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Post by kirby101 on Jul 4, 2020 10:31:20 GMT -5
Conan #37 is among my favorite issues. But that is more a joint art job than penciller-inker.
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Post by brutalis on Jul 4, 2020 10:42:05 GMT -5
Chan over Buscema was wonderful in giving an instant look & style placing our brawny Cimmerian in another time/place & world outside the Marvel universe. Instantly recognizable with such a depth and texture along with detailed art style from Chan's inks where Buscema was doing very loose penciling. What Buscema didn't like about stylized inking over him was that it didn't look like his art to his eyes. Which is true enough as Chan or Alcala or DeZuniga or Sinnott or Palmer and others placed their own spin over anyone they inked. Comic books were never going to be as singularly devoted to an artist like newspaper strips were. Comic book companies needed faster production of more pages with more demands requiring a pencil artist less time giving their "all" so an inker finishing it all was necessary. If Buscema could have teamed with an inker of his own choosing like his brother Sal to keep the "purity" of his artwork looking the way he wanted then great. But JB and SB were both doing comic books as a job and not out of love of the craft. Ultimately it was to generate a regular paycheck in making a living to support your family. If monthly publishing paid more back then and artists didnt have to do multiple jobs to make ends meet then demands for so many inking jobs wouldnt have been necessary and we might have seen more "pure" Buscema and others as well. BWS was hired as he was cheaper but quickly proved too slow & replaced by Kane and Buscema who were more expensive but faster and capable of meeting deadlines. Getting the comic out on time each month in making sales was all that truly mattered.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 4, 2020 11:23:53 GMT -5
What you say is true. And I think Buscema understood it and therefore didn't kick up a fuss at who inked him. My distaste for Chan on Buscema is purely aesthetic. I can't fault others for liking it. Your last sentence is incorrect. Yes Smith was originally hired for the title because of the lower page rate. Thomas' first choice was Kane. But BWS was not removed because he was slow, he decided to leave the title, first after issue #15, and was replaced by Kane for two issues (Conan's sales had warranted a higher rate by then) and then after issue #24 when Buscema took over. And if you read Thomas and Smith talking about those issues, getting the comic out on time only truly mattering is not how they approached it. For both it was an act of love, in which they were really striving artistically. The business side was a consideration, but not the only one.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 4, 2020 11:58:29 GMT -5
Best inker for Buscema on Conan? John Buscema As I recall, he agreed with this sentiment. But felt Sal was a close second.
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Post by brutalis on Jul 4, 2020 14:03:14 GMT -5
What you say is true. And I think Buscema understood it and therefore didn't kick up a fuss at who inked him. My distaste for Chan on Buscema is purely aesthetic. I can't fault others for liking it. Your last sentence is incorrect. Yes Smith was originally hired for the title because of the lower page rate. Thomas' first choice was Kane. But BWS was not removed because he was slow, he decided to leave the title, first after issue #15, and was replaced by Kane for two issues (Conan's sales had warranted a higher rate by then) and then after issue #24 when Buscema took over. And if you read Thomas and Smith talking about those issues, getting the comic out on time only truly mattering is not how they approached it. For both it was an act of love, in which they were really striving artistically. The business side was a consideration, but not the only one. Thanks for clarification why Smith left. Haven't read Omnibus 1 yet with more background details from Thomas. Should have clarified that getting it out on time was the company bottom line & while it would be acts of love from writer/artist they still had to answer to the higher ups. I do get why Chan on Buscema for many is argumentative as to like or not, but for me it was wondrously gorgeous and a splendid pairing. Really liked DeZuniga's grittier Savage Sword ink work as well.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 4, 2020 14:26:51 GMT -5
I heard it slightly different. I heard that They Originally wanted Buscema but the page rate was Small because it was a gamble and the licensing fee was a lot. When the book was a hit and Smith left , they were able to slide Buscema in.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 4, 2020 14:29:38 GMT -5
Chan's inks on Buscema's pencils gave Conan a short, stocky look, when we all know that Conan was "a giant," to quote Howard. He made Conan look like the late Franco Colombu. Not a bad thing if you look like me, but Franco ain't/ wasn't Conan. His inks looked "smudgy." Compare those panels of Klein's lush inks over Buscema's pencils and see how his brushwork brings out the musculature and grace in Buscema's figures. I had never heard that Roy wanted an exotic look that he thought Ernie could provide, though I see why he'd want that for Conan's world, especially to set it off rom the Marvel Universe. I know you wouldn't want the strip to look too much like a super-hero strip, and I know Ernie was reliable and a workhorse, but I wish (1) Buscema could have inked himself, though I know that made no sense financially for anyone; so that (2) I wish they could have found an inker who could have captured the roughness and (sorry, it's the best I can come up with) the "Kubertesque" aspects of Buscema's pencils. kirby101 's observations are spot-on and more sophisticated than mine, I know, but I had to add my half-cent. A couple of Buscema pencil and ink sketches:
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 4, 2020 16:33:53 GMT -5
I checked the omnibus. Yes it was Buscema who they first wanted. But they had to lower the page rate for the hefty license fee they paid the Howard estate. A hefty $200 per issue!! Kane was Thomas' second choice, but the page rate was too low for him too.
