posted January 10, 2003 09:57 PM               

I remember the tell-tale quirks of some of my favorite artists!

Kirby!...with "legs" sticking out from panel edge!

Herb Trimpe!...with his Kirby-like "extended" hands and finger-pointings!

The unique "eyes" in a Jim Mooney pencilled character...

Ross Andru's expressive "starburst" effect behind a characters' head!

Infantino with his use of "hands and fingers" within captions...

And I still swear Gil Kane drew Jason Robards a thousand-and one times! Ha!

Anyone else wanna play?

posted January 10, 2003 10:18 PM            

That said, ever notice how every Mike Sekowsky character has a broken neck? I swear, nobody in a Sekowsky panel has his head on straight.

Gil Kane likes nostril shots.

posted January 10, 2003 10:26 PM               

Kubert's hollow-cheeked characters who all looked like Robert Mitchum to me.

Marie Severin's figures which managed somehow to assume more realistic postures than most superhero artists used, but at the same time often looked bent and cramped, as if they were stooping to fit inside the panel borders.

Infantino's compulsive creativity in the late '50s-early '60s, designing new architecture, furniture, clothing--everything about a strip looked original.

The forced perspective in so many Dick Sprang panels--competing with Kirby on that score, but in a very different way.

Kirby hands. I once drew a very toned-down version of one in a life drawing class, and the instructor said the fingers looked like strings of sausages. Guess I should have squared them off like Jack did...

posted January 10, 2003 11:48 PM            

George Perez in the seventies used to draw thighs on women that would make women wrestlers blush. I think Marvel got on him at one point to thin 'em down.

The most memorable Kirby traits for me were the washboard knees and the really wild technology. His alien machines would be built in maddening patterns.

How about the anorexic figures of both male and female Grell characters during his early days. Everyone looked like they weighed less than 100 pounds.

The way the scratchy lines of Joe Kubert's war characters sometimes didn't connect to make a whole, enclosed figure the way every other artist's characters were. When you're that good, you don't have to fill in every line. God, how did a style so cartoony manage to blow everyone else away in terms of real emotional impact? Sheer genius.

posted January 11, 2003 12:31 AM               

Bruno Premiani looked so "European". His Teen Titans looked to be 12 years old.

Jack Sparling was everywhere I tell you! Everywhere!

Dick Dillin drew some of the most outright bizarre creatures ever. Blackhawk caught the brunt of these, it seems. And what was up with all those aliens, anyway? They were thicker than gorillas for a while there.

Opening up a Marvel comic with a lush Kirby cover to find no Kirby inside. It took me years to appreciate Don Heck for himself.

Bill Everett left to his own devices reminded me of Basil Wolverton.

posted January 11, 2003 01:06 AM               

I spoke to him briefly at a convention not long before he died. There was a question i always wanted to ask him, but I chickened out:

"Mr. Swan, why do you draw so many people with their arm bent, forearm parallel to the ground, their hand making a fist in a gesture that makes them look like they should have a toga draped over their arm?"

********
Wayne Boring's Superman jogging through outer space.

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Dick Sprang drawing Batman running with his body leaning WAY forward with neither foot touching the ground. I always had trouble convincing other kids that Batman couldn't fly.

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Jim Mooney repeatedly drawing Supergirl in closeups, looking out at the reader, her hand up to her face, index finger extended and touching her chin. What was that about?

posted January 11, 2003 02:39 AM            

Gene Colan liked showing thugs firing old break-open revolvers, like the 19th century Smith and Wessons.

Kubert preferred Broomhandle Mausers.

Sal Buscema's villains usually had their mouths wwwiiiiidddee open. Like they couldn't say anything without screaming.

posted January 11, 2003 06:11 AM               

NeccImpure - Ha! Sekowsky's "broken neck" figures! Good one!

I couldn't quite describe my love of Ditko, but, "?", your description of many of his characters as "...on strings" was really on the mark!

