Post by Icctrombone on Jan 17, 2021 11:47:26 GMT -5
Regarding the art... aside from Jack Kirby being over-worked immensely (probably doing the work of 4 people to make up for Marvel's lower rates), twice in a few issues they lost 2 of the BEST inkers in the biz due to better-paying opportunieies.
For decades, somehow, nobody seemed to know who inked the 1st issues. It finally came out some years ago... it was GEORGE KLEIN. As soon as I read his name, I KNEW it was true, and wondered how I never noticed it before? (Really bad, FUZZY reprints, no doubt.) It seems he got about halfway thru FF #2 when the guy who'd been inking CURT SWAN on SUPERMAN decided to retire, and he got invited to take over for far more money than he was making at Marvel. Klein became my FAVORITE inker on Swan, especially later on LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES. He didn't return to Marvel until Carmine Infantino FIRED him as part of an overall move to "weed out the old guys", who were trying to get HEALTH insurance. Klein came back to Marvel, inked Kirby, Smith, Colan, and, best of all, John Buscema (on AVENGERS)... before suddenly dropping dead of a heart attack about a year later.
JOE SINNOTT inked FF #5... and the first 2 pages of #6. If memory serves, he got an opportunity to do art for a Christian comic-book, again, paying MUCH-higher rates. It wasn't until right after FF ANNUAL #3 that he was able to come back, when publisher Martin Goodman finally started increasing the page rates.
I believe Sol Brodsky did most of FF #2, and #3, & 4. And then Dick Ayers did most of #6 and beyond. Brodsky's inks NEVER impressed me, while Ayers had a sort of "rough", "gritty", "real world" look and feel about his inks. Ayers always maintained he never liked inking other people's pencils, and preferred doing full art, but Kirby was the ONE penciller who I thought he made a good match with. Even so, books like HULK, ANT-MAN, SGT. FURY, all seemed a better match for him than FANTASTIC FOUR.
Steve Ditko inked #13-14. That was some bizarre-looking stuff!
When Ayers got too busy (translation: yanked away to do other books), George Roussos, longtime DC inker, offered to help out by doing inks for HALF his usual rates, OVER THE WEEKEND. I fondly recall an interview with him in ALTER EGO magazine, shortly before he passed away, where he impressed me as being a genuinely nice guy, with NO ego whatsoever. But that statement he made, made my jaw drop. It really explained WHY his inks at Marvel LOOKED SO AWFUL. He was doing an entire book over the weekend-- that's inking 10 PAGES A DAY. Geez!!!!!
Now Chic Stone... WOW. Other inkers were "embellishing". Stone went on record saying he believed an inker's job was to be faithful to the penciller's work. HE WAS. It's no wonder Kirby's art on FF suddenly looked SO DAMNED MUCH BETTER when he took over.
Unfortunately, Stone also wanted to pencil. And there weren't any books available. So after about a year, he left... and FF suffered under about 3 or 4 months of Vince Colletta. AUGH!!! The ANNUAL really didn't look so bad, but the issues that preceded it were at least as bad or worse than "George Bell".
So, the entire "early" period (pre-wedding) of FF was like a roller-coaster ride of quality... up... DOWN... UP... WAY down! Oh well.
By all means, check out Chris Tolworthy's thread about the FF. His in-depth studies and speculations on HOW MUCH Kirby's editor was completely ignoring KIRBY'S WRITING and drastically changing things and DUMBING it all down, blew even my mind, about the full scope of just how much was lost, and how fans were ROBBED of what could have, SHOULD have, been far, FAR-better comics than we actually got.
What you had was one writer-artist who came up with EVERYTHING on his own with no up-front input whatsoever... and one editor, RE-WRITING things... in that order... that was not, really, in any way, what anyone should ever describe as a "collaboration".