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Post by Batflunkie on Jul 4, 2020 16:43:09 GMT -5
I checked the omnibus. Yes it was Buscema who they first wanted. But they had to lower the page rate for the hefty license fee they paid the Howard estate. A hefty $200 per issue!! Kane was Thomas' second choice, but the page rate was too low for him too. And that must have been a lot in 1970's money
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2020 17:10:43 GMT -5
I checked the omnibus. Yes it was Buscema who they first wanted. But they had to lower the page rate for the hefty license fee they paid the Howard estate. A hefty $200 per issue!! Kane was Thomas' second choice, but the page rate was too low for him too. And that must have been a lot in 1970's money To put that in perspective, priced at 15 cents per copy, taking into account traditional mark ups, selling it to distributors who sold it to retailers etc., Marvel was probably getting at best 5 cents a copy, meaning they had to sell 4000 copies just to pay the licensing fee, before they started paying creators, publishing costs, paper costs, editorial , infrastructure, returns, etc. so yeah, it was a significant chunk of change. -M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 4, 2020 17:49:42 GMT -5
Chan's inks on Buscema's pencils gave Conan a short, stocky look, when we all know that Conan was "a giant," to quote Howard. He made Conan look like the late Franco Colombu. Not a bad thing if you look like me, but Franco ain't/ wasn't Conan. His inks looked "smudgy." Compare those panels of Klein's lush inks over Buscema's pencils and see how his brushwork brings out the musculature and grace in Buscema's figures. I had never heard that Roy wanted an exotic look that he thought Ernie could provide, though I see why he'd want that for Conan's world, especially to set it off rom the Marvel Universe. I know you wouldn't want the strip to look too much like a super-hero strip, and I know Ernie was reliable and a workhorse, but I wish (1) Buscema could have inked himself, though I know that made no sense financially for anyone; so that (2) I wish they could have found an inker who could have captured the roughness and (sorry, it's the best I can come up with) the "Kubertesque" aspects of Buscema's pencils. kirby101 's observations are spot-on and more sophisticated than mine, I know, but I had to add my half-cent. A couple of Buscema pencil and ink sketches: John decided to ink his own pencils several times during his Conan tenure, but that never lasted long... Doing full art just required too much time, and John couldn't earn as much money as when he provided breakdowns only. That means we readers were treated to a few lovely issues of Buscema-only art along the way, but never on a regular basis. Big John also decided to plot the Conan comic at some point, but that too petered out quickly. I did like his story "the anger of Conan", though. His most personal work with the character, I suppose, would be the graphic novel Conan the rogue, which he plotted, pencilled, inked and coloured... but although the art looked very nice indeed, I must admit that story-wise there was little to distinguish it from the generic SSoC issues from the 1980s.
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Post by berkley on Jul 4, 2020 18:33:50 GMT -5
I think Buscema would have been great inking himself - if they would have ginven him enough time. I liked a lot of the individual illustrations he did of Conan but the one or two issues I remember where he inked himself looked a bit rushed and sketchy to me - e.g. the one where Kull guest-stars (which was also a let-down in the story departmentm IMO).
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 4, 2020 19:27:58 GMT -5
Buscema wanted to work like Raymond or Foster. But that kind of art only works financially doing a big syndicated comic strip. I suppose today a creator owned title could also afford him doing all the art.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 4, 2020 20:00:05 GMT -5
Conan #37 is among my favorite issues. But that is more a joint art job than penciller-inker Issues 44, 45 and 116 are where we can find a proper penciller-inker collaboration, even if in the two first issues Adams gets help from his studio. (Issue 116 is an adaptation of an earlier mini-comic that came with a Power Record; it was used as a fill-in when Roy left the book). I am really impressed by Neal's inking skills. He just makes everything more real-looking.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 4, 2020 20:18:22 GMT -5
Conan #37 is among my favorite issues. But that is more a joint art job than penciller-inker Issues 44, 45 and 116 are where we can find a proper penciller-inker collaboration, even if in the two first issues Adams gets help from his studio. (Issue 116 is an adaptation of an earlier mini-comic that came with a Power Record; it was used as a fill-in when Roy left the book). I am really impressed by Neal's inking skills. He just makes everything more real-looking. Agree. Though he has loosened up in his later years.
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