ourchair
Well-Known Member
I know most of us are in our teens and twenties here, but I just wanted to know if anybody here has developed an appreciation for the Silver Age artists of Marvel. Beyond of course, the regular lip service paid to Kirby, Romita, Ditko, et al within discussions of Marvel's transformative effect on superhero comics.
See, I was flipping through some of the books in my library and got a little spell bound by some of the work that was being produced forty years ago and remembered how impressed I am with some of the artists of the early 'Marvel Age' and thought, "Does anybody have a favorite Silver Age artist"?
For me it's Spider-Man co-creator and artist Steve Ditko. Say what you want about the undeniably awesome Jack Kirby, but Ditko gets my respect for the amount of detail and character he put into his work on Amazing Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.
Sure, Ditko's put out some weird stuff like Squirrel Girl, but then again, so did Jack. But what amazes me is the atmosphere he gave to his linework. Just the way he layered each page almost as if they were wood carvings, and the quirky detail he put into his faces just wows me.
Kirby has this sensational and dazzling allure to him, to be certain, but what took away from some of his work is the fact that a great variety of people inked his pencils and that lack of consistency was glaring and made some of his issues of Fantastic Four suffer.
Ditko, on the other hand, inked his own work, and it's a pleasure to behold. It makes me sad that he wasn't as prolific as Jack, but then again, who is? Even then, the relatively small amount of work he did for Marvel is disappointing if you want more of it, but on the other hand, I guess that's how he got away with such detail.
See, I was flipping through some of the books in my library and got a little spell bound by some of the work that was being produced forty years ago and remembered how impressed I am with some of the artists of the early 'Marvel Age' and thought, "Does anybody have a favorite Silver Age artist"?
For me it's Spider-Man co-creator and artist Steve Ditko. Say what you want about the undeniably awesome Jack Kirby, but Ditko gets my respect for the amount of detail and character he put into his work on Amazing Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.
Sure, Ditko's put out some weird stuff like Squirrel Girl, but then again, so did Jack. But what amazes me is the atmosphere he gave to his linework. Just the way he layered each page almost as if they were wood carvings, and the quirky detail he put into his faces just wows me.
Kirby has this sensational and dazzling allure to him, to be certain, but what took away from some of his work is the fact that a great variety of people inked his pencils and that lack of consistency was glaring and made some of his issues of Fantastic Four suffer.
Ditko, on the other hand, inked his own work, and it's a pleasure to behold. It makes me sad that he wasn't as prolific as Jack, but then again, who is? Even then, the relatively small amount of work he did for Marvel is disappointing if you want more of it, but on the other hand, I guess that's how he got away with such detail.