John Buscema
| John Buscema | |
|---|---|
 Buscema in 1975 Marvel publicity photo | |
| Nationality |  |
| Area(s) | Penciler; Inker |
Notable works | Conan the Barbarian The Avengers The Silver Surfer |
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John Buscema, né Giovanni Natale Buscema (December 11, 1927–January 10, 2002), was an American comic-book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop culture conglomerate. His younger brother Sal Buscema is also a comic-book artist.
Buscema is best known for his run on the series The Avengers and The Silver Surfer, and for over 200 stories featuring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. In addition, he pencilled at least one issue of nearly every major Marvel title, including runs on such flagships as Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man. Buscema, along with John Romita Sr., stepped into the breach when industry legend Jack Kirby, one of the architects of Marvel Comics, left the company from 1970-1975.
He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2002.
Biography
Early life and career
Born in Brooklyn, New York, John Buscema showed an interest in drawing at an early age, copying comic strips such as Popeye.[1], In his teens he developed an interest in both superhero comic books and such classic adventure comic strips as Hal Foster's Tarzan and Prince Valiant, Burne Hogarth's Tarzan, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, and Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates. He also showed an interest in commercial illustrators of the period, such as Dean Cornwell, Colby Whitmore, Al Dorne and Robert Fawcett, and in the fine arts, copying works from Italian Renaissance artists in particular.
Buscema graduated from Manhattan's High School of Music and Art. He also took night lessons at Pratt Institute well as life-drawing classes at the Brooklyn Museum. While training as a boxer, he began painting portraits of boxers and sold some cartoons to the Hobo News.[1] Seeking work as a commercial illustrator while doing various odd jobs, Buscema found himself instead entering the comic-book field in 1948, landing a staff job under editor-in-chief and art director Stan Lee at Timely Comics, the first forerunner of Marvel Comics. The Timely "bullpen", as the staff was famously called, included such fellow staffers as Syd Shores, Carl Burgos, Mike Sekowsky, and, hired two weeks earlier, Gene Colan.[2],
Until the bullpen was dissolved a year-and-a-half later, as comic books in general and superhero comics in particular continued their post-war fade in popularity, Buscema penciled and inked in a variety of genres, including crime fiction, romance fiction and Westerns. His first recorded credit is the eight-page story "The Other Woman" in the Timely romance title Faithful #1 (Nov. 1949). Among the other titles to which he contributed were the "real-life" dramatic series True Adventures and Man Comics (the premiere issue of which sported Buscema's first comic-book cover), Cowboy Romances, Two-Gun Western (for which he drew at least one story of the continuing character the Apache Kid), Lorna the Jungle Queen, and Strange Tales.
1950s
Buscema served in the U.S. Army in 1951, leaving with an honorable discharge due to ulcer.[citation needed] He married in 1953. Continuing to freelance for Timely, by now renamed Atlas Comics), he branched out to such other publishers as Ace Comics, Hillman Periodicals, Orbit Comics, Quality Comics, St. John Publications, Ziff-Davis, and [{Western Publishing]]/Dell Comics, for which he illustrated a long run of Roy Rogers Comics starting in 1954 and comprising issues #74-97 and 104-108.
Other mid-1950s work includes Charlton Comics' Nature Boy — created by himself and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, marking Buscema's first superhero work — and Ramar of the Jungle.
Buscema next produced a series of western, war, and sword and sandal film adaptations for Dell Comics' Four Color Comics umbrella series. He drew at least one issue of the radio, film, and TV character The Cisco Kid for Dell in 1957, as well as one- to eight-page bios of every U.S. president through Dwight Eisenhower for that company's one-shot Life Stories of American Presidents.
During a late-1950s industry downturn, Buscema hung on with occasional mystery, fantasy, and science-fiction stories for Atlas (Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, Strange Worlds) and American Comics Group (Adventures into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds.) before seeking work in other fields. He began a freelance position for the major New York City advertising company, the Chaite Agency.
