About Al Williamson... time for me to drop way too much information, as usual.
Dan Adkins is one of my favourite inkers but I would much rather have seen more pencil work from him. Same with Pablo Marcos and others. And don't get me started on Al Williamson and the years he wasted (from my fan perspective) inking the pencils of lesser artists (no disrespect intended - pretty much everyone else is a lesser artist to my eyes).
I think by the 80s, coming off of Secret Agent Corrigan, Williamson wanted to take it easy a bit, but when asked to autograph those original pages, he always signed them "Inks by Al Williamson." He could still hit it out of the park on his own projects, though like the Flash Gordon he did for Marvel.
And from
this thread -
We were talking somewhere on the board about Al Williamson becoming a utility inker in the 80s. Part may have been that he didn't want to (or didn't feel he could) lay out and pencil superhero stories. The one "Superman" story he drew (#400) was essentially a science fiction story.
It's not that he couldn't do superhero stories, I am sure Marvel would have found stories that fit him. It's that his technique was too slow for it to be viable.
Williamson did take on inking jobs for financial reasons. However, Williamson himself didn't think he was any good at drawing superheroes. I believe part of the reason Williamson enjoyed working on
Superman was because Superman was as much a sci-fi character as he as a superhero, and
Superman editor Julius Schwartz was a driving force in the early days of SF, and kept a lot of Superman largely based in science fiction.
And as for inking lesser artists, I can't say about anything he did for Marvel, as I've barely seen any of it, but when he was working on Superman, he clearly considered Curt Swan to be anything but "lesser," and was impressed with Swan's work. I see the point Berkely2 was making, though, and I mostly agree. I would have liked to see Williamson do some solo work on Superman. I'm sure writers Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin would have given him plenty of SF material to work with.
From Williamson himself -
Williamson: I did a job for Julie Schwartz on
Superman, the 400th Anniversary issue… I was having trouble getting work because I’m not into superheroes. I’m not against them, I just can’t draw those darned things.
(Laughter) I like adventure, science fiction, or fantasy. So Julie’s a sweetheart; he asked me if I would do this eight-pager which I did. Penciled and inked it, then I brought it in. My wife Cori came with me. He liked it, had the check for me and everything. We were talking. He said, “How would you like to ink a Superman job?” I said, “You know, I’ve never really inked anybody else.” I’ve helped guys out, when George Woodbridge needed help or Angelo [Torres], we always helped each other. If I needed help, they’d come through for me; if they needed help, I’d come through for them. But I never did a complete inking job over anybody. So I hemmed and hawed. And Cori said, “Oh, take it, we need the money.”
(Laughter) “Okay,” I said, “I’ll take it.” I think it was an eleven or twelve-page story; I forget which. So I went home, looked at the drawing and it was beautiful! I mean it was very well drawn! The anatomy was perfect… the proportions of the figures. I’d never seen [Curt’s] pencils, I’d only seen other people ink his work. I didn’t realize he was such a good artist! He could draw very, very well. Whoever inked him, I guess the few inkers that I saw were not the guys that did their best… so I did enjoy working with him. Why didn’t all these guys follow the pencils? They were beautiful.
...I did it, I sent it in, and Julie loved it! And Julie’s a great guy to work with. He had a check ready for me and everything. I looked at the check and I said, “holy mackerel! I made more money inking this than doing my own stuff.” (Laughter) We had three kids, you know, “We need the money.” And they weren’t doing my kind of stuff, the adventure stuff. And I called Julie. “Would you still like me to ink some more for you?” And he said
[mimicking a Schwartz proclamation] “You are the regular inker over Curt Swan from here on in.”
(Laughter) I mean when you work for Julie professionally, he’s tough but he’s good. If you have to do a job for Julie, it’s business. That’s it, and that’s the way it should be. You should be able to meet your deadlines and not screw up.
...so I started inking Curt and I loved it. He was a great artist to work over. I’d already done at least twelve or thirteen stories – I’m just sorry I didn’t continue, but I had a good reason. In those days, some of the people working at DC weren’t very nice; absolutely rude. I went over to Marvel and asked if they were interested in hiring me. Jim Shooter always treated me nice. And he said, “You bet.’ And they didn’t give me any trouble. I had a good contract and I started working for them. I would have loved to work with Julie, because we became good friends. There were some nice people at DC. And I would have loved to have worked with Curt some more, but I have responsibilities...
Eddy Zeno: Did you know he called you his favorite inker?
Williamson: No, really!!? Oh, my God, how very sweet of him.
Zeno: Yes, Curt had a quote that went “[Al] was the best. A fine draftsman in his own right, and extremely talented artist, he could render even the little mechanical parts of vehicles. He had a very special flair that the others didn’t.” [From:
Superman at Fifty! The Persistence of a Legend! Edited by Dooley D and Engle G, Octavia Press, Cleveland Oh, 1987]
Williamson: Well, I’ll tell you the thing is that it’s there. What’s the problem? I don’t understand; you have a beautiful artist that does beautiful work, you give it to an inker and he [messes] it up. If nothing else, trace it.
[From Curt Swan: A Life In Comics by Eddy Zeno (2002)]Also if you look at the cover for the book about Swan, the most prominent image of Superman was inked by Williamson.