What’s Wrong With this Picture?
by Dan Nadel
Friday, August 6, 2010
Well here we are in 2010 and there is a new book called The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, Comics’ Most Controversial Inker, by Robert L. Bryant, Jr. One hundred and twenty-eight pages full of decent black-and-white reproductions of Colletta-inked artwork, a good bit of Kirby pencils, and some very astute before-and-after comparisons.
For the uninitiated: In the wondrous world of superhero, etc., comic books there were and are pencillers and inkers. The pencillers drew the story in pencil, rendering to greater or lesser degrees. The inkers would then draw on top of those pencils in ink, thus preparing the page for photography. Inkers overlaid their own drawing style on whomever they were working over. Some inkers faithfully executed, in ink, the intentions of the penciller; others rendered those intentions in their own style. And still others just drew what they viewed as most essential and moved on as quickly as possible. Inking is no mean feat.
Anyhow, Vince Colletta (1923-1991) was a nearly life-long toiler in the comic-book trade, moving through multiple publishers during his long tenure. He drew some fine romance books, but most famously inked the bulk of Jack Kirby’s long run on Thor. And therein lies the controversy. Colletta usually drew with a thin line closest in feel to, say, Hal Foster, while Kirby’s artwork was far more about broad strokes and high-finish sheen. So over Kirby’s dynamism Colletta laid down a sketchy, hatch-driven line. So there’s that, which is a matter of taste. Me, I like his approach. He gives Thor an old-timey feel that I enjoy, and ties it nicely to Foster, who both men worshiped. He grounds Kirby’s art with grit in a way not entirely dissimilar to how someone like Mort Meskin did in the 1950s. But there’s a second issue. As fandom rose in the 1970s, Kirby’s personal xeroxes of his pencils began to emerge, and it quickly became apparent that Colletta was omitting figures, buildings, and all sorts of details from Kirby’s art. Compositions were clearly made wonky and in some cases misread all together. And the rumor was that this was common for him. Under tremendous financial and editorial pressure to keep the pages flying out of his studio, Colletta inked what he wanted to ink and erased the rest, sometimes embarrassing the penciller with the finished product. Well, that’s a trickier thing. And that is where Bryant’s book really excels.
After a brief biography, the bulk of the book is taken up with pencil-to-ink comparisons. Bryant is a sober, fair guide to this stuff and provides the best analysis I’ve seen of where the problems might lie. He also nicely demonstrates Colletta’s talents as a draftsman, highlighting a beautiful Gil Kane job, among others. What works so well about this short volume is that Bryant does not appear to wish either deification or demonization on Colletta, and does not treat Kirby as untouchable either.
As Bryant explains, the controversy itself is interesting as a sociological study. The fact is, for a lot of fans Kirby served as an abstract father figure, and so reactions to any perceived desecration of his artwork can spiral into a virulent kind of hatred. There are certainly aesthetic issues (what is inking? What is the inker’s responsibility?) here, but I don’t think there are moral issues, as is often the implication. There’s nothing morally offensive about what Colletta did. Colletta was a highly competent production man: He got the books in on time, and kept the presses rolling, and in doing so he sometimes did a disservice to the artist he was inking (in the comic-book business that was more the rule than the exception. More “faithful” guys like Joe Sinnott, who inked The Fantastic Four, were unusual). When that artist happened to be Jack Kirby it’s a damn shame. Kirby was great. But Kirby knew the game and entered into it willingly. And he also knew that guys like Colletta, were, like him, doing a job. Kirby happened to transcend the job, while Colletta did not, but nevertheless, when Kirby sent off those pencils, he was done. He had no choice, and that in itself is sad, but it was a condition of doing business at the time. It’s not remotely comparable to how Kirby was compensated as an artist, or any of those issues. It’s simply unfortunate that market conditions conspired against both men. It should also be noted that when Kirby went to D.C. and began work on his “Fourth World” stories he demanded and received control over who would ink his work. So, he was clearly aware of the difference.
