Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! While it's widely known that Big John Buscema wasn't overly fond of drawing superheroes, ya sure can't tell it by lookin'! His superhero art on mags like Avengers, Fantastic Four, Thor, and Silver Surfer ranks in the highest of the high ranks of Best Comicbook Art. Ol' Groove could lay mountain 'pon mountain of such art on ya right here and now, but let's spread the wealth, shall we?
One of the motifs Big John would often make use of is the "floating head". This worked especially well on team mags when only one or two members were the cover focus. They also worked well on those "everything but the kitchen sink" comics that would delve into the hero's history or bring together a large supporting cast. Here's a stack of Big John's best "head's up" covers to overwork your orbs...
As always, thanx to the
Grand Comics Database for the far-out cover scans!
Great stuff, Groovy One, although being so used to the immaculate figure drawing in the later comic book work of John Buscema - the Thor cover, for instance - it always comes as a bit of a shock to see earlier work like the X-Men and first Avengers cover above, where the figures are still a bit awkward looking. People often talk about Barry Smith's development as an artist over his time spent drawing Conan, and I think the same could be said for John Buscema if you look at his work on The Avengers. Even between the two Avengers covers shown above, you can see a big improvement in the drawing of the figures.
ReplyDeleteIt's important to note, that everyone at Marvel had been told to emulate Kirby's dynamic poses. It was the house style. Over time however, I think most of the artist fell into their own comfort zone.
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