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Post by B5Erik on Apr 6, 2021 6:17:12 GMT
The Art of John Buscema - The Master!  When it comes to comic book art, there are a group of elite artists. Artists' whose work either set the standard, created the templates from which all artists used, or were just amazingly great.
"Big" John Buscema fits into all three of those categories.
John was so good at what he did that his younger brother, Sal Buscema, a great artist is his own right, spent much of his career in the shadow of his older brother. Unfrairly, as Sal's work was just phenomenal, but it's easy to understand how constantly being compared to an artist who most comic fans and creators cite as either THE greatest of all time, or someone on the Mount Rushmore of comic book artists, can make even great artwork look average. How can you compete with that?
Most people coudn't.
John Buscema's artwork was simply amazing. The ironic part is that he didn't see himself as a superhero artist, and it took him a couple years to really hit his stride once he started doing it on a regular basis. Of course, having the right inkers always helps (Buscema rarely inked his own work). When he took over The Avengers his pencil art was inked by George Roussos and Vince Colletta.and George Tuska. None of them were a great fit for Buscema's pencil art, but Buscema wasn't yet, "BIG," John Buscema, and he was still learning on the fly.
It was obvious from his first issue of The Avengers (issue 41, June 1967) that John had something, but with Roussos inking, and his own pencil style not quite fully developed yet, it was still something of potential - potential not yet fully realized.
Still, it was very good artwork, especially for the time. It hinted at the greatness that was to come.
But his brief three issue run penciling the Hulk stories in Tales To Astonish earlier in that year showed that he could truly be great. Inked first by John Tartaglione his art looked very good, but then inked by Mike Esposito for the next two issues the art was simply amazing. The Hulk never looked stronger. He was thicker, heavier, more massive - a truly imposing figure that looked like the strongest hero in the Marvel universe!
  And what may be my all time favorite splash page, from Tales To Astonish 87...
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Post by B5Erik on Apr 6, 2021 7:15:33 GMT
The first Avengers artwork by Buscema seen by comic book fans was the cover for issue 41, his first of many issues that he drew...
It's unclear as to who inked the cover, but the style is definitely different from the pages inside the comic (done by George Roussos). It may have been Buscema himself, although his inking style could often be a little rough and raw, and this cover looks a little more polished. Then again, given more time than the Dreaded Deadline Doom usually allowed, Buscema could do a really good job of inking his own pencil work, as he showed on many occasions inking individual pages of Conan, for example. But that was almost a decade off.
For now, the art looked more like this......not bad. Very good, actually, especially for 1967, but not what fans would come to expect from Big John. But that level of artwork wasn't far off.To be continued...
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Post by B5Erik on May 14, 2021 6:09:48 GMT
Buscema's art got better with George Tuska inking it, and even Vince Colletta did a good job with a few of those issues, but Big John's art took a giant leap forward with the arrival of George Klein as his inker on that title for a while. Klein rarely gets the credit he deserves for his work on those issues.
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Post by B5Erik on May 14, 2021 6:24:44 GMT
And one of the most iconic covers and splash pages of that era (even if it isn't a full splash page - close enough)... |
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Post by B5Erik on Jul 18, 2021 17:42:49 GMT
Clearly, his eye for perspective, angles, action, and detail were ahead of the curve. His artwork quickly became some of the best in the business, and he was part of a small, elite group of comic book artists. His next assignment was a brieft stint drawing The Amazing Spider-Man, with Jim Mooney inking.
After doing The Amazing Spider-Man, John was given the task of (essentially) replacing Jack Kirby on The Fantastic Four. A daunting task as Kirby was extremely popular, and The Fantastic Four was Kirby's signature title.
But Buscema was up to that task, and he made the title his own. Keeping inker Joe Sinnott definitely helped, as he bridged the gap in their styles a little (although Buscema was reportedly not as happy with Sinnott's inking as some others he worked with).
This was an epic run...
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