Right up front, Bryant says his book is not a full biography, so I don’t blame him for keeping it focused. Overall it’s a good study, if sometimes a little meandering, but it’s the only one I can think of that really dissects the oddities of an antiquated production process.
Bryant’s stated limitations also made me realize what I’d like to know more about: namely the context of all of this. Colletta is said to have had numerous assistants. Who were they? How many? What did they do, exactly? And more importantly, what did they see? There’s a fair amount of discussion here of Colletta the raconteur. He apparently shot a lot of photos in his Manhattan studio for publication and for “model’s portfolios.” Where are those photos? What I’m getting at is: Colletta, who refused to be interviewed by the press and had no interest in fandom, clearly existed in a broader publishing milieu. It might’ve been C-grade pulp or men’s mags, or… well, I don’t know. But I’d like to know more about that. This was a guy who produced, who published. Kirby was one part of that. What were the other parts? How did they impact him? And what can we extrapolate from Colletta’s experiences to better understand the art and industry?
Further Reading:
There is so much shit stirred up about Colletta on the glorious internet, that an anonymous blog popped up that sought to defend Colletta (and, uh, post photos of attractive women? That’s comics for you.) and attack Kirby biographer Mark Evanier. An odd thing, but taken out of context very useful for looking at a ton of Colletta art. Eddie Campbell has the most nuanced take on Colletta, though it spawned a nasty comments section best left unread. And then there is Colletta’s infamous retirement letter and phone call, both of which seem more or less an emotionally fair reaction to a lifetime in the comics biz. Except for the part about Jim Shooter. That’s kinda creepy.
Labels: books about comics, Jack Kirby, Marvel, psychodramas, Vince Colletta
“…Colletta the raconteur. He apparently shot a lot of photos in his Manhattan studio for publication and for “model’s portfolios”. Where are those photos?” Yah, that’s what I want to hear about! Those pics of his “friends” had me goin’ like the wolf in the Tex Avery cartoons!
In general most people who don’t care for Colletta’s inks as a matter of style (the erasures are a different matter), don’t like his inks on any artist.
I think Colletta and Frank Robbins were a particularly bad marriage. I doubt you would find many people who were thrilled with the Colletta/Toth. Colletta/Adams combinations.
The Heritage Auction Archive is an excellent place to study comics artwork. What I’ve noticed is Colletta did much better looking work over the tighter Kirby pencils found during the years from 1967-71. During the early 60’s Kirby had a workload that often approached, and sometimes surpassed 100 pages a month. From late 1966 on Kirby’s page rate had increased, and he was able to “cut down” to around 60 pages a month on average.
As a result his pencils were probably as tight as any pencils ever produced and given to an inker.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/519001776/
Pages inked by Colletta after 1966 show Colletta often using a brush for much of the inking.
http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=7023&Lot_No=93155#Photo
The earlier “scratchy” looking pen line seen in an earlier example
http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=7023&Lot_No=93151#Photo
At DC in the early 70’s Colletta continued to use more brush than pen, and in my opinion his inks during that period over Kirby were his best. The Inks on In The Days of the Mob, and Spirit World are nice examples.
A “brushy” looking JO page.
http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=7023&Lot_No=93161#Photo
The “Look Closer” tool offered by Heritage should work for anyone in these examples.
At least one of Colletta’s assistants was Jim Shooter. So maybe he did some of the weaker Kirby inking, ha ha.
Actually, it is hideous that Colletta erased so much of Jack’s most excellent pencilling. Not to forgive the Vinster entirely, but one thing I have never seen mention of is that Jack’s work was blurbed by Stan (from Jack’s border notes which detailed the story), then sent to the letterer, who would erase fairly sloppily around the inked balloons and captions, thereby further obliterating Jack’s pencils before Vinnie ever put his mitts on them. In the book are several examples of complex builing drawings with big chunks erased. So, Vinnie, faced with either redrawing the erased details, simplifying the shapes to checkerboards, or ommitting them entirely, and all this on ludicrously tight deadlines and for not a hell of a lot of money, well…
Whoops, I meant “complex building drawings” and “omitted”.
