This Artist Unleashed!

To make way for Bill Sienkiewicz, Sal Buscema--whose unwaveringly straightforward style had offset the absurdity of Steve Gerber's The Defenders and Steve Englehart's Captain America--had been taken off New Mutants. "I knew you couldn't have an old-fashioned artist on something geared to bring in new readers," said [editor Ann] Nocenti. "Probably the hardest call I ever made at Marvel was to Sal Buscema, to say, bluntly--too bluntly--'I am taking you off this book.' He asked why, and I said, 'You're old fashioned. This needs to be new.' And he was really mad, then upset. Then he turned around, and in the next issue of The Incredible Hulk ... it was fucking magnificent. It was like Sal saying, 'You want to see what I can do?' He just pulled all the guns out."

-- Excerpt from Marvel Comics The Untold Story by Sean Howe

Buscema, the regular artist on New Mutants following Bob McLeod's debut issues, stayed on the book for a little over a year before Sienkiewicz was brought aboard in the late summer of 1984. In her points on style and reaching out to new readers, Nocenti may have been onto something, at least when it came to my own tastes, since even Buscema's work, which I very much admire, wasn't enough to make me pick up a single issue of New Mutants (though the main reason for my reticence was that I just didn't care about the characters, their homework, their growing pains, or their adventures). But it was Sienkiewicz's painted covers, which Howe describes as "near abstractions ... that would push the boundaries of Marvel's visual style," which piqued my interest in picking up an issue or three--just around the time when the character of Rachel Summers had been introduced and shunted to New Mutants for further exploration. I still didn't latch onto the book as a regular reader--but in terms of sales, Nocenti's instincts were spot-on. In my case, the change to Sienkiewicz did exactly what it was meant to accomplish.

But I became curious about Nocenti's description of how the decision made Buscema cut loose on the issue of Incredible Hulk that followed getting his pink slip from New Mutants. As near as I can pin it down, that would have been the issue where Nightmare revealed himself as the one who was deliberately undermining Bruce Banner's efforts to remain in control of the Hulk--and judging by the first few pages alone, that seems to be the case. Although he's working with the same inker (Gerry Taloc), Buscema has obviously taken his work up a few notches from the pages he turned in for the prior issue; and with a good deal of the story taking place in Nightmare's realm, Buscema demonstrates that his own skills in the abstract aren't exactly chopped liver. (That said, one can't help but note that the issue's abstract cover^* was assigned to another artist, Kevin Nowlan.)

^*Though it's indeed Nightmare who's pulling the Hulk's strings in the issue, Nowlan's depiction almost makes you wonder if we're going to find Mastermind to be the culprit, instead.

In fact, opening to page one, it's tempting to believe that the smug character who greets us isn't Nightmare, but rather a certain artist whose satisfied expression here speaks volumes and whose work speaks for itself.

Cover to Cover to Cover

We've already seen a sampling of the many wrap-around and fold-out covers offered by Marvel and its talented artists--yet there's a wealth of such material that's occasionally been tucked away on the sales rack, gems waiting to be discovered by readers who weren't expecting such a dividend in their comic book purchase. The real treat on these oversize covers, just as with many of their single-page counterparts, lies in the creative way that the artist chooses to convey the representation of characters--symbolic portrayals/collages of the content within, and perhaps one of the last few places to be found where word balloons are, thankfully, verboten.

Today, buyers of music lament the absence of the vinyl jacket with its oversized cover photography and/or artwork; and with the comic book, we've come to realize that when it comes to cover artwork which goes well beyond the cover, in no medium but print can you realize the instant gratification of extending a comics cover in your hands to find much more than first met your eye.

So in that spirit, let's take a look at a few more of these dazzling covers--digitally presented, but still a feast for the eyes.

Art by Kerry Gammill and Bob Layton

Name! That! Inker!

Who would you say is inking this page from Fantastic Four #219 that's pencilled by artist Bill Sienkiewicz?

Would your guess be:

(A) Pablo Marcos; (B) Bruce Patterson; (C) Joe Sinnott; or (D) Sienkiewicz himself?

My first guess would have been Pablo Marcos. But would you believe:

Joe Sinnott? Really? It doesn't look at all like Joltin' Joe's style. Let's have a look at a few more panels from the issue:

And now let's skip ahead three issues, to a story where Marcos is listed in the credits:

I'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

(By the way, your eyes weren't playing tricks on you--that was indeed the Fantasti-Car, fitting inside the Pogo Plane. And with room to spare. I believe the response you're looking for is: "No. No, that's not possible.")

As for how Sinnott's work would really look, applied to Sienkiewicz's pencils, we can skip ahead a few more issues to see the result:

Much more definitive. Still, I can't quite make the call on whether or not the credits for #219 were in error, because some of the scenes from that issue do indeed have Sinnott's touches on them:

Sienkiewicz would be aboard Fantastic Four just after John Byrne's ten-issue initial stint as artist, taking over while Byrne segued to Captain America; then, about a year later, Byrne would return to ink his own work on the FF for a more extended stay on the book.

Sienkiewicz's work was scripted by Doug Moench (who forever carries the stain of the Zaniac on his résumé), the two of them bringing readers a different take on the FF. You might enjoy this one-year collection of issues, just for the sake of trying something a little different.  And it probably goes without saying that you'll be able to sample a few different inking styles, as well.