John Buscema passed away 10 January, according to the Comics Buyer’s Guide. Though he never topped my Top Ten list, and a lot of current comics readers may not have heard of him, he was one of the great classic Silver Age comic book artists. With apologies to Barry Smith, for example, Buscema was IMO the definitive Conan the Barbarian artist for Marvel. He also sticks out in my mind for his time on Captain America, Thor, and The Silver Surfer.
Buscema’s greatest strength was the ability to portray a powerful, yet graceful strength. His characters were Heroic, but any distortion to the human form came naturally — his muscular characters were simply larger than life, not steroid-hyped monstrosities.
His stuff still looks good today.
He will be missed.
It’s weird, because today I’m (finally) reading those Daredevil collections you loaned me, which I hadn’t realized were collections of classic older stories.
Frank Miller talks about him in the first books intro. Weird.
Ah. Yes, weird. And sorry for the confusion. Far as I’m concerned, that Miller stuff is the best thing going, as far as Daredevil’s ever been concerned.
The current Rucka quasi-novel about Elektra and Wolverine is turning out to be quite good. I’ll forward the collected version when it (inevitably) comes out.