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Comics’ Fast & Furious Artist

by Jim Amash with Eric Nolen-Weathington

S A L BU S C E M A COMICS’ FAST AND FURIOUS ARTIST Written by Jim Amash Edited by Eric Nolen-Weathington and Jim Amash Designed by Eric Nolen-Weathington Introduction by Walter Simonson Published by TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Dr. Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 www.twomorrows.com • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Trademarks & Copyrights

All illustrations contained herein are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders and are reproduced for historical reference and research purposes. The Abomination, Absorbing Man, Angel, Ant-Man, Archangel, Atlas, Avengers, Beast, The Beetle, Bishop, Black Knight, Black Panther, Bucky, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Carnage, Carrion, The Collector, Collosus, Cyclops, Daredevil, The Defenders, The Destroyer, Dr. Strange, Dragon Man, The Eternals, The Falcon, Fantastic Four, Galactus, Gambit, The Gardener, Goliath, Green Goblin, Goliath, Grim Reaper, The Gunhawks, Harry Osborn, Havok, Hawkeye, The Headmen, Hobgoblin, Hulk, Human Torch, Iceman, Invisible Girl, Iron Man, J. Jonah Jameson, Kang the Conqueror, Killraven, Lady Liberty, The Lethal Legion, Living Laser, Loki, Man-Ape, Man-Bull, Man-Thing, Mantis, Mr. Fantastic, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Nebulon, New Mutants, Nightcrawler, Nighthawk, Nightmare, Nomad, Nova, Odin, Phoenix, Power Man, Professor X, Psylocke, Quicksilver, Rawhide Kid, Red Skull, Rogue, Ronan the Accuser, Scarlet Witch, The Sentry, Shanna the She-Devil, She-Hulk, Silver Surfer, Sin-Eater, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man, Storm, The Swordsman, Thing, Thor, Ultron, Undertaker, Valkyrie, Venom, Vision, Vulture, Wasp, Watcher, Whizzer, Wolverine, Wrecking Crew, X-Men, Yellow Jacket, and all related characters are ™ and ©2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Marvel Comics logos and indicia are ™ Marvel Characters, Inc. Batman, Commission Jim Gordon, The Creeper, Green Arrow, Killer Croc, Mad Hatter, The Penguin, Robin, Scarecrow, Steel, Superboy, Superman, The Ventriloquist, The Visitor, Wonder Woman, and all related characters are ™ and ©2010 DC Comics. All DC Comics logos and indicia are ™ DC Comics. Johnny Hazard, Prince Valiant, and all related characters are™ and ©2010 King Features Syndicate. Doc Savage is ™ and ©2010 Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc. D/B/A Condé Nast Publications. Tarzan is ™ and ©2010 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Conan is ™ and ©2010 Conan Properties International, LLC. Johnny Hazard is ™ and ©2008 Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell, and Neil Vokes. Rom ™ and ©2010 Parker Brothers. Savior 28 and all related characters are ™ and ©2010 J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Cavallaro Editorial package ©2010 Jim Amash, Eric Nolen-Weathington, and TwoMorrows Publishing.

Dedication To my wife, Heidi, and to Roy Thomas for his patience and understanding. — Jim

Special Thanks The vast majority of the art shown in this book has been reproduced directly from original art or photocopies of the original art. This would not have been possible without the help of the following people, and we give them our sincere thanks for their help: Heritage Auctions — www.ha.com

Anthony Snyder of Anthony’s Comic Book Art — www.anthonysnyder.com/art Eelco Veldhuizen

and:

Terry Austin, Spencer Beck, Jeff Bell, Al Bigley, Jerry Boyd, Bruno Rey Fernandez, Edward Fields, Raimon Fonseca, Foundation’s Edge, Sam Newkirk, Joe Sinnott, Mark Sinnott, and Joe Staton

