RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Wild, wonderful (and horribly wrong) penciller/inker combinations

I was just looking through X-MEN: HEROES FOR HOPE (a 1985 benefit book that coincided with the Live Aid Concert, where all the artists submitted a few pages for free, and all proceeds for the book went for famine relief in Ethiopia).


You can read the full story at:
http://www.12comic.com/issue.jsp?id=190227113636e04t&cu=0

It's an artist-jam book with some really unusual art collaborations:

Stephen King/Berni Wrightson/Jeff jones
Bill Mantlo/Charles Vess/Jon Muth
Alan Moore/Richard Corben
Ann Nocenti/M.W.Kaluta/Al Milgrom
Harlan Ellison/Frank Miller/Bill Sienkiewicz

It got me to thinking about all the unusual artist combinations in various books, some that I never would have imagined combining, some that blended remarkably well, and others... well... not so well.



One with a very long run that blended beautifully are John Buscema/Alfredo Alcala in SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.



Another brief sampling was 10 pages in the CAPTAIN AMERICA'S BICENTENNIAL BATTLES treasury edition (1976) of Jack Kirby pencils inked by an in-his-prime Barry Windsor-Smith!

The full story in large pages at:




In the horribly wrong category, STRANGE ADVENTURES 206, the first issue of Neal Adams Deadman series, has Neal Adams pencils, inked by George Roussos.


The full issue at:
http://www.12comic.com/issue.jsp?id=190227040553ln8c&cu=38

(Granted Roussos has done some lousy inks on Kirby's FF and many other titles, but I've seen some really beautiful stories where he inks Mort Meskin and others, or pencils and inks his own work, especially in horror stories of the 1950's)
In THE DEADMAN COLLECTION "complete" hardcover of Adams' Deadman run, issue 206 was completely re-drawn in a new version, where Neal Adams did pencils and inks himself)

Feel free to list your own favorites.

Another great combination is Gil Kane pencils, inked by Neal Adams. Two divergent styles that mesh surprisingly well.

Most notably a Conan story in SAVAGE TALES 4, May 1974.


You can read the full story in its original black and white form at:
http://www.12comic.com/issue.jsp?id=190227023059jkzq&cu=7


Or you can read the complete story reprinted in color at:
"Night of the Dark God", 21 pages, this version a full color reprint in MARVEL TREASURY EDITION 15, 1978

Previously in black-and-white in SAVAGE TALES 4.


Adams and Kane previously also collaborated on a fantasy story in HOUSE OF SECRETS 85 (April-May 1970).

Probably the worst inking combinations I'd ever seen were at DC in the 1970s: Walt Simonson and Jack Abel on Legion of Super Heroes and Marshall Rogers and Vince Colletta on Mr. Miracle.

In each case the inker removed much of the style that made the penciller a superstar in the first place (and in the Simonson/Able case, the inker rendered the penciller's usually distinctive work unrecognizable).


As for best:

The gold standard has to be Adams and Giordano.

Another great collaboration was Craig Russell with Michael T. Gilbert in the 6-issue
ELRIC miniseries, out in 1983.



You can read these online at:
http://www.12comic.com/comic.jsp?id=190227102144jsac

The covers alone give you a sampling of the treasures within.

In retrospect, their two styles are vaguely compatible, but combining the two was somehow not an obvious choice up till that time.

If Jack Abel was ever an exceptional talent, he'd certainly declined badly by the late 1970's.
And Simonson is a difficult one to find an appropriate inker for. I'm hard pressed to think of anyone other than Walt Simonson himself who does justice to inking Simonson's pencils.

Another terrible combination (especially contrasted with Rogers/Austin that immediately followed) is Simonson/Milgrom in DETECTIVE COMICS 469 and 470. Milgrom really blunts the impact of Simonson's work, and makes lackluster work of one of comics' most dynamic pencillers.






Well, y'know... Vince Colletta inking just about anybody is a bad combination. The one exception is inking Kirby in the mid-1960's primarily on THOR 110-177, and FF 40-43.

