Let Us Now Praise Comic Professionals

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No, not the fancy-pants superstars w/ their emaciated waifs and their crotch o' tendons. I'm talking about the unsung folks that did the dirty work to make sure that funny books hit drugstore shelves every damn month, and did that work w/out so much as a "thank you" or "fuck you". Salut! You are what made comics great (before the industry went to shit up its own ass) (or something)!

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

AL MILGROM - for your countless years of ghost-inking and fill-in penciling, for your unparalleled competence on the first half of Roger Stern's tenure as Avengers writer, for proving the inherent unparalleled Midas-like touch of Joe Sinnot (your Avengers inker) applied to anyone he traced, for your sub-Kirbyian adherence to blocky folks that looked like plausible exaggerations of Real People, for bridging the gap between John Byrne's aborted Incredible Hulk run and Peter David's ascention to greatness, for making a sense of awkward graceless camp to Steve Engelhart's West Coast Avengers, and for doing lots of other things while holding it down in the Marvel Bullpen for 20+ years - I SALUTE YOU!

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

All colorists on the first Vertigo comics, for making it take me longer than six seconds to make me realise all the books were drippy scifi/fantasywank

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

And let's not forget Al's contribution to the Five Year Gap - writing The Quiet Darkness, which revealed the final fate of Darkseid in the Legion-era.

I'd like to nominate James Owsley, for tireless editing, Spider-Man/Wolverine #1, the awesome Spider-Man annual with Iron Man 2020, initiating the most successful 4-issue limited series of the 1980s (Transformers), and for giving it all up to become a bus driver before returning as Priest…

…although he never did deliver on the Giant Talking Robot Pirate Monkeys in Ka-Zar, the bastard…

― carson dial (carson dial), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

Don Heck. Not half bad at all, if you ask me.

― Vic Fluro, Tuesday, 14 June 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

Herb Trimpe to the thread! Underrated workhorse of Hulk and Marvel Team Up fame.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 00:45 (twenty years ago)

Al Gordon /= Al Milgrom

― kit brash (kit brash), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 01:16 (twenty years ago)

Thank you, Kit!

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 01:20 (twenty years ago)

Sal Buscema

― David Simpson (David Simpson), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 08:03 (twenty years ago)

oops *slinks away shame-faced*

(next time, I'll check ;))

― carson dial (carson dial), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 08:39 (twenty years ago)

AL GORDON - for being the 1A to Josef Rubenstein's 1, for allowing the natural line of the penciler come through in your ministrations, for giving Kevin Maguire's work on Justice League some much-needed grit that helped ground the BWAH-HAH-HAHs, and for my confusing you & Al Williamson - THE NEXT ROUND IS ON ME!

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

Al Gordon makes everyone look better. Though I guess it didn't hurt that the guy who'd been inking Giffen's pencils on Legion before him was a DeCarlo.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Praise be to Bob Lappan! Letterer (letterist?) on most of the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League stories (including the current JLA: C), he's a master of textual manipulation, adding at least (if not in fact more) as much to the humour as Maguire's mugs.

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 13:42 (twenty years ago)

Both my praise posts are chock-full of grammatical CRISES. Apologies.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Don Newton, may you rest in peace--although your post-Neal Adams/Milton Caniff mastery of anatomy and chiaroscuro was sort of a headscratcher when you took on Captain Marvel, it worked real well to define your New Gods as no longer so much in Jack Kirby's debt, and it was freaking amazing on your run on Detective Comics. Dan Adkins' inks went awfully nicely with your supple, determined line, too, and his polar opposite Alfredo Alcala didn't look half bad inking you either.

― Douglas (Douglas), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 14:09 (twenty years ago)

Tom Orzechowski (or however you spell it) : for lettering almost every single Marvel book in existence during the late 80s. Any man who letters Chris Claremont at his most prolix has my respect and the fact that he did it for years is positively mindblowing. I'm not a lettering freak (unlike Robert Kirkman, the weirdo) but his little lower case "huh?" cracks me up every time.

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

I think you got it right, SM!

DANNY MIKI - You broke into the business via Image during their "what, me? timely?" heyday as Rob Liefeld's go-to inker. And you survived. And you still have a career. A man among men. NO CAPS NECESSARY.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

LONG LIVE ELIOT R. BROWN!

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

BILL SIENKIEWICZ -- though you by far outclass 90% of your contemporaries (and have for almost 20 years), your name pops up in the oddest places, mostly in spots where I'd expect Klaus Janson's name to appear. I only hope the mad $$$ you pulled down while inking Spider-Man is allowing you to bankroll a project that will make Stray Toasters look like Barney. And if it's just mad money for blow and chicks, then play on.

― David R., Friday, 18 April 2008 19:38 (seventeen years ago)

Gerhard probably deserves 10 paragraphs, a shrine, a blank check from Bill Gates, and a rabies shot.

― David R., Friday, 18 April 2008 19:39 (seventeen years ago)

I would love to get him drunk and watch the stories spill out...

― Rock Hardy, Friday, 18 April 2008 20:00 (seventeen years ago)

wow - relevance:

Joe Rubinstein, last week doing a signing at my lcs, bitching about his erratic payment for jobs from both Jim Valentino and Rob Liefeld. Also: looking for a place nearby that serves decent sandwiches. (There was!)

― R Baez, Saturday, 19 April 2008 17:03 (seventeen years ago)

Tom Palmer- To me it doesn't matter who penciled The Avengers, if Tom Palmer was the inker it was going to look good. Palmer was also the best inker to work with Gene Colan.

Alfredo Alcala- The amount of detail that Alcala would ink into pages was some times amazing. It was almost like those fine German wood cuttings. Tom Palmer's inks always looked great on John Buscema, but the inks that Alcala did on some of the black and white Conan with Buscema are amazing.

― earlnash, Saturday, 19 April 2008 19:27 (seventeen years ago)

Tom Palmer - also the best ever inker for Neal Adams

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, 19 April 2008 20:26 (seventeen years ago)

Art Thibert. You sexy inker, you.

― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 19 April 2008 23:45 (seventeen years ago)

Gerhard probably deserves 10 paragraphs, a shrine, a blank check from Bill Gates, and a rabies shot.

To be fair on the mad bastard, Sim has always been very effusive in his praise for gerhard.

― chap, Sunday, 20 April 2008 01:59 (seventeen years ago)

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