Table of Contents Introduction by Walter Simonson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Chapter One: Inspiration All Around. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Chapter Two: A Heroic Departurre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Chapter Three: How to Break in the Marvel Way . . . . . . . . . . 33 Chapter Four: The Workhorse Hits His Stride . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Chapter Five: A New Start with a Different Company . . . . . . . . . 87 Chapter Six: The Craft of Creating Comic Book Art . . . . . . . . . . 97 Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Chapter One

Inspiration All Around Jim Amash: You probably don’t remember when this happened, but I know you know when and where you were born. Sal Buscema: Of course. [laughs] I was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 26, 1936. My father’s name was John, and my mother’s was Sadie. My brother John was eight years older than I, born December 11, 1927.

(below) For many years, Sal participated in Friday night live model drawing sessions at a local college. While in his teens, he had to rely on drawing from the statues housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ©2010 SAL BUSCEMA

JA: Do you have any other brothers or sisters? SB: Yes, though unfortunately they’re all deceased. The oldest, Al, was born on July 28, 1923. My sister, Carol was born on June 22, 1929. JA: Who was the first one to draw in your family? SB: In so far as I can remember, it was John. I recall a couple of occasions — and this is a

recollection from when I was five or six years old — when my brothers both painted a landscape of some kind. It was sort of a friendly competition. I think they may have been painting from a photograph. They were both working in oils, and having a good time. It was just a fun thing that they were doing. John was always dabbling in this kind of stuff. He loved to draw and paint. I think Al — there was a very friendly sibling rivalry between them. They were very close, very devoted to each other. They loved each other dearly, as we all did. Al may have been kidding around and said, “Hey, I can do as well or better than you can. I’m going to paint a picture of this right next to you.” They both had canvas boards and a couple of easels. JA: What inspired you and John to draw? SB: My maternal grandfather, whom I never knew — my mother was just 13 when he passed away — was a musician by profession. He taught music; I believe it was the accordion that he taught. He also made accordions, and was an amateur artist. According to my mother he was quite good. She described in great detail some of the work he did. I believe he worked mostly in charcoal. I remember one description she related to us about a drawing he did that was rather large of this young boy and young girl running through a forest in a wind storm with the trees blowing around them. The way she described it was quite impressive. Unfortunately, all his work is lost. We never saw it, so I only have her descriptions to go by. But that may be where we got some of the genes. The earliest recollection that I have is of John sitting at the dining room table drawing. He loved to draw. I would say that John was greatly responsible for me pursuing drawing. He always said that as a kid I was better than he was. I’m not sure I agree with that, because I always believed that John was maybe not necessarily more gifted than I — although his drawing was much better. I did not consider myself a really good draughtsman by any stretch of the imagination, and

John was definitely much more dedicated than I. John was definitely an inspiration, but I got my inspiration from other areas, as well. I loved to go to museums as a kid. When I was in high school, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art as often as I could. It was almost like a home away from home for me. I particularly loved the room they had devoted to Michaelangelo’s sculptures. Of course, primarily they were all reproductions, but excellent ones. I just loved that room. I spent hours in there drawing the sculptures. JA: What time period are we talking about? SB: I went to a junior high school that was actually the first year of high school. So when I went to the High School of Music & Art in New York, which is now the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts — John went there also, by the way — I was actually in my second year, which would put me at about 14 and a half. JA: When you were drawing the sculptures, what were you paying attention to? SB: At that age you’re really not paying attention, Jim, because you’re so young. You’re a neophyte in whatever you’re endeavoring to do. I was simply trying to reproduce what I saw. That’s all. I was just having fun because I enjoyed drawing. JA: There were two high schools in New York: Music & Art and the School of Industrial Arts. Why did you choose Music & Art? SB: Probably because that’s the school that John went to. [laughs] Being eight years older than I, you have to consider that I was just a little kid when John was going to high school. John was kind of a hero to me. Even in later life he was a man that I greatly admired. If it was good enough for John, it was good enough for me. In later years I somewhat regretted it, because Music & Art was devoted to the finer arts, whereas Industrial Arts was devoted to commercial arts. And that was what I wanted to be: a commercial artist. When you graduate from Music & Art, you really don’t know anything about the commercial art industry, which is the field that I wanted to enter. In the Industrial Arts high school, you would have gotten some very, very pertinent training in that respect.

