This question lends itself to scans, which I hope to post soon.

Hey, Barry Smith, like Jack Kirby much?


Hey, Bill Sienkiewicz, like Neal Adams much?



icc, is "artistic doppelganger" a euphemism for swiper?

There was an Artist that worked for Erik Larsen on his Freak Force comic, which was a spin off from Savage Dragon. I could see a heavy John Byrne influence in his work.

And the Kirby influence is really clear. The phrase "he's coming your way" is exactly the kind of thing Kirby was putting on his Fourth World covers at this time. And that super busy cosmic background, exploding planet and exaggerated craters: if I had time I could find almost exact clones of every element from Kirby's FF. And of course the Kree was a Kirby invention.

I'm interested in that hair. Why was that changed at the pencil stage? Was it originally bigger?

I think it's possible to overstate Kirby's influence. For one thing, there are only so many ways to draw heavenly bodies, so resemblance does not necessarily mean imitation. Second, if I were to suppose the background was a swipe, to me it looks more stylistically like Ditko than Kirby. It's got Ditko sparkles instead of Kirby crackle.

The Panelocity blog is the mother lode: every single Buckler homage is catalogued. Superb stuff. 

Note to new visitors: some of the recent examples are quite subtle and doubters might say it is coincidence. I recommend starting at the beginning of the blog for the most obvious stuff. Pretty soon you see that no, Buckler was using Kirby reference for almost every panel.