Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: John Buscema

John Buscema & Joe Sinnott — Fantastic Follow-up

Original Art and The Artists

Fantastic Four #109, April 1971

If Jack Kirby built the Marvel Universe by flooring the gas pedal, John Buscema is the artist who proved it could keep moving at speed without flying off the road. This page from The Fantastic Four #109 doesn’t feel like a reset after Kirby—it feels like a smooth handoff. (Especially with the amazing Joe Sinnott continuing on as co-pilot.)

Nearly everything that defines the FF is here: impossible tech, last-second switches, and reality bending under pressure. Kirby detonates ideas; Buscema directs them. The action is clean, the staging is crystal clear, and even as the team tumbles through the “Distortion Zone,” you always know where everyone is—and what’s about to go wrong.

That’s why Buscema was the perfect artist to follow Kirby. He didn’t try to out-Kirby Kirby; he translated the chaos into confident, cinematic storytelling.

Fantastic Four #109 lands squarely in my prime spinner-rack era—back when the future arrived every month for 15 cents a pop. Owning this page feels like closing a long loop—from Wurman’s candy store (Long Beach, NY) back to the original art board, without losing any of the wonder.

In fact, it gains even more.

The early Buscema stories (plus some late Kirby and the fill-in Romita stories) can be found in the FF omnibus #4, with either the Kirby #100 cover — or the astonishing homage by Arthur Adams.

John Buscema & Tom Palmer — Avengers, Assemble

Original Art and The Artists

Avengers #84, January 1971

John Buscema was the Avengers artist of the late ’60s and early ’70s—despite famously claiming he didn’t much care for superheroes.

Every panel feels like it could’ve been pulled from a widescreen adventure film, even when the scene is nothing more than a nightmare and a jolting wake-up. That was his magic: Buscema could make anything feel epic.

This page shows exactly how he defined the Avengers in that era. Grace, power, and cinematic clarity are baked into every beat, transforming a bad dream into something memorable—and unmistakably Avengers.

Behind the scenes, Marvel was running hot. Kirby had just left for DC, schedules were tightening, pages were due, and assignments were shifting fast. You can feel a stronger Tom Palmer inking presence here than in some earlier issues, suggesting John may have supplied looser pencils as deadline pressure mounted and the machine kept moving.

Marvel may have been in motion, but Buscema’s vision was locked in.

John Buscema — Man On Fire

Original Art and The Artists

Sub-Mariner #3, June 1968

Sub-Mariner Original Art By John Buscema from the collection of Greg Goldstein

Five straight weeks in the Spring of 1968. Five comic book issues drawn by the legendary John Buscema:

Sub-Mariner #3

Avengers #53

Sub-Mariner #4

Avengers #54

Silver Surfer #1 (38 pages)

Gems. Every single one. (And yes, I might be biased, because these comics are from my newsstand-era sweet spot — 1967-1973 — but I’m not wrong.) My guess is that only Jack Kirby ever had an achievement similar, or greater.

This Sub-Mariner page featuring Namor and Triton is the best Buscema superhero page I’ve ever owned, and unless an amazing opportunity comes my way, will likely remain that way. 

Dynamic inks from one of John’s favorite inkers, Frank Giacoia.

All action. 

Just terrific.

Sub-Mariner #3 Original Art Page From the Collection of Greg Goldstein

Gil Kane & Kevin Nowlan — Never Fade Away

Original Art and The Artists

Superman: Blood of My Ancestors, November 2003

Superman: Blood of My Ancestors is an unusual project. Gil Kane was the original penciller, but he passed away before he could finish it, and then John Buscema took over the penciling, and did manage to finish it — before his passing shortly thereafter.

So, when the book finally see print in 2003, both pencillers, giants in the industry were gone.

Kevin Nowlan provides finishes for both. (And as a bonus, because Kevin inked Gil’s pages, they won’t fade away like so many of the other Kane “marker era” pages from his latter DC comics career.)

Not a ton of Superman in this one-shot since much of the story revolves around an early ancestor of the House of El. In fact, most of the Buscema pages look like a classic barbarian tale.  Kal-El’s distant relative is a dead ringer for Conan.

Who knew?

Gil’s depiction of Superman in flight made the back cover of the one-shot as well. It reminds me a lot of this great house ad for Gils underrated run on Superman in the early 80s, just prior to John Byrne’s overhaul of the character and the mythos.

John Buscema — Ka-Zar, Man-Thing, Oh My!

Original Art and The Artists

Astonishing Tales #12, June 1972

Man-Thing (Seriously, what kind of drugs to you take to come up with a name like that?) makes his first color comic book appearance in this terrific Ka-Zar story illustrated primarily by John Buscema. 

Part of the story was slated to appear in the B&W Savage Tales #2 which did not see the light of day, so it was cleverly re-worked here. Because of the re-mixing, credits on this issue read like an all-star line-up, and include Buscema, Neal Adams, John Romita and Dan Adkins.

