Art Spotting in general

[srca1941]

Your work is very much appreciated Jim. I've been attempting to learn/teach myself art spotting for years, ever since Jerry Bails educated me about the Cazeneuves and Pierce Rice, and pointed out a few spotting tricks to me. Who's Who, and this site as a reference (to double check my identifications against known samples), are invaluable to me. I'm confident enough to make "best guess" attempts with each scan I do, but it is indeed nerve-wracking at times simply because I don't want to accidently contribute to the glut of misinformation already out there. I always try to mark with a question mark when I'm at all uncertain about any I.D., and leave credits as “unknown” when I am really uncertain about something. I know that if I'm not careful I might lead others to bad identifications in the future.

It's always a pleasure to hear from more experienced spotters like yourself, and reassuring when I see you reach the same conclusions I have made, or would make. So it can't be said enough Jim, thank you VERY much for ALL of the contributions you have made to this site, and to fandom in general.

-Eric

[tilliban]

I agree with scra1941 - art spotting can be a nightmare!
But it is just hard routine.
Jim trained me to spot two dozen ACE artists. I enjoy this very much.
The frustration sets in when you realize that there are hundreds of artists out there.
So every little bit of training helps. The internet helps. GCD and DCM help.
We should open up an "Art Spotters Guild" of people who can recognize "their" artists.
Some specialize in spotting Charlton art, Harvey art, Quality art and so forth...
A list of people and their spotting abilities might help to get in toch with each other.
Imagine sample pages of unknown art being sent around through a mailing list and an international community of spotters taking their shots at it.
This could be fun!

[Yoc]

An art spotter league is a great idea T!
The Timely/Atlas gang were just lamenting the lack of Harvey spotters the other day.

[srca1941]

Sounds like fun to me, and a great way to learn to spot more artists!

Personally, I'm best with superhero artists. My weaknesses are humor/funny animal books, and spotting inkers unless they have a really specific style or are associated with pencillers I know well. For instance, I can pick out a few inkers who often worked on Ken Battefield's art at Nedor.

-Eric

[srca1941]

It's already (as Tillman will attest) getting harder and harder to dredge up the names that go with the styles - and there's no "reference" books that will take you from a style to a name. Sigh...

There may not be a style to name guide, but an artist database (kind of like Who’s Who, but not focused so much on credits) with JPGs of known samples and spotting tips would be possible, and very beneficial. A Wikipedia of comic book artists built by spotters. It would focus on artists' stylistic distinctions, little habits they may have had (like Curt Swan's tendency to draw the middle and ring fingers together), and general ways to spot an artist’s work. Hmm, this could have possibilities…

-Eric

[Yoc]

DocV keeps binders of the artists he's focused on.  I hear they are amazing to see.
I recall seeing some info on spotting Kirby vs Simon is shown on the Kirby Library site.

I Love your ideas Eric - 'make it so.'  

[JVJ (RIP)]

Your work is very much appreciated Jim. I've been attempting to learn/teach myself art spotting for years, ever since Jerry Bails educated me about the Cazeneuves and Pierce Rice, and pointed out a few spotting tricks to me. Who's Who, and this site as a reference (to double check my identifications against known samples), are invaluable to me. I'm confident enough to make "best guess" attempts with each scan I do, but it is indeed nerve-wracking at times simply because I don't want to accidently contribute to the glut of misinformation already out there. I always try to mark with a question mark when I'm at all uncertain about any I.D., and leave credits as “unknown” when I am really uncertain about something. I know that if I'm not careful I might lead others to bad identifications in the future.

It's always a pleasure to hear from more experienced spotters like yourself, and reassuring when I see you reach the same conclusions I have made, or would make. So it can't be said enough Jim, thank you VERY much for ALL of the contributions you have made to this site, and to fandom in general.

-Eric

You're very welcome, Eric.

I learned Pierce Rice from Pierce Rice, and it MAY have been me who taught Jerry. I no longer keep track of such things, if I ever did. Did you know that Rice roomed with Bernie Krigstein for a few months in the early '50s and that there is a one page Harvey Romance story on which they collaborated? I have a wealth of correspondence from him as well as photocopies of his pencils on some Harvey horror stories. Haven't look at that stuff in years.

I'll always remember Pierce as the man who gave me his duplicate copy of Maxfield Parrish's Knave of Hearts. Anyone who doesn't know that that is should look it up!

Oddly enough, I just pointed out on the Timely-Atlas-Marvel board some suspected Pierce Rice penciling on The Destroyer strip in All-Winners #4 and got not a single response. If you have the All-Winners Marvel Masterworks volume, perhaps YOU might give me some feedback. My comment was:

I'm looking at The Destroyer in this issue and I'm positive that Pierce Rice is penciling the last three pages. Can anyone else recognize his work enough to see if he's also penciling the first nine? It's maddeningly similar, but appears to have been finished more tightly by someone like Al Gabriele. Help!