By the way, I didn’t make that up about Shooter as a Colletta assistant. In an old Kirby Collector is a Kirby page inked by Shooter, which he comments about. It looks a lot like it ws done by Colletta on a bad day.
[…] Dan Nadel at Comics Comics writes a neat review of this new book all about Vince Colletta, the most feared and hated inker in comics history. Or is he? Remind me to write an article on […]
I did like Colletta’s inks on Kirby for mid-period Thor, and on George Tuska for the Superman/Batman team-ups in World’s Finest. On virtually any other work (including his Fourth World work with Kirby) , I dreaded his work, knowing that I would be in for a lowest common denominator visual experience. He made many disparate pencilers like virtually identical, but not by adding to the work the way a Rudy Nebres or Alfredo Alcala would, but by subtracting.
I think it’s a shame that the Bryant book didn’t (wasnt’ able to?) include more pencils and inks comparisons by artists other than Kirby. My dislike of Colletta is not based on his work over Kirby, but on his work over other pencillers. Kirby’s pencils and storytelling were strong enough to survive the erasures and simplification. Sadly, many other pencillers who got Colletta’s inks in the 1980s were less experienced, and their work was generally not helped by Colletta’s inks. I can surmise by Erik Larsen’s comments that Colletta treated their work like Kirby’s, in terms of erasing and simplifying details, but there’s little visual evidence.
I don’t think that Shooter was an assistant for Colletta at any time. I recall the page in the Kirby Collector as being Shooter’s try-out for inking work on his own. Recall that Shooter can draw — he submitted his first scripts to Weisinger in layout form, and he has drawn books when needed (An issue of Super-Villain Team-up for Marvel in the 1970s, and an early issue or two of Magnus or Rai for Valiant in the 1990s.)
In all, I suppose I enjoyed Bryant’s book, but it did feel like an overly long blog post.
Yeah, Scott Rowland is right, Shooter didn’t work as an assistant for Colletta. Shooter did ink an unused Fantastic Four cover, but that was as a tryout, and he did it in the late 1970s. Let’s not start any urban legends here.
Rather than reading like a blog, or even a biography, Bryant’s book about Vince Colletta reads like a novel. Very interesting seeing Vinnie humanized (instead of demonized) for a change. They could have provided better scans for sure but the writing is A+.
TJKC #24 has the Jim Shooter inked rejected interior splash page intended for issue #94
of the Fantastic Four.
Shooter says Sol Brodsky had a large stack of rejected pages by Kirby Marvel would give to prospective inkers to test their ability.
Brodsky told Shooter the splash page had been rejected because it was so detailed it was hard to read.
Joe Orlando said when working “Marvel Method” with Lee he had to redraw on average 8 pages per issue.
The artists were not paid for the rejected pages which Marvel kept.
I actually really enjoyed this book, although I’m not a big Colletta fan. I do think that there’s a correct acknowledgement by the author that comics weren’t art – they were disposable entertainment – and Colletta worked that way.
BTW, how do you pronounce his name? Coe-lee-ta?
Most paintings hanging in museums that were done before the Impressionist movement were painted as commissioned illustrations.
Religious and mythological scenes, portraits, landscapes.
The idea of an artist painting what he wants to paint, as opposed to what the client wants, is a fairly modern idea outside the realm of primitive art.
As Crumb pointed out Bible illustration is often not much different from lurid comic book subject matter.
http://saints.sqpn.com/wp-content/gallery/saint-agatha-of-sicily/saint-agatha-02.jpg
I agree with Patrick Ford and Scott Rowland: My distaste for Colletta was based on his work over artists other than Kirby. I started reading comics seriously in the early ’70s, with Captain America as one of my first interests. I was horribly disappointed when solid inkers like Frank McLaughlin and John Verpooten were replaced by a new guy whose scritch-scratchy lines (they practically felt like sandpaper) flattened Sal Buscema’s dynamic art. That same reaction was to be repeated for years as I learned to dread seeing Colletta’s name on the credits.
