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| Image copyright DC COMICS |
This cover is a bit of a rarity, in that it's one (the first, in fact) of only two instances (that I know of)) where MURPHY ANDERSON completely inked a page of JACK KIRBY's art. (The second, inked long-after Jack had passed away, was published in an ish of The Jack Kirby Collector a few years ago.) Oddly, the above cover's inks were credited to VINCE COLLETTA in the second of two volumes of collected JIMMY OLSEN tales back in 2004. (Not an easy mistake to make, I would've thought.) Although I'm a fan of Colletta-inked JK pages, I've got to admit that the above cover makes me wish Murphy had inked the complete run of Olsen books - and can you just imagine what he'd have done on Jack's pencils on MARVEL's FF? Wow!
(There's perhaps a hint of Colletta in FLIPPA-DIPPA's face, so I wonder if he was involved in the page before Murphy at some stage. It looks predominantly Anderson to my eyes though.)
6 comments:
Brillaint cover - it looks like the work of Murphy to me as well - it's a great comic inside as well one of my favourite of Kirby's DC tenure.
I think it was far and away his best mag at DC, McS. The closest to a Marvel mag out of all his DC books.
Just goes to show how much of an influence some inkers had on the pencils they went over! First glance at Superman and I initially thought, Anderson art. Not until looking at the other figures that I realized it was Kirby. I'd have to say my fave Kirby combo is Jack and Joe Sinnott, and we'll have to agree to disagree on Vince Colletta. Although Royer was a good match for Jack as well. Another couple of brilliant combos for my money would be "Swanderson" (Swan and Anderson, but you knew that) and John Buscema inked by his brother Sal.
If it weren't for the fact that the Superman figure is in a typical Kirby pose, I'd have suspected it was by Anderson and the rest by JK. Even better than Jack and Joe Sinnott, in my opinion, was JK and Wally Wood, PC. And whilst Royer's a good inker, he inked Kirby art as it was pencilled, whereas it really needed an inker who diluted Jack's idiosyncratic style while retaining the good parts. Swanderson were great, but good as Sal's inks were over brother John's pencils, I preferred Tom Palmer inking him.
Ah yes - Tom Palmer! That guy brought out the best in just about every artist he embellished - best match were his inks and Gene Colan's pencils. Tomb of Dracula saw the perfect combo of artist and inker in my opinion. Pity the collected volumes of that series have come to a halt. You'd think more punters would know quality when they see it and buy the things. In regard to Royer, I guess it depends on how you feel about Kirby's original art. Some of my faves are the Buscema / Palmer Avengers issues. We really were spoilt back in the day with all of this classic inks and pencils, a lot of the current comics see the art swamped in an overdose of colour and Photoshop effects - too cluttered for clear and concise story telling let along being able to apreciate the qualities of the initial pencil art, lost in there somewhere.
A lot of modern comics have a great deal to answer for in my opinion, PC - British and American.
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