gwalhur" adaptation

That was Giordano on his own, CromagnonMan. Pretty good job he did of it, too!

[Rob Allen]

3. Paul Pope & Claude St. Audin

Pretty sure Claude's last name is spelled "St. Aubin". His full first name is Jean-Claude, but he seems to just use Claude for most of his comics work.

[OldSchoolfan]

Nuts....another great topic has come and gone and i missed it.

[OldSchoolfan]

No accounting for taste, I suppose. Personally Jack Kirby's art does nothing for me and I cannot understand what other people see in it.

I wish there was something I could do to at least give you an inkling of what Jack Kirby's body of work has meant to me. I get that you don't like it and I respect your opinion....but do you realize his work covers the history of comics from its beginnings to the 90's?

There is just so much to see!

[Dave Ryan]

I love Kirby, and especially his 1970-1975 DC work (JIMMY OLSEN, FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS, THE DEMON, KAMANDI, OMAC, SANDMAN, FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL, DAYS OF THE MOB, SPIRIT WORLD, WEIRD MYSTERY 1-3, DARK MANSION 6, JUSTICE INC. 2-4, KOBRA 1, OUR FIGHTING FORCES 151-162)

But I understand that even among Kirby fans, this work is more loose and less detailed than his prior Marvel work of the 60's era.
I think the first few months of Mike Royer inks in 1972 were among some of the best inks on Kirby EVER ! (examples include NEW GODS 5, 6 and 7, Forever People 6-11, DEMON 1 and 2, KAMANDI 1 and 2, and MISTER MIRACLE 6,7 and 8. As well as the WEIRD MYSTERY 1-3 and DARK MANSION 6 that would have been SPIRIT WORLD # 2)

Most who don't like Kirby hate him for his later work. I'd turn them to his most detailed work on FANTASTIC FOUR and JOURNEY/THOR in the 1965-1966 period.

Lik you say, we all like what we like, and even a giant like Kirby is not everyone's cup of tea. Although I find it odd how many who love Marvel say they don't like Kirby, when Kirby is the guy who created virtually everything in the Marvel universe!

I actually have an odd fixation on early Marvel/pre-Marvel monster stories of the 1959-1962 period, and Dick Ayers (who inked most of these) has become one of my favorite Kirby inkers. It's great to see these stories in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, STRANGE TALES, TALES TO ASTONISH, TALES OF SUSPENSE and so forth, and see how Lee, Kirby, Ditko and the rest refined their talents into what came after, in FF and the rest of the Marvel universe.

[thetrellan]

Tom Palmer was far and away the most cited inker with a whopping 25 votes, but runners-up Terry Austin (18 votes) and the late Dick Giordano (15 votes) also made strong showings.

Palmer?? Really? One problem with that: years of working with Gene Colan ruined him for working with anyone other than Gene. I love the team, both their runs on Dracula and Dr. Strange are phenomenal, but after that, his work with both Sal and John Buscema was seriously lacking. Everything he touched after that was terrible, from his work with Carmine Infantino to that with Epting (though it didn't help that Infantino was past his prime and Epting hadn't hit his yet).

Marvel's best team of all time was John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. Kane and Romita came pretty close

People don't appreciate Sinnott like they should, probably because Shooter always matched him with weak pencillers hoping to save the artwork, but Sinnott and Romita Sr. were clearly the best inkers they had. The only problem there was that Sinnott worked with whoever he was told to, and Romita retired to art direction while still in his prime. Plus, the penciller he worked best with was himself, with the sole exception of Gil Kane. Although his work was always gold back then, no matter who was inking. I was blown away when I saw what his work with Gene Colan looked like.

Still others I have trouble believing are on this list: Ernie Chan was a master at over-inking; his only saving grace is that he managed to preserve the character of John Buscema's work, but he was far from the best. Vince Colletta's inks looked awful with almost every penciller but Jack Kirby, plus he had a habit of erasing pencils and substituting his own, which has to be a crime against art. I never saw work by Gene Day that I liked, though the fact that he and Zeck took over after Paul Gulacy on Master of Kung Fu had a lot to do with it. That's a tough act to follow. Mooney wasn't bad, but he wasn't great either. Janson used to do fantastic ink work, but that all flew out the window after he worked with Simonson and set his sights on being a penciller. Now both his pencils and his inks are weak.

John Totleben would get my vote for best penciller and inker, except he came along a lot later than almost everyone on the list and so he doesn't belong. If you include him you might as well include a host of others as well.

Finally, although Royer certainly belongs on the list, his style is more fitting for today's inker, since his greatest strength is his ability to ink just what is there without embellishment. At the time, a strong inker was one who added his own character to the work. Today it's one whose work you almost don't notice.

[thetrellan]

Most who don't like Kirby hate him for his later work. I'd turn them to his most detailed work on FANTASTIC FOUR and JOURNEY/THOR in the 1965-1966 period.

Actually, it's been my experience that most who hate Kirby just never bothered to get past it's grotesqueness. But that's what makes it great. It has a megalithic quality. Without him, the Marvel age would never have happened. I don't really know how to explain it, but even his later stuff is easy to like if you can imagine him doing the early work on just about any title. I did that one day with Atlas Comics, back when I was too young to realize that comics companies come and go rather than evolve into giants like Marvel and DC. I imagined the Destructor 100 issues down the road, with Kirby's work for the first 50 issues instead of Ditko (little did I know the entire company would only last 4 issues), and what I imagined was as solid a foundation as I could picture. That was when I began to like Kirby, though it would be years before I'd admit it.

Even my high school art instructor thought his work was primitive, that his cover wasn't as good as the interior work. In retrospect that's funny. The story was penciled by Rich Buckler, who was freely ripping Kirby off.

[thetrellan]

Poor Leifeld. It's not his fault that fans loved his stuff in the early 90's. He gets savaged unfairly I think.

Not really. The guy's been around a long time, but his style never really evolved into anything interesting. It astounds and confounds me that he could have inspired as many artists as he did, some of them much better.

There's nothing wrong with exaggerating anatomy. That never bothered me. I just never considered him to be particularly talented. The best artists reach a point where what they've been doing just suddenly works, and I haven't seen that in Liefeld.

[thetrellan]

You have a point there about Buscema, especially in his Conan years. Even so, my favorite work by him is his stuff with Sinnott, Fantastic Four #s 107-141, as well as on Thor around the same time. His work with Tony DeZuniga reminded me a lot of Colletta's work with Kirby, the only artist I really liked his inks on.

As for Neal Adams, I find I tend to like the work of his students more than his own. Remember when Sienkowicz looked good? How about Texiera? I see no reference to his teachers, but he clearly was heavily influenced by Adams.