1960s
Buscema spent around eight years in the commercial art field associated with the Chaite and Triad studios, doing a variety of assignments: layouts, storyboards, illustrations, paperback covers, etc. in a variety of medium. He returned to comic books in 1966 as a regular freelance penciller for Marvel Comics, debuting over Jack Kirby layouts on the "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." story in Strange Tales #150 (Nov. 1966), followed by three "The Incredible Hullk" stories in Tales to Astonish #85-87 (Nov. 1966 - Jan. 1967) before settling in as regular penciller of the The Avengers, which would become one his signature series, with #41 (June 1967). Buscema would pencil an average of two comics a month in collaboration with such inkers as George Klein, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Joe Sinnott, his younger brother Sal Buscema, Tom Palmer, and, occasinally, Marvel production manager and sometime inker-cartoonist John Verpoorten.
Among Buscema's works during this period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books are The Avengers #41-#62 (June 1967 - March 1969), which includes the introduction of the modern-day Vision in #57 (Oct. 1968), and The Avengers Annual #2 (Sept. 1968); the first eight issues of The Sub-Mariner (May-Dec. 1968); The Amazing Spider-Man #72-73, 76-81, 84-85 (ranging from June 1969 - June 1970), providing layouts finished by either John Romita or Jim Mooney, and two issues he himself finished over Romita layouts; and a new title, The Silver Surfer. That philosophical series about a Christ-like alien roaming the world trying to understand both the divinity and the savagery of humanity was a personal favorite of Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee,[3] who scripted. Buscema penciled 17 of its 18 issues — the first seven as 25¢ "giant-size" title at a time when comics typically cost 12¢. Buscema returned to signature series The Avengers for 11 issues inked by Tom Palmer.
1970s
With Jack Kirby's departure from Marvel in 1970, Buscema succeeded him on both Kirby's titles at the time, Fantastic Four (penciling issues #107-141, following John Romita Sr.) and The Mighty Thor (#182-259). He was inked by Joe Sinnott on the former, and variously by Sinnott, Verpoorten, Vince Colletta, Tony DeZuniga, and others on the latter.
Buscema began penciling Conan the Barbarian with #25 (April 1973) following Barry Smith's celebrated run, and debuted as the Conan artist of the black-and-white comics-magazine omnibus Savage Sword of Conan with issue #1 (Aug. 1974). He would eventually contribute to more than 100 issues of each title (the former through 190, the latter through 101, then again from #190-210), giving him one of the most prolific runs for an artist on a single character. He additionally drew the Conan Sunday and daily syndicated newspaper comic strip upon its premiere in 1978, and even contributed some storyboard illustrations for the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie.[citation needed]
In the mid-1970s, Buscema began opting to pencil primarily layouts (pencilled pages without the shading and rendering) as opposed to finished pencils. For about ten years, he would produce an average three to four books' worth of pencils a month. He launched the feature "Black Widow" in Amazing Adventures in 1970), and the comics Nova (1976) and Ms. Marvel (1977). In additional to his regular assignments he would pencil covers and fill-in issues of titles including Captain America, Captain Britain (Marvel UK), Daredevil, The Frankenstein Monster, Howard the Duck, Master of Kung Fu, Red Sonja and Warlock. He also drew science-fiction stories in the anthology Worlds Unknown.
Buscema contributed as well to Marvel's black-and-white comics magazines, including the features "Ka-Zar" in Savage Tales #1 (May 1971) and "Bloodstone" in Rampaging Hulk #1 (Jan. 1977), and Doc Savage #1 & 3 (Aug. 1975, Jan,. 1976). Other magazine work ran the gamut from horror (Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie) to humor (Crazy, Pizzaz).
