Story It's being reported that Sal Buscema has passed away. Damn, the big names from my younger days are getting pretty thin on the ground.
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Story It's being reported that Sal Buscema has passed away. Damn, the big names from my younger days are getting pretty thin on the ground.
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Oh, no! I was paging through the Spectacular Spider-Man omnibus just minutes ago.
This one really hits hard.
Between Sal Buscema's long runs on The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, The Defenders, Captain America, Thor and Marvel Team-Up, not to mention guest and fill-in work on other books, like the Howard the Duck Marvel Treasury Edition, it's fair to say Sal Buscema has drawn nearly every Marvel superhero at one time or another.
I wasn't the biggest fan; I thought of him as Marvel's ace journeyman artist (especially after I saw some of his early work in one of Marvel's horror titles, and the art looked almost indistinguishable from John Buscema's work). But I recall a remark from Steve Englehart, who worked with Sal Buscema on The Avengers, that Sal Buscema always delivered what he as a writer wanted.
A real loss. Sal Buscema was the action scene penciler of choice for many, many of my favorite Marvel comics from the 1970s and 1980s.
I'm for honoring him as soon as possible.
I suggest honoring him on the "RIP Sal Buscema" thread.
I'll begin with these covers featuruing the "pre-Defenders."
I may not have said it, but I've long thought that without the less-popular (and faster) artists, we wouldn't have had half as many Silver Age stories to enjoy.
Apropos speed, Sal Buscema said: "[T]he truth is, I may not have been the best artist in the world, but I was fast as hell. I could really churn the stuff out and do a reasonably quality job, which is why Marvel kept me busy all the time. I would be working on my own stuff and they would call me and say, 'Sal, we've got this book that we need to get done right away, and we need to get it done quickly and well, and so on. Can you handle it?' And I'd say, 'Yeah, sure! Just make sure the check's in the mail'" At one point he was penciling and inking two books a month.
There's a reason why TwoMorrows Publishing sub-titled their Sal Buscema tribute book "Comics' Fast & Furious Artist."
(This cover is also available as a print, BTW.)
Speaking of tributes, Sal Buscema was the first to be honored by IDW in their oversized, limited-edition, slipcased hardover Marvel Artist Select Series. They released only a handful of these, so even being chosen at all is an honor. This volume celebrates the Buscema's Hulk run with a hand-curated selection of favorite issues chosen by the artist himself. Each copy is signed by Buscema and features a four-color acetate cover separation in a bound-in envelope.
Sal Buscema usually did not do the covers of the comics he drew. There is a reason for this (I have heard), but i don't know what that reason it. If anyone reading this post knows, please share it here. Meanwhile, here is a LINK to Paul Kupperberg's 13 favorite Sal Buscema's splash pages.
Below is one of my favorite Sal's more recent splash pages most of you will not have seen.
Buscema "only" inked this one (over Ron Frenz), but tomorrow I'll post an even more recent cover he both penciled and inked.
Sal kept working well into the 2Ks. Here is the first issue of [what I'm pretty sure is] his last regular series.
He is, again, inking over Ron Frenz, but the cover is all Sal.
(Here is the DISCUSSION on this board.)
Sal Buscema does the original X-men...
...and the new:
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