Hey, Kids! Comics from 50 Years Ago!
April 21 & 24, 1970
Groovy Age Splash Page of the Week
Groovy Age Spotlight On...
The Original Art of Our Pal Sal Buscema!
The Original Art of Our Pal Sal Buscema!
Ol' Groove just feels like looking at some random, awesome original Sal Buscema art pages today. How 'bout you?
Oh, before I go, let it be known that Groove-ophile David Miller has an extremely far-out new YouTube show called The Comics Prisoner! David will review and provide commentary about comics art and artists, and in return he's hoping that fans from all over will watch, comment, link, and subscribe to his blazing broadcast! Just follow this link to enjoy David's debut episode, and make sure to tell him Ol' Groove sent ya! The Comics Prisoner will captivate ya, baby! Pax!
I own Flash #198! Great cover & interior art by Gil Kane, & touching story by Bob Kanigher. Definitely written for younger readers, but enjoyable nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Chris A.
Unfortunately, Robert Kanigher always overwrote everything and at such a juvenile level. That's why he was a star at DC and not Marvel. He did one issue of Iron Man, I believe. But like Gardner Fox he just couldn't adapt to Marvel's way of telling a story. I understand he wasn't a very nice man to work for and actually gave Jack Kirby a hard time when he went to DC, disparaging everything he had done at Marvel.
DeleteI don't know about always. Some of Kanigher's war books were written on a different level than his superhero stuff. At DC, at least until the mid-to-late 70s, superheroes were kid stuff as far as DC was concerned and they seemed to insist on them being handled that way (with a few exceptions, I know).
DeleteIt must have been a bit rough to be the sibling in the shadow of a star comics creator. Stan Lee is known worldwide, but Larry Lieber- whom I met at the NYC comic con last fall - has a much more modest profile.
ReplyDeleteNestor Redondo is regarded as one of the greatest Filipino komiks artists, but his brothers Frank and Virgilio, though talented, possessed more modest gifts.
Sal Buscema was certainly ubiquitous at Marvel for decades, but his brother John was the one with a drawing ability that was staggering even when he was just churning out layouts.
Gene Poole
I always preferred Sal to John, because altough unquestionably John was the greater talent, Sal seemed to really care about the work he turned out. As opposed to John who just churned out the stuff. All the while saying he hated comics.
DeleteI'm with you, keythd23! While John's Conan can't be beat, Sal was my main man with Avengers, Cap, Defenders, MTU, MTIO, Hulk, Nova, Spectacular Spider-Man, and on and on. If Sal's name was in the credits, you knew you were in for some great action and storytelling!
DeleteI do wonder, though, if Sal ever said, "John, John, John!" in a Jan Brady-like voice 'cause it seems you can't say anything about him without his brother's name coming up, lol!
Some highlights in John's career were Silver Surfer #1-5 from 1968-69 & his romance & horror stories from 1969-70. A friend recommended John's Conan: Rogue from the '90s as his definitive work, but I haven't seen it.
DeleteRegards,
Chris A.
Don't want anyone to think I'm bashing Big John. No way! I love his work. Conan, as I said is one of the best things ever, and many of his issues of Avengers, Thor, and FF are beyond amazing. My point here is that the post was about SAL. Sal, Sal, Sal, lol. Yet, the conversation still gets steered over to John. We'll have some more John posts, promise!
DeleteHey Groove, this is actually a throwback to a couple of weeks ago when you asked about savings things from a fire and I just remembered another one lol. Now technically this falls outside of the groovy age but I'm going with it anyway, The Last Days Of The Justice Society Of America.
ReplyDeleteYou certainly picked some fine representations of Sal Buscema art. That Avengers 70 was the middle of the Kang trilogy (69 - 71) that spawned the Squadron Sinister and was a precursor of the Invaders. Definitely one of the greats of the Groovy Age. This was when Sal was doing full pencils and ably inked by Sam Grainger (they also put the finishing touch on X-Men 66 before the title went all reprint). That infamous Ka-zar had the hidden profanity (look in the bushes for the f word). Once again the sheer variety of the titles represented here has me scurrying to eBay to see what I can find. Going to be more expensive than if I had picked them up off of the racks in the first place. Although, to be honest, I don't recall there being many Gold Keys there. Mostly DCs and Marvels. But imagine how proud I will be when I can add Nanny and the Professor and The Hardy Boys to my collection!
ReplyDeleteMan, I love that run of Avengers (68-72) that Sal did. I still think of it as some of the most definitive Avengers books.
DeleteBest,
John
I agree, John!
DeleteI always thought Sal B. and Grainger were a bang-up art team! I wish Sal had been able to do full pencils as the Groovy Age wore on so his art would have been better appreciated, but he was a layout machine and so reliable that he pretty much kept a ton of Marvel books going to the printer on time. That, naturally, ensured full pencils just weren't going to be an option. Of course, that made him susceptible to inkers' whims and hurt Sal's rep with a lot of fans. Shame, 'cause Sal absolutely ROCKS!