Buscema left the Thor title (although will return for issues #272-285, inks by Palmer and Stone) to launch the Marvel version of Tarzan in 1977. Other licensed projects include a 72-page The Wizard of Oz movie adaptation in an oversized "Treasury Edition" format with DeZuniga inking. He drew Star Trek as well as Holo Man (both for Power Records), and some Star Wars covers for the UK magazine. He also contributed some superhero drawings for Pro, the NFL official magazine (1970) and pencilled some chapters of the first issue of Marvel Comics Super Special Magazine featuring the rock group Kiss (1977).
Buscema collaborated with Stan Lee on the book How to Draw comics the Marvel Way (Simon & Schuster, 1978), a primer on comic-book art and storytelling. The same year saw the publication of The Art of John Buscema (S. Quartuccio, 1978), a retrospective that included an interview, several previously unpublished sketches and drawings, and a cover that was also sold as a poster.
Buscema capped off the decade penciling writer [Doug Moench]]'s three-issue Weirdworld epic-fantasy tale "Warriors of the Shadow Realm", in the magazine A Marvel Super Special #11-13 (June-Oct. 1979). Pacific Comics released an accompanying portfolio of six signed, colored plates from the story.[4]
1980s
Buscema abandoned regular superhero work in order to spearhead art duties on all three Conan titles. The popularity of the character spurred the release of a Conan movie in 1982; Buscema provided pencils and inks for a 48-page movie adaptation.
He continued to tackle other high-profile projects such as the second Superman and Spider-Man team-up (1981), a Silver Surfer story for Epic Illustrated #1 (1980), a King Arthur story (Marvel Preview #22, 1980), an adaptation of the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the St. Francis of Assisi biography of Francis, Brother of the Universe (1980).
Buscema became increasingly disenchanted with the writing on the various Conan series[citation needed]. He left King Conan in 1982 after nine issues, although he remained with Marvel's Robert E. Howard franchise with a revival of the Kull series for 10 issues, and left The Savage Sword of Conan in 1984 with #101 with a series of stories that he plotted himself. After pencilling the Conan the Destroyer movie adaptation in 1984 and the Conan of the Isles graphic novel in 1987, he left Conan the Barbarian with #190 in 1987, ending a 14-year association with the character.
After nearly five years away from superheroes, except for the first two issues of the four-issue, X-Men related miniseries Magik (Dec. 1983 - March 1984), Buscema returned to familiar ground as regular penciller on The Avengers from #255-300 (May 1985 - Feb. 1989). He was also regular penciller on Fantastic Four for its 300th issue, during a 15-issue stint from #296-309 (Nov. 1986 - Dec. 1987). Additionally, he also fit in the three-issue film adaptation Labyrinth (Nov. 1986 - Jan. 1987) and the four-issue miniseries Mephisto (April-July 1987), a character he created with Stan Lee in The Silver Surfer.
Buscema reteamed with Lee on the Silver Surfer himself with the 1988 graphic novel Silver Surfer: Judgment Day, self-inked and done entirely as full-page panels. He helped launch Wolverine solo series in 1988 with the anthology Marvel Comics Presents #1-10 (inked by Klaus Janson) and #38-47 (inking himself), and Wolverine, which marked a return for Buscema to doing finished pencils regularly.
Later career
Buscema began his sixth decade in the field by joining Roy Thomas for a return to The Savage Sword of Conan with #191 (Nov. 1991) for a 20-issue run. That same year, Buscema plotted, pencilled, inked, and colored Conan the Rogue, a graphic novel he produced it over a period of several years in his spare time. He departed the Wolverine title, but not before both penciling and inking the graphic novel Wolverine: Bloody Choices (Nov. 1993).
Buscema returned to the crime fiction genre with the The Punisher: War Zone #23-30 (Jan.-Aug. 1994, self-inking #26-29) and that title's 1993 summer annual. He also pencilled and inked a parallel-universe Punisher Western tale, the 1994 graphic novel A Man Named Frank, and was the penciller for The Punisher Meets Archie (1994) team-up. At this late stage in his career, Buscema adopted a bolder, looser inking style,[citation needed] somewhat akin to Joe Kubert's. No longer attached to a regular series after his Punisher run, he penciled and inked a The Avengers Annual #23 (1994) and five more black-and-white Conan adventures, serving as that Marvel franchise's final artist on The Savage Sword of Conan with #235 (July 1995) and on the short-lived spin-off Conan the Savage with #10 (May 1996).
