Mike Sekowsky - underappreciated DC illustrator of the Silver Age?

[Buried Alien]

Mike Sekowsky supplied the illustration work for earliest years of the Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, but despite the historical significance of his work, Sekowsky seems a bit underappreciated compared to Silver Age stalwarts such as Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan, and Jack Kirby. Does Sekowsky's work merit a place in the pantheon along with those other illustrious (no pun intended) artists, or is there a reason that his work seems to be regarded as a step below that exalted level?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Thor2014]

Sekowsky always left me feeling cold, something about it. Sekowsky's art lacks the boldness of a Kirby or Infantino. I guess his art is serviceable but it doesn't wow me imo., its kinda bland.

On a related note, one person that I think gets overlooked often is Dick Dillin. I thought his art on Justice League just popped.

[Jim Kelly]

Mike Sekowsky continues to be an underappreciated artist. I think this is because his work doesn't fit in the same pigeonhole as other artists. And because it doesn't work how people assume comic art should work, they discount it. But he's a brilliant artists and I've seen other artists in books using his art as examples of great composition.

Sekowsky worked at Marvel/Timely in the '40s. He also did lots of freelance work for various publishers. In the early '50s he came to DC and stayed there (while still freelancing) until he left the publisher in the early '70s. After that he did some work for Marvel and then in the late '70s he started working for Hanna-Barbera where he was responsible for some of their most popular cartoon shows, including SCOOBY-DOO.

Mark Evanier worked alongside Sekowsky at Hanna Barbera and has written at length about his experiences alongside the artist.

My favourite series by Sekowsky is probably WONDER WOMAN, although there are a lot of other comics he's done that I really admire.

I think the most accessible for someone who says they don't like his art is his INFERIOR FIVE. E. Nelson Bridwell's scripts for that series could be overly pedantic--for anyone who loves Bridwell, his pedantry is very entertaining, but for those who aren't familiar with the walking encyclopedia, the humour might come off as a bit dry. However, you can always rely on Sekowsky to bring out the funny in the scene. And on that title he was inked by Mike Esposito, who really understood how best to embellish Sekowsky's pencils. After that creative team left I5 it was never quite the same.

It would probably be worthwhile checking out his early work for Marvel, where he had to use different kinds of styles for different genres. I should do that myself.

I suspect that if Mike Sekowsky had been at Marvel in the early '60s and he had worked on the other books that Kirby and Ditko didn't have time for (with characters like the Hulk and Iron Man, for example), we would probably be having a very different conversation about Sekowsky now. He had a dynamic style, a la Kirby, while being able to create exotic scenes, a la Ditko, and with the right inkers and the Marvel style of story composition, he likely would have gained a following with the Marvel readers.

[md62]

He was a decent artist but his work felt "static" to me especially compared to Kirby on Avengers.

[Jim Kelly]

Maybe one day I'll do a blog about Sekowsky. It's hard to explain in words why Sekowsky is so good and how his compositions are dynamic. It's much easier to show. But then I'd have to do a lot of scans and maybe buy some back issues of comics. And if I'm going to go to all that trouble I'd rather do it for my blog. So I'll put it on my long list of things I need to blog about when I have the time.

[Ed Love]

When I was a kid hunting back issues and looking at reprints, I admit to not caring about Sekowsky artwork. Too flat and two dimensional looking, especially compared to when Dillin came on board. But, none of the characters looked quite as good as they did in their individual features.

When I got older and thanks to reprints and the internet, looking at his pre-Justice League/DC days such as his work on Captain Flash, it seems so much better than the later work. On Captain Flash, it seemed to be a bit of a cross between Toth and Dan Barry.

Similar feeling on looking at Paul Reinman's work on the Archie heroes in the 1960s and then looking at his older work which was more vibrant, daring and having more sense of depth to it.

[Lee Stone]

I really like his work.

[Jim Kelly]

Another one I really like is Star Hawkins. That was a fun series for STRANGE ADVENTURES--combining the typical private investigator with a futuristic setting--think ROCKFORD meets JETSONS.

Looking through these, I see that Sekowsky had to work with verbose scripters. A lot of pages are crammed with captions and dialogue. Which was typical back then--it was more about telling the story through words and not relying so much on art. So the artists had to find a way to work with all that text. Sometimes Sekowsky would get big scenes to draw, but a lot of his work had to accomodate all the words.

[chance5]

I really like Mike Sekowsky's art, but not so mcuh on the Justice League where Bernard Sachs inking dulls down the energy and uniqueness of Sekowsky's art. Going back to the 50's and his art for the company Standard is pretty wonderful and follows Toth's lead (as a lot of Standard artists did) in figurework and great compositions. After he left Justice Leage he was inked by Giordano on Wonder Woman and then himself and his art took on that power again. He's a great cartoonist...but not in the hands of an inker who is not compatible with his style.

[Chazro]

He's a huge sentimental favorite from when I was a kid. JLA, Inferior 5, and this Thunder Agents work were favorites. But, IMO, he wasn't a top tier artist. Certainly not at Ditko's or Kirby's level. He was also dwarfed at DC by infantino, Swan, Kane, and Kubert!

[Jim Kelly]

As I explained on my blog post "SUPER-HEROES BY AND OTHER NAME WOULD . ..", one of the greatest comic books I ever got was SUPER-HEROES VERSUS SUPER-VILLAINS (1966). To me that was like the perfect comic book and what every other super-hero comic should try to be. I had no way of knowing who the writers or artists were. It was only a few decades later that I found the credits for this comic. All of the stories were written by Jerry Siegel and most of the art was by Paul Reinman, but Mike Sekowsky did the art on the Shield story (with Reinman inks)--which was especially awesome.

It always takes me by surprise when I see others panning the work of those guys. When I was a kid, they clearly did the job, since I loved that comic so much. And I still don't find anything wrong with it.

[Jon-El]

I can close my eyes & see his thick characters stiffly flying toward me. I only knew his work from reprints in the 70's. It's never been a favorite but I need to give his work another look. I used to not like Kirby as a kid & that changed. I remember some nice layouts.

Dick Dillin is extremely underrated to me! I just wish he'd had inkers with a lighter touch. Giordano was great for him but Frank McGlaughlin had too thick a line. His stuff is outstanding though.