Yes, Colletta was the go-to guy when deadlines got tight, accounting in part for the sloppy rendering on most of his work. But was the “tremendous financial … pressure to keep the pages flying out of his studio” any greater than that on not just the “faithful” Joe Sinnott but the likes of (other “exceptions”?) Frank Giacoia, Murphy Anderson, George Klein, Chic Stone, or even such mediocrities (IMO) as Joe Giella and Jack Abel, all of whom did decades of yeoman or better work? (Giacoia often worked with the inferior – again IMO – Mike Esposito, but as you say above, Colletta had assistants too.) Did Colletta have more family members to support than they did? More girls on the side? More gambling debts? Yeah, I’m being a little nasty there, but putting my tone and rhetoric aside, is there actual evidence that he was under greater financial pressure than others? If not, then the “tremendous editorial … pressure” he labored under was his choice, as was the attendant willingness to sacrifice aesthetics to time.
Among his contemporaries, Colletta’s inking line was most reminiscent of that of Dick Giordano, one of the great inkers – but Colletta’s inks failed to organize the art the way Giordano’s did: Colletta’s line weights were all over the place, whether within a small piece of hatching, between prominent and unimportant elements, or between foreground and background. His strokes were arranged haphazardly. He left broken spaces in holding lines, without any evident intent. All of this tended to (among other things) reduce the sense of three-dimensionality present in the pencils. This is a separate issue from leaving things out that pencilers had put in (though the latter certainly didn’t help matters).
I actually think this was less destructive of Kirby’s art than that of many other pencilers, because Kirby’s art was in many ways more abstract than that of pencilers like, say, John Buscema, including the way in which Kirby indicated dimensionality. And I tend to agree that Colletta worked fairly well over Kirby on Thor, for reasons many have cited – such as the sense of age and mythology suggested by lines that looked like they were incised into wood rather than laid down by brush or pen.
Colletta was certainly capable of doing solid work, as attested by his romance comic art, which i never saw until a few years ago. But we judge art by what’s before our eyes, not by the artist’s potential. And most of Colletta’s published work was simply bad.
Pretty disrespectful comments from oh the humanitee – almost what I expected to read in The Thin Black Line, but happily, did not – showing that it’s impossible to change some people’s minds. Regarding why Colletta needed to earn more – it’s simple, he wanted the best for his family. No disrespect intended but Gene Colan, still living in a tenement style building in Brooklyn, received financial donations from comic book fans when he got sick. Never would have happened with Vinnie. I didn’t like most of his 70’s and 80’s inking either but what was the alternative? I wonder if oh the humanitee would have preferred reprints of old stories to what Marvel was only able to publish because of Colletta’s rock-steady work habits.
@Ed Binn:
I should have omitted my admittedly nasty remarks about “girls on the side” and “gambling debts.” I have no reason to believe anything of the sort to be true. The point I was trying to make with that rhetoric was that those who defend Colletta’s work based on financial pressures need to account for why other inkers, with their own financial needs, did not do the hurried work Colletta did. Gene Colan has indeed sadly wound up in tight financial straits, requiring those much-deserved donations to help with his illness – but what about others I mentioned: Giacoia, Stone, etc.? Did they wind up in as bad a state as Colan? I don’t know, and I’d like to, if only to better inform this discussion. (As an aside, I’m not sure about that tenement – Wikipedia states that “Colan and his second wife, Adrienne, moved from New York City to Vermont late in life” but apparently before his serious illness.)
