Opinions about the work of John Buscema

[Bronty]

well. forgive me for saying this but Buscema's Conan may have physically looked the part but he also looked a little.... slow. Both physically and mentally. I never got the sense from the source material that Conan was anything but lightning quick physicall, and very intelligent mentally. The conan in some of those Buscema books didn't look like the sharpest knife in the drawer or the most fleet of foot.

[Brian Peck]

Are you saying John drew Conan dumb or was it the writing?

[Silver Surfer]

By Crom what have you against Arnold!

[Bronty]

I guess it was the combination of the art and the writing? But whatever it was he didn't look so swift, mentally.

 

And physically, he looked like a roid monkey - like he'd keel over and die on the spot after running say 400 yards. Which I always found a little jarring. Speed and agility would have been at a premium in his day. A more realistic build would be along the lines of Adams and BWS - tall, strong, but less bulk and more agility. I.e. he'd be 6'4 and 250 in an era where people were 5'6" and 140. People were smaller then. He's drawn as though he's, 6'1" and 350, and ready to keel over from a heart attack if he has to, you know, actually run around in battle instead of oiling himself up for the splash page

[Bronty]

By Crom what have you against Arnold!

 

At this point I'm just poking the bear Although I stand by those observations.

[Brian Peck]

I don't think the Kirby / Buscema argument is as clear cut as people are making it out to be. Kirby did a monster amount of work for Marvel in the 60s, probably more high quality work than has ever been produced in comics. But let's look at quality instead of quantity. How about Kirby vs. Buscema on Avengers? Or Kirby vs. Buscema on Silver Surfer? I'll take Buscema on both of those books.

 

Yeah, but Kirby created the Silver Surfer. He co-created Captain America. I can see why some might prefer peak Buscema over Kirby stylistically. But, for me, that's where the comparison ends.

 

Just because an artist created the look of a character does it mean they are the best at portraying them. Kirby did create Silver Surfer but his style I felt didn't work as well, I prefer the sleeker look Buscema brought. This is also true with other artists Ditko co-created Spider-Man but I always felt Romita Sr drew him better. Ditko's worked better on the stranger stuff like Creeper. Avengers were best drawn by Buscema but Kirby was the man for FF and while I loved Buscema on Submariner for me Everett was THE artist for Submariner. For Thor I liked both Kirby and Buscema, Kirby did a great Thor but I felt Big John handled the supporting cast better, Sif, Warriors Three.

[Brian Peck]

BWS Conan was too small and young, one of the reasons I never liked his version.

[Silver Surfer]

Everett was fantastic, especially during the Atlas era where I feel that the cover of Sub-Mariner #33 is perhaps his best work ever but its hard for me to knock Big John's Sub-Mariner. He had the angry, vengeful King of the Seas bit down pat.

[Bronty]

In the days that the conan stories are set, you were dead by 30. You have to draw him young in the earlier adventures to leave room for the king conan era stories later with the knowledge that even if he lives to be an old, old old man in those days that meant dead by 50.

[Brian Peck]

There were wizards and monsters in the stories, not exactly real life. Howard's stories like Marvel Comics didn't rely on aging in real time. X-Men have been around for 50 years but most are still in their late 20's early 30's.

[Bronty]

I'm pretty darn sure *I* can outrun this guy over 500 yards, because he'll be flat on his back sucking wind after 200 yards. And I *know* I can beat him on an IQ test

 

[Bronty]

There were wizards and monsters in the stories, not exactly real life. Howard's stories like Marvel Comics didn't rely on aging in real time. X-Men have been around for 50 years but most are still in their late 20's early 30's.

 

I can actually accept wizards and monsters easier than I can a guy with Brock Lesnar's build and a 55 IQ not getting a killed in a battle at some point in his life.

 

 

I mean... all you'd have to do to kill the guy is leave a poisoned ham sandwich around and you're short one Conan 5 minutes later

 

 

Or maybe you'd just say "Hey Conan! Look over there! A lusty wench!" and stab him when he turns around

[Prince Namor]

I guess the big thing for me is that both Romita and Buscema appropriated the Marvel House style so perfectly, that's it's easy to take them for granted. It's true they weren't the creative force that Kirby and Ditko were in the early to mid-60's (who was?) and that's where most people see the difference.

In a sense they took the best of what came before and gave it a corporate look, so that it could be repeated again and again to sell as many books as possible. It was almost as if Marvel was saying 'If people like the way Jack Kirby draws THIS, let's teach another artist to draw like that on something else and repeat the process over and over and over, to sell more and more. After all it's not the ARTIST, it's the style.'

Which of course, is bs.

 

I love Romita's work, as I grew up on it with Amazing Spider-man, but I realize he was a work horse. The 'soft' look that someone mentioned of his, I always saw as a more human aspect to his work, where I thought the 'hard' look of Buscema was the cold repeated process of a machine cranking out the same dynamic, but heartless action month after month.