Howdy, Koppy - nice to meet you. Yep, Buscema's "mouths" I always thought as distinctive.

Thanks for stoppin' by, folks...

posted January 11, 2003 06:20 AM            

John Forte's stiff poses, with characters often looking as if they are bent back slightly at the waist.

posted January 11, 2003 06:32 AM               

Yep, ol' Vince coulda ruined the Mona Lisa!

God, he made everything look so, so..stiff and static!

posted January 11, 2003 09:26 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Lee Semmens:
Mu
John Forte's stiff poses, with characters often looking as if they are bent back slightly at the waist.

---

Forte also often made characters legs too short.

But it's a quirk that fits well with the tone of the early, campy Legion.

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"My name is Mark....Question Mark..."

posted January 11, 2003 11:32 AM            

But few were better at drawing facial expressions. In closeups, his characters could really EMOTE like crazy. Anguish, fear, laughter, surprise, confusion, you name it. I suppose that's why he usually did romance comics, except for the Legion.

He also took care to give almost every Legionnaire (and there were a lot, even then) a distinctive hair style of their own. You could tell them apart without the costumes (even though they ALWAYS wore the costumes!).

When Gil Kane drew someone running in his "mature" style, they often bent so far forward, thanks to extreme perspective, that their face was almost scraping the ground. He also had his own variation on the "Kirby hand" but with the fingers stretching back toward the knuckles in a very weird way... apparently, the power ring turned Green Lantern's fingers into rubber. He loved the "giant floating heads yelling at the hero" bit too. And he had his own kind of "Kane Krackle" but didn't use black dots... instead it was this weird, flowing amoebic shape surrounded by floating circles and such.

When a character was reeling from surprise, Ditko liked to have a side profile shot with a hand held up to the opposite side of the head, and mouth hanging open... often with sweat running down the face. Another trademark is the "debate panel"... a panel full of people with grotesque, sneering expressions offering their (usually knee-jerk and uninformed) opinions on the preceding events, or a panel with several bystanders on the sidewalk standing around a guy reading a newspaper as they have a debate about the news.

Mooney liked to show characters (especially women) holding out one arm, bent at the elbow, with the forefinger pointing up slightly crooked, and the others curling in to the palm.

Frank Robbins drew his heroes running into action with broken legs, twisting every which way thanks to their shattered ankles.

John Byrne likes to show aerial shots of huge, devastated areas filled with wreckage.

And so many more... keep 'em coming.

posted January 11, 2003 05:35 PM               

I always found it ironic that John Forte was drawing a comic taking place in the 30th century, but all of his spaceships, ray guns, buildings, etc, looked like they were conceived in 1890.

If the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ever time-hopped to the future, Forte would have been an excellect choice for artist.

posted January 12, 2003 10:49 AM               

The Don Heck Punch, drawn without motion lines, making it look like the target ran face-first into an extended fist (when I was a kid, that confused me to no end.)

Also, the oddly-shaped Don Heck Impact Indicators, strangely rectangular instead of the standard circular or star-based explosions. Often off-center, so even if a fist connected with a chin, you might see the star up near the eyebrow. Another source of youthful confusion. ("Why is Capt. America hitting the Red Skull on the cheekbone? That doesn't look painful at all!")

posted January 12, 2003 12:27 PM            

But the kind of misshapen, distinctive mouths was George Tuska!

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"My name is Mark....Question Mark..."

posted January 12, 2003 12:28 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by ?:
How about the classic Don Heck overbite?

But the KING of misshapen, distinctive mouths was George Tuska!

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Note: I punished the finger that made the confusing typo by biting it off at the knuckle....

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"My name is Mark....Question Mark..."

posted January 12, 2003 05:02 PM            

When he drew the Joker, he could REALLY go to town.

Wally Wood loved to show characters crashing through brick walls so he could detail every brick.

Don Heck loved his "Heck Sparks" to indicate impact. They don't really look much like sparks but that's what I thought of them as when I was a kid.