Cap 100 Splash - CL Feb Auction

[otherworldsj33]

Shores was feathery, but bigger picture view, I would still rather have a page from that era inked by Shores then a later Kirby page, from about 1972 foward, inked by just about anyone. Still liked his work, but except for, (and why I don't know I like 2001 in particular), but except for SOME of the 2001 Space Odyssey stuff he did, and maybe Kirby's Streetwise story, I did not really care for his work later on as much as his 60's art. His Super Powers stuff was bodering on being bad, for his talent level. Any opinions on Royer as his inker?

[Dick Pontoon]

His Super Powers stuff was bad. The sad truth is that his health was in decline, he had eyesight trouble, and he just couldn’t draw as well as he once could. The move years prior from twice-up pages didn't help, either. And I love Streetwise, but you can already see in spots where his drawing is off.

 

Many people are down on his 70s output, but if you study Jack’s pencils from roughly the mid-60s through his tenure at DC and then back to his 70s return to Marvel, you’ll see that little changes stylistically. Especially towards the end of his 60s Marvel run, his figures and layouts were already in the stylized form that is associated with his later work. It was mostly a matter of who was inking him, and how interested he was in a particular book.

 

The nadir of inking had to be the intial period at DC when Vince Colletta was on (or not) the job. On Thor at least he could turn in a passable job and the series had a look. His 70s DC inking just looks rushed and half-azzed. When Jack became aware that Vince was erasing pencils, he was canned.

 

Some folks don’t care for Royer on Kirby, and as a kid I didn’t either, but he really did a tremendous job. Keep in mind that Jack liked Royer’s inks and wanted Royer because Mike stayed true to the original pencils. I don’t consider it a failing that Royer’s inks don’t look slick like Sinnott’s, with the feathering and modeling that Joe employed.

 

Here’s a great example of 70s Kirby/Royer art, that Devil Dinosaur DPS that Glen Gold owns that I covet:

 

Devil Dinosaur DPS

 

One might not like it but I don’t see how anybody could claim it was bad. I’d take this page over a Shores-inked Cap any day of the week unless the Shores page put me in a position to acquire more pages like this one.

 

Reading through his 70s Marvel books, you can see where an initial period of creativity fell by the wayside as a title moved closer to cancellation. The Eternals is a perfect example, as is 2001/Machine Man. A lot of the art/story in the early issues is fantastic but then becomes rather rote.

 

BTW, I love lots of different Kirby inkers. Sinnott, of course and obviously Royer, but Ditko, Stone and Ayers also do it for me, and Giacoia could be good, too.

 

[*paull*]

In general, I'm not a fan of Kirby's 70s output, but that Kirby/Royer DPS is as good as anything Kirby ever did, or anyone ever did. Man...

[lb jefferies]

I concur. My brain blows a gasket every time I go look at Glen's splash.

[glendgold]

Hey! My ears are burning!

 

First to Scott, Dan: thank you thank you thank you for growing tired of the Cap 108 cover. I have it framed and on the wall, where I admire it every day.

 

That said, Shores can really blow on Kirby. That "feathery" thing you refer to can be distracting sometimes. But not always. Check out Cap 107's interiors. Holy smokes! For that matter, the 108 cover blows my mind. I'm sure it would look great if Giacoia inked it, but there's something just insane enough about how his brushwork moves that it seems to increase the vertiginous perspective. Yay, Cap 108 cover.

 

On the other hand, I've seen some Cap 100 pages that I swear he inked the backgrounds of which with ballpoint pen. No, really. I showed them to a friendly inker who concurred. They were late in the book, so maybe...I dunno. Deadlines?

 

Ayers is really hit and miss. I say that knowing Di -- uh, Richard -- is on line. Because as I recall even he agrees about that. The same guy aped Wally Wood for a while on Skymasters (that's pretty damned impressive) and punted on FF 20 (looks like he was wearing socks on his fingertips while inking). If you compare pages from FF 16 (great!) to 17 (muddy, as you say), it looks like he didn't wash out his brushes between issues. In fact, he said that once, but he might have been pulling my leg. Again, I'm assuming deadlines, etc, caused the variation.

 

Dan, I welcome your discarding of Ayers pages. I have a half-dozen Kirby pages are are amazing in part because he inked them. He was particularly good on Westerns for some reason. The feeling of the desert, the horses, the guns -- it worked. Also, Sgt. Fury 13. Plus the Monster pages he inked right after Skymasters have a wonderful primitive precision to them that's terrific.

 

When I was a kid, I disliked Royer's inks because I thought they made Jack's work look blocky. But, well, Jack's work was blocky back then. It's like disliking Maria Callas for singing so hard. That's how Verdi wrote it, chump. Now, in black and white especially, Royer is wonderful. He and Sinnott were Kirby's best inkers (though a ton of others -- Giacoia, Wood, Stone, Ditko, Klein, Steranko etc) had their moments.

 

And thanks for digging that Devil Dino double splash. Even Will Eisner liked it, if all the nuances of that comment make any sense : )

 

Glen

 

 

[otherworldsj33]

It's the first time I have seen the Devil Dino. DPS in B & W. Just blows my mind. And thats w/o any help. Looking at that, can't say Kirby's art in the 70's was a downgrade. Thats a classic, whatever the era.

[lb jefferies]

If you get a chance you should pick up MASTERS OF AMERICAN COMICS. There's a terrific article in there by Glen himself talking about Jack and referencing this spread in particular. It's worth it for the Kirby article alone but the book also features Crumb, Eisner, Herriman, Ware, etc.

[jjonahjameson1]

I think it is pretty cool.

 

 

 

 

If this were drawn today it would probably have a low angle shot of Firestar straddling the block of ice to "thaw" it out.

 

 

I'd like to see that page (thumbs u