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July 23, 2007

Comments

plok

I think you're absolutely right; I've been complaining about this since forever.

Good catch on the Lon Chaney!

Richard

With regards to that possible Lon Chaney reference, the artist of FF #142, Rich Buckler, is notorious for being a swiper. Joe Sinnott has made references (never by name) to an artist who made him feel like he was inking the same pages over again. There are a lot of Kirby swipes in Buckler's FF issues.

Buckler also did "cross-swiping", for example, Giant-Size Avengers #1 has swipes from FF Annual #4. In particular, the flashback to the All Winners squad in the Avengers story lifts several panels from that FF story (which featured the return of the original Human Torch). Buckler in that case did the same thing as the Lon Chaney example you've dug up- different characters, same recognizable poses.

Mark Engblom

As an artist myself, I guess I'm willling to cut Buckler some slack on the swipes....especially when it's based on his own stuff. Time constraints can be tricky things, and Buckler got around some of them recycling stuff he knew worked well for the story. I guess I like the guy so much as an artist, I'm willing to give him a pass on a swipe here and there. I also have tremendous respect for Joe Sinnott, though when it comes to inking repetative elements, I would think Jack Kirby probably pencilled his fair share of them, too. I'm not saying Kirby swiped his (or anyone else's) work, but it's clear he relied on some of the same visual gimmicks and shortcuts time and time again.

As for Buckler directly swiping Kirby, I believe the intent of the Buckler F.F. issues was to deliberately evoke the Kirby style, with the blessing (or perhaps even the request) of Marvel editorial....so it makes sense that there would be "swiping" to some extent in order to give it a Kirby-art look.

Of all the artists to ape Kirby's stuff over the years, Rich Buckler and Steve Rude have been the most successful at matching the spirit of Kirby's work without slavishly copying it or, worse yet, caricaturing it (as others have done).

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