Are the signatures real?

[rodan57]

Are the signature real on the early Marvel pin-ups and splash pages or are they part of what the inker adds to the work?

 

[Bronty]

I'm sure they aren't real. Those "stan lee" and "al hartley" signature look to be in the same hand

[rodan57]

I would like to thank you for your answer and, at the same time, would politely beg to differ.

 

I view the signatures as distinctly different: the type of "e's", the straight verus curved bar across the "t's" and the connections between the "a's" and rest of the name to identify three differences. Even the perceived pressure of the ink line looks quite different in the original (Hartley seems to be a lighter, more delicate line).

 

However, though they are different to my eye, I still wonder whether it was practice for Lee and the artist to both sign their work or are the signatures just skillful additions of Hartley, who is the inker, or perhaps the letterer?

 

(One can note on other early Marvel works Lee and Kirby signatures that do look like the real thing.)

 

Above, the Lee signature looks as it does when I have seen it independently signed on other early work and the same for Hartley's. I was thinking it would be nice to think that such pin-ups are also "dual-autographed" but I don't know how much this thinking is just "wishful".

[Mighty Hal]

Looks to me like Al Hartley put in the signatures, "copying" the Stan Lee in his skillful way.

[rodan57]

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. (thumbs u

 

I was posting this cover over in Silver when I noticed that it was signed by Lee and Goldberg: not a very skilful Lee signature.

 

 

 

[georgehagenauer-migration]

I am willing to be that Stan's was done by an inker and the pencilling might have even been done by the artist. The artist's may be real or may be inked by the inker opver t he pencillers signature

Jules Feiffer used t otalk about t he first thing he learned to do on the spirit was sign Will Eisner's name whci his why I always find it weird that people don't like inscribed pieces

Best george Hagenauer