JA: Would John ever critique your work to try to help you? SB: Absolutely, constantly. I remember one instance. There was a photograph of an Oriental man, a rather large profile shot in Life magazine. I decided, “Oh, I’d just love to draw this,” and I drew it on a pad with a regular #2 pencil. I always showed my drawings to John and the rest of my family. He just flipped over it. “Boy, this is just terrific!” and he explained to me why he thought it was so good; that the pencil strokes I had used gave the flesh an almost breathable feeling. I’m paraphrasing what he said, but words to that effect. He was very encouraging. I remembered what he said, and tried to apply it to another drawing that I did of a similar head, but it didn’t come out nearly as good. [laughter] So what I did subconsciously did not work consciously. 7

(above) Sal’s older brother, John Buscema, at his drawing board, circa mid-1970s.

JA: Were you and John critical of each other’s work there? SB: Constantly. At that point, I’m a professional, he’s a professional. Even though he had been a professional quite a bit longer than I had, most of his experience was in comic books.

(above) Like John, Sal did not use models when he drew for comics or illustration work, but he does draw from models for his own pleasure and for the knowledge and experience he gains from it. ©2010 SAL BUSCEMA

JA: How long were you at Creative Arts Studio? SB: I worked for them for a couple of years. Then I got a call from New York from John. The comics industry had pretty much gone to pot. He had a job with an advertising/illustration studio in New York City called Alexander Chaite, Inc. Ironically, I had gone up to them for an interview years earlier when I first got out of high school, and I was turned down by them. Now I was presented with this opportunity because they wanted somebody in my mold. I filled the bill perfectly, which is why John called me. Joan and I moved to New York. We lived up there for about a year and a half. That was in 1961. JA: What was it like working in a studio with John? SB: We had a great time. It was the kind of studio where you were either working yourself to death or were sitting around for hours with nothing to do — sometimes for a day or two. At those times we would play chess and all kinds of silly stuff. It was just a great atmosphere, and I had a chance to work with some of the most gifted and talented illustrators that I have ever worked with before or since. It was a fabulous place in that respect. Bob Peak got his start there. John and I were doing mostly comprehensives, or comps, which are rough drawings of newspaper and magazine advertisements. We did them in color with pastels. They were fullcolor and there were certain techniques that you had to use, and it was something I had to learn how to do. It was rather difficult, because these had to look very, very finished, and working with chalk is not that easy. But they had some masters there, and I learned so much from these people. It was a fantastic education. 16

JA: So in this case it wasn’t as big brother and little brother, it was as equals. SB: Pretty much. He still looked upon me as his kid brother. He always did. But there was nothing wrong with that. I humored him. [laughter] JA: John had spent such a long time in comics and here he was doing something else. How do you think he felt about it? SB: He loved it, because he did not enjoy comics. He told everybody that, including me about 842,000 times. He loved what he was doing there; this was what he really wanted to do. I was very, very happy for him, because I felt that John should have been doing more serious work. He was that gifted. And the reason he got a job with this company was not because he knew how to do the kind of work they wanted him to do, because he had no experience doing that kind of work. He got it because of his drawing ability. When he showed them his samples and they saw his drawing ability, the first thing they asked him was, “Do you hire models?” He said, “No, I draw from memory.” They could not believe it. He got the job based upon that strength. I got the job because I had the experience. I had been in the field for two or three years. After a year and a half, things were not going well at the company, and I could see the handwriting on the wall. John saw it, too, and we both decided we’d better start looking around. At the time, one of the account executives at Creative Arts Studio, my good friend Mel Emde opened his own studio [Design Center] in Washington, DC, with a couple of partners who also came from Creative Arts. He was a very dynamic guy and I had a tremendous amount of respect for him. They said, “Any time you want, come on down and we’ll have a spot for you.” That’s when I left Chaite, who was out of business less than a year later. I worked for Design Center until 1968, when I got my first comic book job.