Writer Roy Thomas somehow made sense of it all, creating the framing story around Len Wein’s original tale.

Bonus: Man -Thing’s first overall appearance in Savage Tales #1 includes this glorious splash (below) by Gray Morrow.

Tom Grummett — Killing It Like Buscema

Original Art and The Artists

Chaos War: Dead Avengers #2, February 2011

Tom Grummett delivers a terrific modern homage to John Buscema’s original cover to Avengers # 52 from the “classic” Buscema era.

I’m not sure how you kill a “Dead” Avenger (I never did catch-up to this crossover) but the art is cool regardless.

We continue with our 60th anniversary celebration of the first appearance of the Avengers.

See you Tuesday.

John Buscema — Avengers Melee

Original Art and The Artists

Avengers #44, September 1967

The legendary John Buscema took over the regular art chores on The Avengers a few issues prior to this one, and quickly makes the series his own. 

In this second part of the story that introduces the Red Guardian to the Marvel Universe, we present a terrific action page that pretty much captures the melee madness of the cover.

(Spoiler alert: Turns out the Black widow wasn’t really a widow. But, as always, we digress.)

Welcome to the 60th anniversary (!) of the Avengers, who debuted as a team in 1963. 

To be continued…

John Buscema & Tony DeZuniga — Skull On The Seas

Original Art and The Artists

Savage Sword of Conan #191, October 1991

Roy Thomas returns to Conan for the first time in 10 years, and partners with superstar artist John Buscema, pretty much picking up where the pair left off in terms of innovative and exciting Conan stories.

In addition to astonishing talent, Buscema could be very productive in terms of his total output — in this stretch of Conan he is providing layouts and rough pencils only, freeing him up for other projects. Here Tony DeZuniga provides some nice finishing touches for John. (I think here you can see John’s obvious handiwork, which was not always the case with DeZuniga inks.)

Lots of ink — as it were — has been spilled on who was Buscema’s best embellisher on Conan.  See here, here, and here for illustrative discussions.

My opinions have varied over time, and sometimes from issue to issue. The debate itself is fun.

And the talking skull? Spoiler alert: It belongs to King Kull’s arch nemesis Thulsa Doom. (In fairness, Thulsa eventually gives Conan much grief as well.)

John Buscema and Tom Palmer — The Once And Future MCU

Original Art and The Artists

Avengers #268, June 1986

Ant-man has made much news lately with talk about the villain Kang (The Conqueror), who would be a cool choice as the next “big bad.” Time travel is his bag, and we know how that topic has already a few twists in Avengers Endgame.

Kang has given time-twisting headache to the Avengers and the Fantastic Four in the comic book pages. He could be an obvious thread to introduce the FF into the MCU. 

Or not.

Marvel has no shortage of interesting antagonists.

Because I devour time travel stories, Kang was a favorite among many great villains. Even when his story was, how shall we say? A bit convoluted.

In this 1986 story arc by writer Roger Stern, The Avengers have to contend with multiple versions of Kang, because, well, you know — time travel, the multiverse, alternate realities, that sort of thing. 

Legendary penciller John Buscema had returned to Avengers a few years prior, and, although he only provided breakdowns in most stories, Tom Palmer’s lush inks make this run visually compelling. 

VERY compelling.

The Avengers lineup at the time includes Captain America, The Wasp, Black Knight, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau version) and both Sub-Mariner and Hercules, the clothing-optional pair of the Marvel Universe. They all appear on this cool end page.

Of course, that’s just the East Coast Avengers. The 1986 West Coast branch includes an ever-changing line-up featuring Hawkeye, Tigra, Iron Man, and others.

But as always, I digress.

Next up this week: Ant-Man, The Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel… 

See you soon.

Get your scorecards out: Rama-Tut, Kang, Immortus and the Scarlet Centurion are all alternate versions of each other. Or not. Or both. You can look it up.

Joe Sinnott — 4Ever

Original Art and The Artists

Sketch, NYCC Convention Program, 1972

Joe Sinnott, easily one of the greatest comic book inkers of all time, and a terrific person to boot, passed away a few days ago. He was 93.

Joe drew the very first sketch I ever owned (and still do, BTW) in my convention program at my very first NYCC, 1972.

Reed Richards — Mr. Fantastic — was an appropriate choice, because Joe’s legendary inks on both Kirby and then John Buscema (and ultimately others) provided a polished, consistent look for “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.”

I own other art inked by him, but this one is extra special.

RIP Joe. Many thanks and salutes from all of us for your astonishing career.

https://greggoldsteincomicartgallery.com/sal-buscema-and-joe-sinnott-fireworks/

https://greggoldsteincomicartgallery.com/john-buscema-going-underground/