Panelocity

Monday, October 17, 2016

Trimpe and Kirby (Pt 1) Incredible Hulk #122 and Fantastic Four #89

The late great Herb Trimpe's artwork was often called "Kirbyesque" so here we'll take a look at Trimpe's work on Hulk #122 and #123, which featured the Fantastic Four as guest stars. I never read Hulk back then but I was an FF fan, so for me it's fun to see these FF recalls.

Trimpe was not used to drawing the FF and it was important to keep such well-known characters on model. It's pretty apparent Trimpe used several then-recent Fantastic Four issues, chiefly #83-#89, for inspiration/reference.These issues were probably on hand in the Marvel offices--remember, Trimpe was part of the Marvel production staff.

Anyway, as we'll see in the next few posts Trimpe took some Kirby poses but added his own distinctive style to them. All in all, some great work by Mr. T!

Let's start with these covers, Fantastic Four #89 and Hulk #122. Both issues are from 1969: FF #89 was published in May 1969, around the time when Hulk #122 was being created, given a 4 month production lead time. Sure, there's Reed's fist in the forefront, but let's face it, that's a pretty common--and expected--Reed shot. Here I'm more interested in Sue and Crystal.

Aug. 1969: Fantastic Four #89 Jack Kirby Dec. 1969: Incredible Hulk #122 Herb Trimpe

A closer look at the two covers:

Here's a close-up of Sue and Crystal on the FF #89 cover...

...and on the Hulk #122 cover.

Monday, October 10, 2016

Popular Thing Pose by Kirby, Kane, Buscema, Buckler and Perez

Classic Benjamin J. Grimm: standard shots of Ben as punching bag.

Feb. 1968: Fantastic Four #71 Jack Kirby

Jan. 1973: Marvel Team-Up #6 Gil Kane

Dec. 1973: Fantastic Four #141 John Buscema

March 1974: Fantastic Four #144 Rich Buckler

Dec. 1976: Fantastic Four #177 George Perez
Perez changes the legs and adopts Buscema's open mouth expression

If Buscema's and Buckler's panels look familiar, it's because we've seen them before here and here. How do Kane's and Perez's stack up?

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Popular Panel Composition by Kirby, Tuska, Kane and Adkins

I know Kirby wasn't the first to use this rather standard composition, but I'm still betting Tuska, Adkins and Kane each had a copy of Tales of Suspense #60 nearby ;)

Kirby Tales of Suspense 60 Captain America

1964: Tales of Suspense #60 Jack Kirby

1966: THUNDER Agents #8 George Tuska

1967: Tales of Suspense 91 Gil Kane.

1967: X-Men 34 Dan Adkins

Fun fact: Both Tales of Suspense #91 and X-Men #34 were on sale in July 1967 (so, in preproduction around the same time).
I posted the Tuska version previously, but I'm including it here so you can compare it with these other Silver Age panels.