Otherwise, I don’t see how I was that disrespectful. I said that Colletta did solid work on romance comics. I said that his inks suited Kirby’s Thor. Just like me, you “didn’t like most of his 70?s and 80?s inking.” I gave a pretty neutral description of what was wrong with it. Is my description disrespectful? Does it correctly describe what you disliked?
You ask, “but what was the alternative?” I thought I’d addressed that: The alternative was to do what Giacoia et al. did.
“I wonder if oh the humanitee would have preferred reprints of old stories to what Marvel was only able to publish because of Colletta’s rock-steady work habits.” I don’t think those were the only options. Note that one sometimes saw other ways of addressing deadline pressures in the ’70s and ’80s. For example, there were occasional credits for the “Crusty Bunkers” (various members of Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s studio) or even an unspecified group of “Many Hands” teaming up to finish a job on a tight schedule. Those inking jobs generally looked better than Colletta’s.
“Pretty disrespectful comments from oh the humanitee – almost what I expected to read in The Thin Black Line, but happily, did not – showing that it’s impossible to change some people’s minds.” With the exception of those ill-advised remarks about girls and gambling and of some questions – not assertions – about his financial situation, my remarks were not about the man but about the work that actually made it to the page. It seems unlikely that The Thin Black Line (which I haven’t read) could change my aesthetic judgments, though it might enlighten me as to Colletta’s career and character.
perhaps ed binns in Dan McFan, who has attacked everyone on the internet for not agreeing with him (her?). Of course, it would be more helpful if ed had used any logic at all to rebutt the arguements that were brought up.
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, why did colletta feel the need to keep turning over the work at such a high rate that he would hack through the pages? and yes, he DID hack through the pages since, unlike many others, we all know that he had far more skill than that.
That is what makes it particularly galling, to see colletta’s excellent work on certain romance comics or particular pages of thor and wonder why he didn’t have the pride to continue that level of craftsmanship. And its not ok to say, well, he had to do it. Don’t fall back on the “financial pressure” excuse. All us inkers have faced that. Didn’t his contemporaries face the same rates? the same mortgages? the same bills with their wives and kids? so why is sloppy work being excused here?
Thor was months ahead on deadline. we have reputable facts on that, so why not do a great job on Jack’s pages and hack through another book to get your monthly check? All of us artists have made choices, and I, as a professional inker, don’t like the ones that colletta made. period. and it may be that he was simply so burned out that he didn’t care and that all of this would have simply passed over him like water off of a duck.
I’m not making remarks about vincent as a man,but his work choices pretty much sucked. When you’ve been a professional inker on comics and made all your deadlines for years, then come and talk to me and try to change my mind.
Maybe Colletta figured most of the comics he was inking were crap, so he might as well get it done fast and make a better living from it.
Here is a link to a post showing Colletta inking early on mostly with a pen, and a couple years later with plenty of brush in the mix. It’s interesting that Colletta is identified with pen work, because his pen technique looks almost like he was using a rapidograph. His line is just dead, nothing like the bold expressive pen work of the early 20th century masters.
His brush inking is far more controlled and expressive.
http://marvelmasterworksfansite.yuku.com/sreply/370698/t/Fantastic-Four-31-40-and-Annual-2-restoration-.html
Oh, bummer. Shooter wasn’t one of Colletta’s ghosts? I thought he said he was in that article…and then who the hell were those inking gremlins, and why does that page of Shooter inking ruin Kirby in such a distinctly Vinnie-on-mandrax manner? The inked-with-a-moist-charcoal-stub Vinnie, not the lush and relatively exacting, trying-to-keep-his-job Sonny Sumo Vinnie.
For the record – Bryant did not contact me about using the material that he lifted from my blog. I know the reasons why – a dispute between myself and TwoMorrows – but the fact that Bryant has published a book that consists, for the most part, of material lifted from various on-line sources, often unattributed, shows that he is a sloppy writer at best and forgetful. At worst, well, you can make your own mind up.
And no, I didn’t receive a free copy, even though my stuff is featured in the book.