Chapter Two

A Heroic Departure

JA: John had already come back to comics before you got into the field. Why did John go back to comics? SB: John lived in Port Jefferson, Long Island, which is quite a distance from Manhattan. He had to commute, I think it was close to five hours a day. Maybe not quite that much, but pretty close. It was really wearing him out. He would get home very late at night. It was the type of business where if they asked you to work on the weekend, you had to work on the weekend. If he had to work at night, a lot of times he would miss the last train going out to Long Island, and have to spend the night in the city. He really hated that side of it. He loved the work, but he hated the commute. It was a real conflict for him. Ironically, he ran into Stan Lee on the street one day. They got to talking and Stan said, “Hey, the comic book industry is beginning to flourish again, John. Come and see me. We need guys.” When he saw that opportunity of being able to work at home, it was no contest. He took it up right away.

JA: What did you do? Did you make an appointment with Stan? SB: I actually made up six pages of pencil samples — just a very simple storyline. I used the Incredible Hulk as the character. Let me digress for a minute. I had to learn how to do comic books. I had never drawn super-heroes before. I had storytelling ability because of my training in film strips and that kind of thing, but I had no idea how to do comics. So I went out and bought a whole bunch of Marvel comics. I bought those drawn

JA: Why did you leave Design Center to go into comics? SB: For the simple reason that I’d always liked them. I didn’t have that [chuckles] hatred that John said he had. And it also afforded me the opportunity of working at home. That is a tremendous plus. You have that independence and freedom. I’m a fairly disciplined person, so I didn’t have to worry about goofing off. For as long as I’ve been doing comics I put in a regular five-day week, eight hours a day. I was commuting into Washington, DC, and the traffic was horrible. It took me over an hour to get to work and over an hour to get home, unless there was an accident and it took a lot longer. Once I added it all together and saw that comics were on the way back and things were going well again, I said, “Let’s take a shot and see what happens.” JA: So John didn’t suggest it to you. SB: Oh, no. As a matter of fact, I asked him, “Do they need guys?” and he said, “Yes.” 17

(below) Opening splash page from The Incredible Hulk Annual #14. It is fitting that Sal used Hulk in the samples he drew in order to get work at Marvel. Sal went on to draw The Incredible Hulk over an incredible tenyear run.

ART COURTESY OF EELCO VELDHUIZEN

JA: Back when you were more of a brush man, what would you use a pen for? Would you use it for texture or small faces? SB: No, when I was using a brush, I was using a brush, period. That’s it. When I went to pen, I used pen except for putting in big, solid blacks. You didn’t need a quality brush to do that.

(below) Take Roy Thomas’ advice and squint just right at this page from Avengers #68 and maybe you’ll see a little John Buscema, too. Inks by Sam Grainger. ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE

AUCTIONS

JA: Speaking of influences, there is a touch of your brother in your earlier work, and some people did compare you with your brother. How did it feel to be compared with him? SB: It didn’t bother me a bit. If you’re going to compare me, who could you be compared to that’s better? There’s no question in my mind, and not because he’s my brother, but being as objective as I can be, he was one of the most gifted artists I have ever known. When it comes to drawing ability, he’s equalled by

