How Marvel handled the return of OA to the penciler and inker.

[Ferran Delgado]

Reading Jim Shooter's blog, I came across this curious way to split the art between the penciler and inker.

 

Originals Sin

 

Joe Sinnott, great artist and outstanding human who mostly inked for Marvel for centuries, I think, was a gentlemanly but ardent advocate for the return of originals. Joe, who is not one to complain, who had soldiered on heroically through bad times and worse times until better days finally came, told me that he, in all his decades of service had never gotten a splash page of a book. Even after I eliminated the penciler-chooses-first policy and we went to a random distribution. (I know, I’m giving away part of the ending of the whole tale, but it’s not like that was a state secret anyway.) Joe still managed to never randomly get a splash page. Ever. For years. Bad luck of the draw.

 

In those stone-age days, the way we divided up the pages of a book was this: we had a deck of playing cards numbered on the faces with marker. If, say, the book was 22 pages, the artwork return assistant would take cards one through twenty-two, shuffle and deal them face down into stacks representing each creators’ share. Each guy got the pages corresponding to the numbers of the cards in his stack.

 

So, one time, after getting off the phone with Joe, I went to the artwork return office, chased the assistant out of the room, shuffled and dealt the cards for a John Buscema/Joe Sinnott book and, glorioski, look what happened, Joe got the splash! I may have dealt that card from the bottom of the deck….

 

I confessed to John later. He was okay with my crime. He’d gotten the splash page every single other time and he didn’t mind Joe getting a break. I should have asked him first, of course, but he was cool.

 

Anyway, all the post deserves a reading since it covers the genesis of the return of the art in Marvel (at least from Shooter's POV)...

http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/09/who-deserves-pages-and-who-doesnt.html

 

This second post follows the story...

http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/09/many-happy-returns-and-some-unhappy.html

 

Another post about art return:

http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/09/few-more-thoughts-regarding-art-return.html

 

Comments are also worth reading, since many times Shooter gives more info in his answers and there are some interesting discussions.

[Kevin76]

What difference does it make who got what in said order?

[Ferran Delgado]

The economic value changes depending if it's a splash or a multipanel page with talking heads, hence that Sinnott complained about not getting a single splash.

 

I always wondered which was the criterion to split the art between the penciler an inker, so this is the reason because I find it so much interesting.

[thehumantorch]

Thanks for the post, very interesting read.

[ashrael]

I love Shooter's blog, but he has been MIA lately....

[NelsonAI]

It's interesting to hear about Joe Sinnot complaining about his allocation.

 

I have heard stories where Walt Simonson voluntarily gave up a splash page to Tom Palmer from their Star Wars collaboration because he seemed to be getting all the splashes and felt bad for Tom. Tom never complained but Walt was such a nice guy that he exchanged it for a panel page. Not a surprise as you always hear good things about Walt.

 

Cheers!

N.