How many ways can you really draw a guy with his mouth in the form of a shout?

 

We all have our likes and dislikes as far as what we grew up on, and sometimes even what we learn to appreciate, but I can say, despite my affection for Romita's work, that I can understand why he isn't seen in the same realm as a Kirby or Ditko: He didn't advance the creativity of the art form.

Same with JB.

Technically brilliant artists. Despite the action as a form of storytelling, the subtle nuances of their work (brought from their earlier learnings, in particular Romita's romance) mixed with the dynamic storytelling lessons of Kirby, made for some great looking comics.

But that's just it, they made for some great looking comics.

 

It's interesting to note, that as this whole 'House Style' idea got repeated through the Shooter era, where it became less about individual creativity and more about selling comics because they look a certain way, it actually came to a head with McFarlane and Liefeld.

 

Bear with me here a second: Liefeld was actually a pretty good idea guy. He was constantly creating new characters, and yes, some of them may seem lame or whatever, but he was always creating, and for a time there, it was making some big waves at Marvel. The thing is that he never had anyone to flesh these ideas out and bring them to life, as his own artwork was very limited. If he'd had someone to take that creativity and expound upon it, like Jack Kirby did with Stan' notes and ideas, it's possible that some of it could be remembered for more than just a passing era.

 

Instead it was the stylistic look of McFarlane and Jim Lee that ended up dominating the era, and being cloned again and again. It wasn't about ideas, it was about style and style is apparently what sells comics to the kids.

That whole period of the 90's was once again about trying to incorporate a look, story be damned, to sell more comics. It just repeated the whole process again.

 

There are plenty of people who see the early 90's, the same way we see the late 60's. They were drawn to it by the art.

They have a fondness for it that isn't always about the story, in fact it's usually NOT about the story, it's about discovering a style of art that was done that they liked.

It makes me understand and appreciate even more, just how much Kirby and Ditko (with Lee), really shook things up in the creative process. It's too bad 'the creative process' wasn't what was able to be repeated.

[CartoonFanboy]

So you can outrun Dwayne Johnson in a 500 yard race? Impressive.

[Bronty]

That build is Brock Lesnar not Dwayne Johnson.

 

Besides if the running race doesn' t kill him, I'll just fall back on the Ham Sandwich Subterfuge or the Lusty Wench Ruse

[delekkerste]

Just because an artist created the look of a character does it mean they are the best at portraying them.

 

I never said otherwise (though many would disagree with you on the Silver Surfer). However, being an artist is as much about creativity as it is about execution. And that's why I stand by my comments on Kirby vis-a-vis Big John.

[Terry Doyle]

I'm pretty darn sure *I* can outrun this guy over 500 yards, because he'll be flat on his back sucking wind after 200 yards. And I *know* I can beat him on an IQ test

 

 

I don't think Conan would want to race you, Bronty.

 

Maybe outdrink you, or arm-wrestle with you . . .

 

[Terry Doyle]

For many years I corresponded with James Cawthorn, who co-plotted the Conan/Elric crossover that featured in Conan #s 14 & 15.

 

Jim, a talented strip-illustrator in his own right, sometimes contributed drawings to a fanzine I used to publish during the 1980s. His letters to me would nearly always have gag-cartoons drawn on the envelopes, and also sent me an assortment of unused original artwork pages from his Hawkmoon graphic novel adaptations (on display in my CAF):

 

http://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=86459

 

One time I forwarded Jim my copies of Conan #s 14 and 15 and asked him to sign them for me.

 

As luck would have it, Michael Moorcock was due a visit to Jim's around the time I sent off the comic-books and they came back to me several weeks later signed by both:

 

 

Barry Smith's later work on Conan was excellent (for the first thirteen-or-so issues, he was still developing), and I consider it a shame that he didn't stay for a longer run. But John Buscema was an excellent replacement, and I followed the title (and companion magazine) for a long time (unlike Marvel's post-1960s superhero output).

[Koa]

Neal drew Conan the Barbarian #37 which was almost a year after John started. Neal only did 2 other issues on Conan and 2 on Savage Sword (he did ink Gil Kane a new times on SSOC.

BWS was hired on Conan because he was cheap, Martin Goodwin didn't want to use one of their top talents on an unproven property. When Roy made the deal for Conan he paid the Robert E. Howard more than Goodwin wanted (without his knowledge) so Roy decided to write the series. When BWS left and Conan was selling well then Goodwin agreed it would be worth having JB on the book.

 

I just picked up BWS conan work so I'm coming to this after having seen his drawing improve over 30plus years but I prefer John's version of conan 10 fold to BWS. I also prefer Buscema's best version over Frazetta's lankier conan, slightly. Neal Adams did that great pencil drawing "get back to work Adams' of Conan in which he captured a version of Conan that could have been definitive but in the comics Neal drew his Conan was blase.