maybe two or three guys I can think of, and even that is questionable. Joe Kubert would be one. Joe Kubert is a phenomenal draughtsman. I would give John the edge, but Joe Kubert is tremendous. John was a lot more dedicated than I, and overall he was a lot more gifted than I am. I had no problem being compared to him, and I would readily admit he was a better artist. So were a lot of other guys. JA: Unless you’re Michaelangelo, there’s always someone better. SB: Exactly. But it was a fact of life, and he was my brother. There was no jealousy between us. It didn’t exist. JA: Roy Thomas said something funny. When he was writing Avengers, Stan kept calling John away to do another project, and you filled in. Roy said, “You know, Sal was very good. He followed John’s lead somewhat, and I followed Stan’s lead. If you squinted at the books just right, you’d think that we were Stan and John.” [laughter] SB He has a point there. It’s funny, and it’s true to a great degree. But the simple fact of the matter is I was just getting started. I had no problem looking at what other people did, and John was one of the guys that I looked at all the time. And it definitely showed in the work. JA: And because you were influenced by him, and you were also a Hal Foster and Alex Raymond fan, that’s why I think your work looks more illustrative than someone like Kirby, who was out of the Milton Caniff school to some extent. SB: I guess. I don’t know if we can put Jack into that kind of a pigeon-hole. JA: Jack himself said he was heavily influenced by Caniff. SB: And I have no doubt about it, but when he departed from that style, he became very unique. I don’t even see that influence anymore. Certainly not in Jack’s later work, because I think it suffered somewhat. I had the privilege one time I was visiting Marvel of seeing some of Jack’s finished pencils, and I was amazed. It was just so beautiful. And he made it look so easy. There was a young lady that worked up there, and she called it “the magic pencil.” [laughs] It was a good way to describe it. I never inked him, and I’m telling you I would have done anything to ink Jack Kirby.

Chapter Three

How to Break in the Marvel Way

JA: You worked on Sub-Mariner for a while, again with Roy. How did you feel about drawing underwater environments? SB: It was fun. It was better than drawing buildings. [laughter] JA: As you continued to work with Roy, did he still give you the same amount of plot? SB: Roy was very consistent. He gave you a plot, which means there was no dialogue, and he wasn’t telling you specifically what to draw. He wrote a plot that was very complete, but yet gave me tremendous freedom to do what I wanted to do. He may have called me and talked about certain aspects of the story for clarification purposes, but other than that, he would send me a plot and I would go to work. JA: What were your thoughts on the SubMariner’s personality? SB: I enjoyed the character primarily because he was off-beat. Also, because he was not of this world. He was of the undersea world — a rebellious type of character with enormous power. He could do everything, he could fly. He had the one weakness: If he was out of the water too long, he lost his strength. It was fun, too, in the sense that I didn’t have to draw conventional backgrounds. I had to draw all these wonderful undersea scenes.

JA: You left around the time you started inking Conan. I wondered if maybe that was the reason. SB: Maybe. You probably know this better than I do, Jim. That was when Barry Smith was doing Conan. I remember doing some work over Herb Trimpe on The Hulk. JA: What did you think of Herb’s pencils? SB: I hate to say this, but Herb was not a good draughtsman. I think he would be the first one to admit that. But Herb was a wonderful storyteller. His work was very graphic, which is one of the reasons Stan loved Herb’s storytelling. I think Herb wzs a very talented guy. Drawing was not his strength, but storytelling was. I think he did a terrific job on The Hulk, and I think I’m the only guy who drew The Hulk longer than Herb. He did it for about seven years, and I did it close to ten, I think. JA: If you got a penciler whose sensibilities were different than yours, how would you meld yourself to be part of a team? Joe Sinnott, like you said, when he inks someone, he always shows through. The same was true of you, but to a lesser extent.