ReplyDeleteSal's good inkers: Sinnott, Janson, Palmer, Leialoha. Sal's bad inkers: Talaoc, Esposito (the worst inker of all time despite Colletta unfairly carrying that opprobrium).
DeleteNope, gotta disagree here. Colletta destroyed a whole mess of Thor pages by erasing backgrounds and details that make Kirby's Fantastic Four stuff so fun. While I love Joe Sinnott's work, the plain fact was that whatever pencils he inked became Sinnott dominated look, except for Kirby. Klaus Janson and Tom Palmer could make any pencils look great.
DeleteBest,
John
I'd add Joe Staton and John Verpoorten to that good inker list. Jim Mooney was very good over Sal sometimes, but other times not so good. I've seen Colletta do a few good jobs over Sal, but I agree with you about Esposito. I rarely enjoyed his inks over Sal's layouts.
DeleteI just have to comment on a couple of ideas here-I agree about Sal doing full pencils as opposed to layouts. In my opinion, his best stuff was inked by Grainger and Verpoorten and was in Avengers and Captain America. Some might argue that his Spider-Man was the definitive one in the 80's and 90's in Spectacular Spider-Man.
ReplyDeleteBig John was one of the truly great artists of the last 50 years in comics. By his own admission, he didn't like doing superheroes and preferred "real world" stuff. Yeah, Conan wasn't exactly "realistic", but was in many ways (street scenes of the Hyborian Age, sword fighting and such). His fantasy material is practically unsurpassed (I throw his Silver Surfer run in that category because of the prevalence of Mephisto). Check out his Merlin story in the 80's for a primer on fantasy art in comics. I should also point out that my all-time favorite stuff by the Buscemas was when they worked together on Thor after Kirby and Adams left.
As far as Kanigher goes, I would advise anyone who doesn't know about his work to stick with the war books. Some of those tales are fantastic (especially if they were drawn by Kubert or Heath). When I say fantastic, I mean some surprisingly adult stories for the time that didn't try to make war look like an adventure or at all frivolous. Some of the back-up tales in Sgt. Rock were particularly fascinating.
Best,
John
I so agree with you about Grainger and Verpoorten being great Sal inkers. Amen!
DeleteSee my response to Chris A. for my thoughts on Brother John.
And another "Amen" on what you say about Kanigher. He was far more prolific (and skilled) than a lot of fans seem to remember!
Yes, I enjoyed Kanigher's writing on Enemy Ace and Sgt. Rock in particular. Ragman was a bit trite in his origin story, but Kubert's covers and layouts with the Redondo studio finishing the art was enough to pique my interest.
DeleteGene Poole
Lookit all those reprint Marvels with new covers.
ReplyDeleteNice surprise was the Ka-Zar comics having new shorts.
And future Champions, at that! (Hercules and The Angel!)
DeleteSal Buscema is 84 years old and still with us! He was receiving awards for his work as recently as 2012, 2013, and 2018. What a great run!
ReplyDelete- Neil
That's Our Pal!
DeleteTo me, Sal Buscema's greatest ever month was February 1977.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/newsstand.php?publisher=marvel&type=calendar&month=2&year=1977&sort=alpha
You've got Sal's Avengers with Graviton (inked by Pablo Marcos); Sal's Hulk with Mongu (inked by Ernie Chan); Sal's Nova, featuring the Firefly and Mega Man (inked by Frank Giacoia); and Sal's Spider-man & Black-widow (inked by Leialoha). With one exception, these all look much better in black & white. I read all of these stories at different times, in UK Marvel. It was only years later, I realized Sal did them all in the same month. What made Sal so good, in that particular month? Genius!
Phillip Beadham
It is possible that he did these jobs over several months, but that their release dates coincided.
DeleteI was VERY impressed that Neal Adams pencilled eight issues of Green Lantern/Green Arrow at DC while pencilling four issues of the Avengers (Kree-Skrull war) at Marvel, and keeping the characters' appearances distinct. Plus he drew numerous covers for DC at the same time. Amazing!
Regards,
Chris A.
Actually Neal drew 13 GL/GA and 4 backup stories in the Flash, besides Avengers etc. Yes, impressive!
DeleteGene Poole
I used to own the 6th issue of Tower of Shadows years ago! Gene Colan, Tom Sutton and Wally Wood drew new material for that ish, with a cover by Marie Severin that corresponded to a Lee-Ditko reprint from 1960. I wonder why they chose to showcase that one? Still enjoyable!
ReplyDelete- Neil
Groove posted Wood's "The Ghost-Beast" from TOS #6 here, along with a Woody story from the prior issue:
Deletehttps://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2012/01/two-fer-tuesday-flight-into-fear-and.html?m=1
Regards,
Chris A.