Colletta also did nice work inking Grell in WARLORD 26-27, but most of his other work on the series (issues 16-39) is likewise very bland and rushed looking.
Colletta inked a single issue of Byrne in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN 58 in 1981, and I understand Byrne was furious and made it clear he never wanted Colletta inking him again.
Likewise Neal Adams, back in 1968 on BRAVE & THE BOLD 81, where he was so dissatisfied with Colletta's inks that he re-inked much of it himself before it first saw print.



Yeah, much as I like the Phillipine artists, such as Alcala, Nebres, DeZuniga, and Redondo, they bring so much to an artist such as John Buscema or Ron Wilson.
But for an artist well known for the delicate linework and detail of their pencils (such as Steve Bissette on SWAMP THING) Alcala's inks, for example, smother the penciller's art beyond recognition.

Oh, heck yeah!

Although as much as I love Giordano inking Adams, I actually think Tom Palmer was the better inker on Adams. (examples: AMAZING ADVENTURES 5, AVENGERS 93-96, X-MEN 56-63, 65)

https://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2013/09/making-splash-those-amazing-inhumans.html

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c2/07/c4/c207c4f2f596668dd28ddc55e3d528eb.jpg


But almost 50 years later, Adams/Giordano Batman remains the definitive Batman.

Abel had done some inking over Curt Swan's Legion a few years before and it wasn't bad.



Terry Austin is probably the only one.



Milgrom is not a bad inker (he did some nice work at Marvel in the 1980s) but he was completely mismatched with Simonson.

Milgrom was a great inker in the mid/late 70's, on Starlin's CAPTAIN MARVEL run, and later Starlin's STRANGE TALES and WARLOCK.

Milgrom also did an exceptional job on several issues of Michael Golden's MICRONAUTS run (issues 10-12, if I recall).

Regarding the Simonson/Austin art team, the one that really stood out for me was the 1982 X-MEN/TEEN TITANS crossover. It was a great end to the incredible material that came out in that summer:
* Layton's HERCULES miniseries
* Claremont/Miller/Rubinstein's first WOLVERINE miniseries,
* Levitz/Giffen's darkness saga in LEGION OF SUPERHEROES 287-294,
* the final issues of Moench/Day's MASTER OF KUNG FU 101-120,
* Stern/Romita Jr's AMAZING SPIDERMAN run, issues 224-236 (right before they introduced the Hobgoblin),
* the best issues of Moench/Sienkiewicz's MOON KNIGHT run,
* Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson/Armando Gil's KA-ZAR,
* DOCTOR STRANGE by Stern/Rogers/Austin (48-54) and Stern/Golden/Austin (55),
* Goodwin/Williamson/Garzon's BLADERUNNER movie adaptation in MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL,
* Buscema's CONAN movie adaptation, also in MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL,
* Jo Duffy/Gammill/Villamonte's last few issues of POWER MAN/IRON FIST (75-80),
* the first few issues of Mantlo/Hannigan/Milgrom's SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN 59-72, (another well-inked Milgrom book),
* plus the ELRIC and DREADSTAR marvel graphic novels,

and plenty of other great stuff from DC, Pacific and Eclipse!

Man, what a great time to be collecting.

Yeah, that was Marvel's high point, the early to mid 80s. They need a guy like Jim Shooter back at the helm.

I barely knew her!

Speaking of Terry Austin, I would say that the Byrne/Austin team in their prime was probably close to being up there with Adams and Giordano.

Yeah, in X-MEN 108-109, and 111-143 the Byrne/Austin team really produced some memorable work.



I wonder if any of these artists imagined 30 years ago their work --then printed on the pulp-equivalent of toilet paper-- would decades later be canonized in expensive Masterworks hardcovers!








And the first Byrne/Austin collaboration was in MARVEL PREVIEW 11, in 1977.
(Reprinted in full color as STARLORD SPECIAL EDITION, in 1982, with a few new framing sequence pages by Michael Golden)


A great book that had both Giordano AND Austin inking Neal Adams was SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI, which was a surprisingly good story, written by Dennis O'Neil. Which was likewise recently released in treasury-size and magazine-size hardcover editions. I think this book has more new Neal Adams pages than any other single Adams story. And seeing the contrast of Austin's and Giordano's inks in a single book is also interesting.
Austin began his career as an uncredited background inker for Giordano, then was suddenly inking two of the best series in the field, Englehart/Rogers' DETECTIVE COMICS and Claremont/Byrne's X-MEN.

