Superman: Inks and Colors Appreciation

[Kuwagaton]

We all marvel at the beautifully rendered and expressive images of Superman, but we tend to see more names on print pages than web pages. Stalwarts like Glenn Whitmore, Dennis Janke, and Carl Gafford (honestly it gets tough figuring out colorists in the years before him as they weren't often listed) have contributed time and again to some amazing pieces of art and I figure we'd discuss some of them.


So Bob Oksner... if you asked me to list my favorite creators, I'd probably wince and apologize to all the people I was going to leave out. But Bob Oksner would be one of the first few I made sure to mention. When he inked Swan or Garcia-Lopez, or did the finished lines himself, he'd use nice thick lines and emphasize loose, cartoonish features. It made for a very pleasant aesthetic. Superman art had a very subtle, unique style due to the consistency of Oksner and his pencilling associates in a certain period.



Jerry Ordway was a tour de force. In addition to writing and pencils, he sometimes finished his own art complete with inks and colors. The reprints I've seen online and in trades, to be honest, often fail to duplicate the depth and warmth of his work. This page, where some other uglies try to steal his cape, is a pretty solid example of his fully finished art with Whitmore colors . He also did some pretty killer painted work, and got even better at it during his Shazam run.

[superduperman]

I don't think inkers get nearly enough credit for their work. As someone who both draws and inks, I can tell you inking requires much more skill! I actually enjoy it more than drawing. If I could get a job working at a major comic company, my first choice would probably be as an inker. Ordway is a great artist across the board. You can tell when he inks other artists work because he usually leaves his own style on it. I also think there are a lot of Superman artists that don't get their proper due. Like Bob McLeod. I think he's in the same category as Ordway but doesn't get the credit. I had a chance a couple years ago to have him sign some stuff at a convention and didn't take it and I'm still kicking myself over it!

[The World]

That looks god dang amazing. Honestly the techniques and methods of the older colorist and inkers kind of what makes that classic suit click for me.

[Kuwagaton]

Yeah totally. Effort makes anything work and Ordway is just a hard working guy. Fun fact: the one time he took a break from drawing Superman is when he drew the freakishly perfect looking Batman 1989 comic adaptation.

https://batman-news.com/2016/02/22/b...tation-review/

It's not a drawback, but one nitpick I have with his style is that inkers don't have a dramatic effect. Jurgens has a style that is very receptive to inkers, and he tends to get some nice, strong ones if not decades long collaborators.



Brett Breeding and Andy Kubert, who is just the one I would kill to see on Superman anything. Has a good track record of collabs with Jurgens, wish he showed up recently.



You can really notice the distinctions in his (family) style in Lois.

[Jim Kelly]

I remember that Bob Oksner said that when he came back to super-heroes and adventure characters in the '70s, he had to use a thinner brush line than what he had been using when he was doing the humour features. He had actually started out doing adventure and super-hero features in the '40s and only ended up doing mostly humour in the '50s and '60s--which he was great at.

But check out Bob Oksner's work on the short lived PAT BOONE comic. The Boones were neighbours of the Oksners--their children played together--so Pat gave Bob the comic book assignment. It's just amazing all the experimental things that Oksner did in those issues. Remember these are 10 cent comic books in 1959.