(There's that "Daily Bugle" headline again.)Vince Colletta is one of the most reviled figures in comic art history. He was an inker who worked in the industry who many people feel often ruined the work of the men who's pencil art he was entrusted to ink.
A Colletta sample is included on the left at the top of this entry. Its' easy to see that every character looks lumpy, some of the lines are so scratchy they didn't reproduce on the page and almost all of the style of the penciller, Jack Kirby, is covered up or just plain destroyed.
Kirby was notorious for drawing complete pencils that didn't need much work by the inker to look good. Here, variations in line width look to be completely ignored, making it hard to determine what the viewer is supposed to focus on. A heavier line for the closer figures would add to the drawing's sense of depth. Further, the black areas don't do much to draw the reader's eye around the panel, nor do they help frame the most important part of the drawing.
I imagine this is not how Kirby's pencil art looked, and is not how he intended the finished product to look.
Most fans prefer Joe Sinnott's work on Kirby. Note the stronger and cleaner linework and much better sense of depth.
Why all this comment? Here's a link to a new column by Erik Larson that sort of defends Colletta.
Here's another link to a column by Mark Evanier taking completely the opposite approach, saying "... almost all the top illustrators whose work was inked by Colletta are on record as saying they thought he was terrible."
Evanier also links to a Colletta defender, comics artist Eddie Campbell.
I tend to agree with Evanier, though. I have a whole bunch of Lee-Kirby issues of "Thor," that should be wonderful treats, but I can't read them. I can't get past Colletta's ruining of Kirby's pencil art. There's a good example of Colletta eliminating detail work from Kirby's art in Evanier's column.
Colletta erased parts of the original drawings, often had a horrible sense of line work, and generally made every artist's faces look like Colletta faces. It is true that every once in a while, something he inked would look really good. But, most of the time, it didn't.
4 comments:
You are such a boob!
Posting tired old crap is just what Larsen did with his "essay". A bunch of cut and pasted stuff from other people. Why dont you dumb comic fans do some research and form intelligent opinions of your own. Even Larsen, by the way, has been made to realize the foolishness of what he wrote by people attacking him on the Comicon site. Anyway, like I said, your a boob but perhaps you can be rehabilitated. Go to my blog (I suggest you read everything from March to the present), click on MARK THE BOOB, and then tell me what you think of Sinnott, etc. You guys who hate Colletta are like sheep, I swear.
Dan
http://ismarkevaniermentallyill.blogspot.com
As God is my witness, I have no idea how to respond to that post.
I was called dumb, a boob and a sheep on my own blog by someone who doesn't even know which version of "your" to use. (Psst .. It's a contraction for "you are," hence the correct choice is "You're a boob.")
If you want to come to my blog and insult me, please use correct grammar next time.
To the real point, I went to your blog, and your postings only convinced me that every one of the inkers you showcased was better for Kirby than Colletta. I especially thought the Bill Everett examples looked great because the linework, although fine, was clear and clean. The inking enhanced, rather than covered, the original drawings.
That said, I have to agree with your point that the reproduction of the original art on low-quality newsprint did not help Colletta's fine ink lines.
But, and there must be a but, if he had really cared about the quality of the reproduction of his work, he could have adapted his linework so the pencillers he was obliterating looked better.
To sum up my thoughts about your comment, I shall quote the oft-quoted Harlan Ellison:
"Why do people keep insisting that I join the 21st Century? I *LIVE* in the 21st Century! I just don't want to be bothered by the shitheads on the internet!"
I might be a shithead but you will always be a boob! Thanks for reading my blog-at least you do your homework(and for the punctuation tip)
Dan
PS: I don't believe that Colletta thought much about reproduction or he probably would have used thick blobby lines for muscles instead of shading-you know, fine art. Sean Kleefeld wrote an email to me saying that he preferred Sinnott to Colletta describing their respective styles as "graphic" and "illustrative". Colletta was an artist more than he was a cartoonist.
I'm going to agree with Dan regarding Colletta's inking. What seems beautifully inked in the original versions appears uninked in the reproductions. As far as the guy's reputation goes, probably years from now comic lovers will be treated to better reproduction techniques that will show Vinnie's work in a new light. Remember, at one point, comic fans went along with the crowd who said that Kirby's work was shit.
Post a Comment