He later provided a few fill-in pencil jobs (the Cosmic Powers Unlimited miniseries, Doom 2099, Fantastic Four 2099, Thor, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and a Silver Surfer/Rune special). In 1996, he formally retired at age 68, but after a year, his retirement became a semi-retirement. He did pencils and inks on a black-and-white short story for Shadows and Light (1998) and made a final return to Conan with the Death Covered in Gold three-issue miniseries (1999). He penciled and inked Spider-Man Annual, penciled five of the six-issue Galactus the Devourer miniseries (inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, and a fill-in Thor issue (inked by Jerry Ordway).
Buscema worked with DC Comics for the first time in 2000, initially doing both pencils and inks on a black-and-white Batman short story (Batman: Gotham Knights #7, 2000). He later reunited with Stan Lee on the Just Imagine Stan Lee and John Buscema Creating Superman (2001) project. He also kept active doing private commissions and cover re-creations as well as teaching art classes and to produce wthe John Buscema Sketchbook (Vanguard 2001).
He finished the pencils on a Superman project started by Gil Kane, who had since died, Superman: Blood of my Ancestors (inks by Kevin Nowlan, 2003) and had just signed on for a five-issue miniseries with Roy Thomas, JLA: Barbarians. Shortly after finishing the first issue, Buscema, diagnosed with stomach cancer a few months earlier, died at the age of 74. A pencil illustration of the Avengers (painted by Alex Ross) was his last professional work.
Quotes
John Buscema: "I love all the painters…Vermeer, Velasquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt. I’ve got over a thousand art books!"[citation needed]
Stan Lee: "As a writer I found him a delight to work with. I had only to give him the barest bones of a plot and he'd flesh it out magnificently. He didn't even want a written synopsis most of the time. We'd discuss the story over the phone for a few minutes and days later he'd deliver a terrific strip that looked as though we had spent weeks going over every last detail!"[citation needed]
Awards
Buscema received much recognition for his work in comics, including the 1968 Alley Award for Best Full-Length Story, for Marvel Comics' The Silver Surfer #1: "Origin of the Silver Surfer", by Stan Lee & John Buscema (tied with DC Comics' The Brave and the Bold #79: "Track of the Hook", by Bob Haney & Neal Adams), and the 1974 Shazam Award for Best Penciller (Dramatic Division).
Legacy
The documentary Frank Frazetta, Painting with Fire (2003) is posthumously dedicated to him. Comprehensive tributes were published in Alter Ego #15 and Comic Book Artist #21 in 2002. Much of his work remains in print in trade paperback collections.
Footnotes
- ^ a b Quartuccio, Sal, and Keenan, Bob, The Art of John Buscema (New York, Sal Q Productions, 1978)
- ^ Steranko, James, "John Buscema and the Renaissance of Comic Art" in The Art of John Buscema (New Jersey: Vanguard Productions, 2001)
- ^ Lee, Stan. Origins of Marvel Comics (Marvel Entertainment Group, 1997 reissue) ISBN 0-7851-0551-4
- ^ "The John Buscema Checklist", by Michel Maillot
References
- Quartuccio, Sal, and Bob Keenan, The Art of John Buscema, Sal Q Productions: New York, 1978)
- Irving, Christopher,et al., Comic Book Artist #21 (Aug. 2002) pp. 1b-39b
- Thomas,Roy, et al., Alter Ego Vol.3, #21 (June 2002) pp. 1-20, 1-46
- Peel, John, Comics Feature #31 (Sept.-Oct. 1984) pp. 11-18, 63-66
- The Official John Buscema Website
- John Buscema Checklist
- The Comic Strip Project
- The Grand Comics Database