"Big" John Buscema was a comic book artist
whose talent made him an industry leader throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Having worked on nearly every major Marvel title throughout his prolific career,
John Buscema had a great influence on the comic industry.
He took the bold and bombastic imagery that Jack Kirby perfected and brought it to
a new level with sleek anatomy, graceful figures and expansive layouts.
His distinctive style and ability to flesh out characters visually helped bring a whole new generation of readers to the comic genre.
Perhaps best known for his long run on
CONAN THE BARBARIAN, Big John also did
classic runs on
THE SILVER SURFER and THE AVENGERS, as well as
FANTASTIC FOUR.
He also had runs drawing company staples such as
The Amazing Spider-Man,
Daredevil,
Wolverine
and
The Mighty Thor as well as classics like
Tarzan,
Doc Savage, and
Howard The Duck.
He also translated Marv Wolfman's character concepts for
The Man Called Nova into
comic-book life by fully realizing Wolfman's rudimentary design for the character.
The inker with whom he worked most often was Joe Sinnott, who also worked for Marvel.
In today’s comic world you can find shades of Buscema in the work of nearly every comics artist, but perhaps most heavily
in the likes of
Carlos Pacheco,
Tom Grummet,
Alan Davis,
Scott Eaton,
Ivan Reis, and
Andrea Divito, to name a few.
If Kirby began the “Marvel look” in the 1960s, then John Buscema re-defined it in the early 70’s (after Kirby left Marvel).
He also taught a generation of artists how to draw comics with the superb
how-to manual
HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY.
Big John was Stan Lee’s “Go-To Guy” after Kirby left for DC Comics.
Buscema began drawing comics in the 1950s and continued working for the next five decades, working with DC Comics for the first time in 2000.
He died on January 10, 2002, at the age of 74, shortly after he had completed drawing the first issue of
Justice League Of America: Barbarians.
He had been diagnosed with stomach cancer a few months earlier.
In 2002 John Buscema was posthumously inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame.