Saturday, September 24, 2005
Comic Art
Continuing with the "Honorable Mentions" let's look today at John Buscema. He is another workhorse of the Marvel stable during my youth and his art is some that has stayed with me as the classic. This particular clash of titans was very memorable from my youth. Like the Flash/Superman race I mentioned last week, it was a burning question for every kid that ever opened a comic.Buscema worked on just about every title marvel had during his life. Some more memorably that others.
I have a particular fondness for his Spider-man. I always thought Spider-man was too skinny, as he is, in my opinion, back to being today, particularly in the Ultimates. With Buscema at the drawing board, Spidey never got bulky, but he looked like a hero ought to look. And despite the suspension of reality required, I loved the fact that as Spidey got muscular, Peter Parker was still as scrawny as ever. It made the whole dual identity thing work better -- like he could turn his powers on and off. I mean NO ONE buys that you can't tell Clark Kent in Superman. 
This was a watershed moment in comics -- an artificial lifeform crying. The Vision is one of the underappreciated characters in comics. Never really able to stand as a solo character, he has almost always, with the exception of a few 4 issue deals, been an Avengers character. I absolutely love his look and think a proper legend to go with the look would make him a solo character beyond compare.
Kirby was the master, but Buscema is not all that far behind when it comes to the Silver Surfer family of characters. Look at the composition of this Galactus panel. That is taken directly from the Master, but it is minus many of the angularities that would make you look at Kirby a little sideways from time to time.
In my youth, nobody drew the Surfer more than Buscema. Ths image is definitely "After Kirby" both in composition and in the heavy ink lines. But it is softer somehow. To be honest, as a kid, I liked Buscema better than Kirby. It was only as I got older and learned some things about how the art should be done that I came to see Kirby for the master that he was. But this is fine, fine art, all by itself.
Buscema owned Conan, pure and simple. It took Arnold and Dino DeLaurentis to redefine the look of Conan to be anything other than from Buscema's pencils.It is difficult to define a character or a title as the single monument to John Buscema, he did so well with so many title. But I would probably have to go with Conan as the closest association. Buscema was a giant in the industry.