I had that original B&W printing of Star-lord. It was some of their best work.

After seeing how well Byrne/Austin meshed on that Starlord story (MARVEL PREVIEW magazine 11), it was right after they were selected as the team to take over the X-MEN series, to replace Cockrum.


Full story online to read at:
http://www.12comic.com/issue.jsp?id=190227124706y8cw&cu=13

One of the worst Byrne collaborations was MARVEL TEAM-UP 70, inked by Tony DeZuniga. What the heck were they thinking?

DeZuniga's style completely eclipses Byrne's. You can barely tell it's Byrne art.







Likewise in 1980, the UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN miniseries 1-3, where Byrne is inked by Aparo. I love both separately, but again in this example, Byrne's style is completely beyond recognition under Aparo's inks.
The story likewise uses an implausible case of amnesia, that makes it WTF-worthy.



It doesn't look bad, it just looks like Aparo, without the slightest trace of Byrne.

I'm still trying to think of some of my favorites, but one thing I want to make perfectly clear is that it took a whole lot of effort for anyone to fuck up Aparo's pencils. So, I guess my question would be who was the worst person to be teamed with Aparo.

Obviously, no one inked Aparo as well as Aparo.

Here's some original art for sale from later in his career, some of it with different inkers.

I never cared for DeCarlo's inks on anybody's work, including Aparo's. I'm almost inclined to vote for him simply because he did so much of it. However, it wasn't incompetent and Aparo's pencils still had some of their trademark quality.

Kelly Jones and Bill Sinkiewicz are both interesting but they more or less overpowered Aparo's pencils. Still, the artwork is good, if not distinctly Aparo, so I can't call it a complete failure.

Dick Giordano's stuff is surprisingly weak, given how well he worked with Adams and others at DC.

Of all time, however, I think I'd say Sal Buscema.

Actually at one point at the beginning of Knightfall,DC tried a bunch of inkers for Aparo.I remember Sinkiewicz's inks and hated it,but then I'm not a fan of his art at all.The best one for me was Tom Mandrake....it remained Aparo distinct but Mandrake's influenced inking complemented instead of overshadowing Aparo's art. Again,though I'm biased as I love Mandrake's art. I think Tom Palmer inking John Buscema's pencils during his run On Avengers in the late 80's was a superb match and Byrne/Austin will remain my team of choice(I started with Classic X-Men at the beginning of them reprinting the Dark Phoenix Saga which introduced me to that pairing).

Tom Palmer was generally recognized, along with Joe Sinnott, as Buscema's best inker.

I hadn't seen Mandrake's inks over Aparo but I googled them and found this. Yeah, it's better than most examples of Aparo being inked by others.

Paul Mandrake is a good inker but he isn't mentioned in Rob's blog.

That's because he hasn't been awarded a bowling trophy.

Another rare one-time-ever combination, ASTONISHING TALES 6, pencils by Barry Windsor-Smith, inked by Bill Everett.



Full story online at:
http://www.12comic.com/issue.jsp?p=12&id=1902270610585p9q

This was just a Ka-Zar backup feature, but the pages are gorgeous.
Regrettably only a one-issue collaboration, but enough to show the full potential of combining these two great talents.
Another example of two artists I would never think to combine, that when put together yield wonderful results. The series continued in issues 7, 8, and 9 by other artists.

Issue 10 (complete story HERE)is also penciled by Windsor-Smith, but inked by Sal Buscema.
An incredible drop in quality from issue 6 (complete story linked).

How cool!

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/558/



From THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR 42 back cover, here's an unused cover to JIMMY OLSEN 147 (March 1972, Kirby's next to last issue).
Kirby pencils/Murphy Anderson inks.

This cover was apparently rejected, and the issue ran with an unusual Adams/Anderson cover.
For a Kirby run of only 15 issues, I've seen at least 4 unused covers, many unearthed in publications like this, or reprint editions.
Volume 1 and 2 of the JIMMY OLSEN reprint trade both present previously unused Kirby covers on them. While Anderson is always nice, I'm amazed how Anderson even dominates and eclipses pencils as distinctive as Kirby's!

