Even when Aparo was inking his own work, it had clearly declined in the 1978-1983 period, and declined even further in the decade after that, for reasons unknown.
It just accellerated the decline when he was pencilling and others like DeCarlo were inking him.
Which is too bad, because Aparo in the 1970's was up there in quality with Adams, Novick, Rogers, Golden, Kubert, Nasser and other greats of the period. And I still treasure the books he left his mark on, like AQUAMAN, PHANTOM STRANGER and BRAVE AND THE BOLD.
I like the Aparo as an inker idea. Except for the UNTOLD LEGEND OF BATMAN miniseries inking Byrne, the only other inking I recall Aparo doing was over Chan in ADVENTURE COMICS (Spectre series), and BRAVE AND THE BOLD occasionally over other artists.
A few I can recall from B & B:
102, July 1972 (Aparo and Adams, apparently Aparo was sick that month, and Adams pencilled 9 pages, (pages 14-22) to help meet deadlines, all 22 pages inked by Aparo. As usual, Aparo's style dominates, you have to strain to see the Adams there.)
126 , Apr 1976 (Calnan/Aparo, a nice combination, but I still prefer Aparo on his own.
137 Oct 1977, Calnan/McLeod (for comparison to 126)
148, March 1979 (Staton/Aparo) I much prefer Staton as an inker. In 1975, Staton was inked Sal Buscema for a year or so on HULK, and it actually looked pretty nice.
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EDIT: I looked up issue 102 on comics.org, the proper credits are Aparo pencils and inks, pages 1-13, Adams p/Giordano inks 14-21, Giordano p and i on p 22. It's nice to finally know the exact breakdown after all these years!