JA: Did you feel like it was a challenge to make a regal man out of a guy just wearing swimming trunks? SB: No, it was very easy with him. I didn’t have any problem with that. I love the way John did it. John made him an almost godlike figure. JA: How did you feel about his arrogance? SB: That’s just one of the aspects that makes him a fascinating character. And he had a lot to be arrogant about. [laughter] JA: Why was your stay on Sub-Mariner so short? I think you were only there for a year or so. SB: I think they asked me to do something else. 33

(below) They say that clothes make the man, but in Namor’s case it’s all about the attitude. Here Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, in all his regality, prepares for a royal wedding. This panel comes from page 19 of Sub-Mariner #36. Inks by Bernie Wrightson. ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS

(below) Sal did pencils for the first nine issues of the Eternals twelveissue mini-series and had a variety of inkers. But for three of the issues, including issue #6 — a page of which is shown here — he inked himself. ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS

JA: Would a good plot lift you up, get you excited about drawing the story? SB: You know, I think the bottom line is that I’m kind of a workhorse. Whatever I got, whether I thought the plot was good — and I can recall reading some plots and thinking, “Oh, my God. This is a dog,” and with some it was, “Wow! This is really excellent,” and everything in between. That’s just the nature of the business. You’re not going to get winners all the time, you’re not going to get losers all the time. In my capacity as a professional, my thought was, “I’ve got to do the best that I can do with this, and work under these circumstances.” And that’s the way I approached it.

JA: You never got a storyline that was so bad that you said, “I can’t do this”? SB: There was one time I was doing a maxiseries with the Eternals. They asked me to do this twelve-issue maxi-series. I did the first one, and I thought it was fine. I liked what was happening in it. As it went on, I began to get this feeling that I had no idea where the thing was going. If I’m not mistaken, Ralph Macchio was the editor. I got about halfway through the series, and I called him and said, “Ralph, where is this thing going? It’s just rambling back and forth. I have no idea what is happening. What is going on? What is the writer doing?” I did another issue after that, then I called Ralph and said, “Ralph, look, I’m just not enjoying this. I think you should probably get somebody else to finish it up, because I have no idea what’s happening. I have no idea where this is going. It’s a rambling story that doesn’t seem to have any point to it, and I really don’t want to work on it anymore.” And Ralph understood. If I recall correctly, I think Ralph agreed with me. They called Walt Simonson and asked him to finish it out, because obviously it had to be finished. We had done the first four or five issues. Walt took over the writing with issue #10, and, being the monumental talent that he is, I’m sure he did a first-rate job on it and made it make sense. As far as I can recall, that’s the only time I ever did anything like that. I may have dropped books for other reasons, but that was the only time I dropped a book because I thought the plotting was just going nowhere.

Chapter Four

The Workhorse Hits His Stride

JA: Was there ever a case where an assignment came along that you liked better than what you were doing, and you asked to switch books? SB: No. JA: I thought your work sometimes suffered from doing breakdowns because of who did the finishes. Would you be more forgiving with someone finishing your breakdowns than with someone inking your full pencils? SB: You had to be, because you’re not giving them as much to work with. Under the circumstances, it was a necessity. During that period when I was doing pretty much nothing but breakdowns for Marvel, it was because that’s what they asked me to do. They wanted

to get more work out of me, and the only way I could give them more work was by doing breakdowns. Everything was there except the blacks. I did not spot the blacks. I didn’t mess around with textures that much. I would do a texture or design on a shirt or tie. JA: But you wouldn’t do rock textures. SB: No, no. Everything was done in line. All the details were there. There was nothing vague. The only thing the inker had to do was spot his own blacks. JA: How many pages of breakdowns could you do in a day versus full pencils? SB: On a good day I could breakdown four or five pages. That was a comfortable day. With

(below) Breakdowns for What If? #44, featuring Captain America versus his ’50s counterpart, which was inked by Dave Simons.

ART COURTESY OF WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/ ART

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(right) Sal got to have a little fun in this humorous double-page pin-up of the Defenders. ART COURTESY OF WWW.ANTHONY SNYDER.COM/ART

(following two pages) The Defenders square off against Nebulon and the Headmen in this commission piece.

ART COURTESY OF JEFF BELL

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(above) The Spectacular Spider-Man #146, cover dated January 1989. ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS

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Sal Buscema: Comics' Fast & Furious Artist