You gotta love 60s-70s DC. Love or hate Kirby's art, why bother to hire him if you're going to put inkers on him that strip away everything unique about his work that was so popular at Marvel?

A couple more pages (all ten, actually) of Barry Smith/ Bill Everett art from ASTONISHING TALES 6.

ASTONISHING TALES had a Ka-Zar series in issues 1-20 beginning in 1970, the first two issues by Kirby (right before he left for DC), followed by issues 3-6 by Barry Smith (3-4 inked by Grainger, 5 inked by Giacoia) with somewhat diminishing inks. The Everett inks in issue 6 are absolutely breathtaking.
Followed by issues 7 and 8 by Herb Trimpe, and 9 by John Buscema.

Then issue 10 is the first (and only) full length 21-page story by Smith inked by Sal Buscema (who also inked most of Smith's CONAN run).
Issue 11 is Gil Kane/Giacoia.
And 12 is mostly John Buscema/Adkins, with 7 beautiful pages (reproduced in b&w from pencils) by Neal Adams!

After that, the series descended into utter mediocrity in scattered issues by Buckler, Gil Kane, and John Buscema, and a few filler pages by Jim Starlin in one issue. So while never an impressive storyline, it presented a wide range of artists, in some odd collaborations.

ASTONISHING TALES eventually reached its height (after mostly Kirby/Ayers reprint material of "IT! The Living Collosus" in 20-24) with Moench and Buckler's creation of DEATHLOK for the remainder of the series in issues 25-36.

A similar mixed bag occurred in the simultaneously published FEAR 10-19.
FEAR 10 featured some good stories, including a new Man-Thing origin story by Conway with Chaykin/Morrow art. With a great pirate story by Jack Katz, inked by Bill Everett. (Everett also did some nice inks on Kirby's THOR run, on issues 143, and 170-175.)
FEAR 11 has a really nice Neal Adams cover of Man-Thing, and a Buckler/Mooney story.
Issue 12 is Starlin inked by Buckler!

One other issue from the same period I like is JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 1 (Oct 1972).
* a Robert E. Howard adaptation with Gil Kane art, inked by Tom Palmer.
* Plus a horror story by Englehart and Ralph Reese.
* But I mention this issue mostly for the last story, "You Show Me Your Dream..." with Starlin pencils inked by Mike Ploog! I had the pleasure of showing this story to Starlin when I met him at a Miami show. Cover-dated Oct 1972, it was one of the first jobs he did at Marvel, and a lucky break it was inked by Ploog. A great mix of styles.

Released in the same months as Ploog's first 4-issue Ghost Rider story in MARVEL SPOTLIGHT.

That was certainly Kirby's frustration. They ASKED him to do a Superman title, and then they blunted his approach on the character, first with "corrections" on Superman and Jimmy Olsen by Al Plastino (JO 133 and 134) and then by Murphy Anderson on most of the remaining issues. To DC's credit, they did stop the corrections when Royer started inking the series (although the Anderson heads came back when Colletta inked issue 148).

Kirby's portrayal of Superman was particularly good storywise in FOREVER PEOPLE 1. But the art re-drawn Superman figures by Al Plastino in that same issue belong in the "horribly wrong" category. The remainder inked competently by Colletta.

One of my favorite Kirby covers is FOREVER PEOPLE 1 (Feb-Mar 1971). After all this time, I was surprised to see this indexed as Kirby/Giacoia art. Giacoia is not one of my favorite inkers, but this cover is absolute perfection.

Supertown?

Yeah, well... New Genesis is a pristine Garden-of-Eden-like planet, and all the gods of New Genesis live in the orbiting city (I can't recall if "Supertown" is the official name, or the nickname for the city by the younger generation of gods the Forever People are a part of).

But when Superman heard the name, in the story he was feeling alienated on earth, and he sought out the city to find a culture of others like himself. It's a good story, portraying a side of Superman not seen before.
I love the whole Fourth World series, each of the four titles at one time or another was my favorite. But I think FOREVER PEOPLE 1-11 ended with the most closure of the 4 titles.

Would that DC could finally manage to print them in tolerably decent collected editions. The Fourth World omnibus hardcovers had a lot of problems.
As did the black and white trades that came out about 10 years prior to that.

Love the new Max-Fleisher 1940's animated Superman avatar, by the way. I got those cartoons on DVD a few years back. Great stuff.

I forgot to mention, Lothar, that while unresolved at the end of FOREVER PEOPLE 1, Superman finally got to visit Supertown and see what he was missing in JIMMY OLSEN 147.
Fun, but also -worthy.

From the RAMPAGING HULK black-and-white magazine issue 4, Aug 1978, here's Starlin inked by Alex Nino.


https://marswillsendnomore.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/rampaging-hulk-4-jim-starlin-alex-nino/



https://longboxgraveyard.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/the-rampaging-hulk-magazine-4-page-23.jpg

https://marswillsendnomore.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rampaging-hulk-4_0025.jpg

https://marswillsendnomore.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rampaging-hulk-4_0026.jpg

It looks a lot more Nino than Starlin, but there is a little Starlin recognizable there. An interesting collaboration to see, one time. A nice long 30-page story, too.

With a painted Starlin cover, right before he started doing a lot of painted covers and art for HULK magazine, along with MARVEL PREVIEW and EPIC ILLUSTRATED.

Starlin only did painted art for about 4 years, and I think it declined slightly as he got bored with it and went back to pen-and-ink with the 1982 DREADSTAR series.

I think the painted cover by Starlin actually prints a little clearer in this British reprint version.



Some inspired painted art, and you can definitely see similarities to this and the opening installments of
Starlin's "Metamorphosis Odyssey" in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 1 (Spring 1980), just about a year later.

Another rare combination, of Neal Adams pencils/Berni Wrightson inks, on this BATMAN 241 cover, May 1972.



Two other things that make it special:
1) it premieres a new BATMAN cover logo (and I think the best one of all), and
2) it was the first DC comic I ever bought!

A few other issues have Adams pencils/Wrightson inks.

GREEN LANTERN 82 (1 page), Feb-Mar 1971
GREEN LANTERN 84 (complete story, 22 pages), June-July 1971
WEIRD WESTERN 12 ("El Diablo" story, 4 pages), June-July 1972

But as far as I know, BATMAN 241 is the only cover they did together.

Why would anyone put the two of them in a bad combination thread? Adams and Wrightson work pretty well together

IN THE ASS

Uh... I thought it was pretty clear I like the combination, and who wouldn't? The topic title is "Wild, wonderful (and horribly wrong) penciller inker combinations". It's intended to give examples of the very best, along with the worst.

These Adams/Wrightson collaborations are definitely on the "Wild, wonderful" side of the spectrum.

I think my least favorite inker on Kirby is George Roussos (credited at that 1963-1964 time as "George Bell" in the Marvel titles he inked, so as not to visibly violate his contract staff position at DC).




I remember him most as the inker for FF 21-27. And while he blunted Kirby's pencils for the most part, he can be credited with evolving the Thing into the attractive rock-pile look he gained during Roussos' inking run.



Although I prefer the inking by Ayers in issues 1-20, and Chic Stone in 28-37, Giacoia/Wood in 38-39, and even Colletta in issues 40-43. But all contributed to the evolving look of the FF, before Sinnott became the definitive inker on Kirby from 44-up.

Another characteristic Roussos cover of the period, STRANGE TALES 116, where you can see the Thing in an earlier phase of evolution under Roussos' inking hand :

A rare, so far as I know one-time combination, was Kaluta inked by Wrightson in THE SHADOW 3 (March 1974).


Then the reverse, Wrightson inked by Kaluta in "He Who Laughs Last" in HOUSE OF MYSTERY 221 (Jan 1974), in a story by Len Wein.

Uncredited, Kaluta and Jeff Jones on two other occasions did uncredited partial inks to help Wrightson complete a story under deadline pressure, on the SHOWCASE 83 and 84 issues featuring "Nightmaster" by Wrightson (June and Aug 1969), and on SWAMP THING 9 (April 1974), "The Stalker From Beyond". Although on these last uncredited stories, it's difficult to tell exactly who did what.