Another interested set of eyes would be welcome.

The main problem I have with binders and databases is that, eventually, you have to pretty much know the answer before you use them. I'd have to know where to look - which binder, which time period etc. Because IF I had a binder full of samples of every artist, it would have to somehow be broken down chronologically as well: Jack Kirby in 1940 doesn't look much like Jack Kirby in 1960. Matt Baker in 1945 looks different that Matt Baker in 1953 who looks VERY different from Matt Baker penciling quicky science fiction stories in 1959. Bernie Krigstein is virtually unrecognizable in 1943. Gene Colan changed dramatically in the first decade of his career. When I gave him a copy of his first work in a Wings Comics of 1944, he looked at it and asked me "Why are you giving me this?" despite the fact that he had SIGNED the strip.

So, one sample will NEVER do. But, then, when you come across an unknown style in a 1948 book, you at least narrow your search parameters. Still, if you have pages/entries for EVERY artist, how are you going to find your unknown? Page through what might be THOUSANDS of  samples and hope that the style on the crime story you're looking at is similar enough to the superhero story that same artist did six years earlier and signed? Lots of luck.
 
Doc V's system functions because of Doc V's memory. Would that mine was still that good.

And then there is the problem of artists for whom this is a style but not a name. Hames and I searched for DECADES for the name of our "Mr. Mystery", "Watery Camy", "Stamps Cover Artist" and others for whom we just had "nick names". Now we know them as Mike Suchorsky, W.A. Smith, and Joseph Szokoli, but we're still looking for "The Bubble Artist", "Fox Elkan", "The Great Unknown", and many others. All again tied to memory: finding a story, remembering we'd seen the style before, remembering we'd given it a nickname, remembering the nickname, etc.

A site filled with samples would be wonderful, but you'd have the same problems that GCD and Wikipedia have: who watches over the integrity of the data? Since nobody knows everything and even well-intentioned honest folks often disagree about IDs, it becomes a logistical nightmare to keep such a site pure and accurate.

These notions have been contemplated before, though without the technology that exists today. i would LOVE it if such a site became viable. As often as I can I try to pass on what little (believe me, it's LITTLE) I know with my books or with comments on a DCM scan post. Still, there aren't enough hours in the day to catch everything and, frankly, most of it I DON'T know. I'm certainly open to ideas and willing to help if I can.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JVJ (RIP)]

An art spotter league is a great idea T!
The Timely/Atlas gang were just lamenting the lack of Harvey spotters the other day.

And yet again none of them asked for information that I probably possess, Yoc. In fact, some of them were saying that if a strip wasn't signed there was no way it COULD be identified for sure. I never want to force my opinion on to anyone, so I pretty much took this statement as a request to shut up and leave them alone.

C'est la vie.

(|:{>

[srca1941]

A lot to comment on there Jim, so I'll just tackle the Destroyer for now.

That's a good spot. I didn't catch it, probably because the inker(s?) masks Rice so well. One of the things I most associate with Rice are his rubbery hands and wrists. I really see that in this story, particularly this panel from page 4:

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/9107/allwinnerscomics04destr.jpg

I can also really see him in the girl's faces (Flora) on pages 5, 6, 7, and 12. Her face, and all faces, on page 8 look off, but I suspect that's just the inker. The figures on that page still look like Rice to me.

-Eric

[Yoc]

Hi Jim,
I recall you asking for opinions on The Destroyer but sadly it was lost in a flood of off-topic baseball and a half dozen other topics all going on at the same time.  Like standing in a big party and trying to carry on a conversation with several groups at once.  Important points are going to get lost in the noise.  That's why I like this SMF forum software where topics can be self-contained though we frequently go off topic as this thread is a good example.
I'm going to break this off from the rest of the 'tilliban and sundancetrance uploads' thread.

I don't recall seeing that comment about 'if it wasn't signed it can't be identified.'  That's absurd and I'd have thought shot down on the group.  I've been a member there for years Just to read the posts from as die-hard a group of well informed people as exists.  The Kirby vs Lee and Ditko vs Lee topics bore me to tears but thankfully don't plague the group as bad as it might have been at one time.  Now I just have to ignore the baseball banter.

I hope you'll continue to contribute your thoughts there Jim.  I know the majority have a huge respect for your knowledge on so many points.

-Yoc

And yet again none of them asked for information that I probably possess, Yoc. In fact, some of them were saying that if a strip wasn't signed there was no way it COULD be identified for sure. I never want to force my opinion on to anyone, so I pretty much took this statement as a request to shut up and leave them alone.

[John C]

In fact, some of them were saying that if a strip wasn't signed there was no way it COULD be identified for sure.

Ha!  If one was going to go that far, why trust the signature...?  Or can they not wait for the latest Alan Smithee flick?

[srca1941]

Thanks for moving this to its own thread Yoc! It's certainly a deserving topic.

As for the "if it wasn't signed it can't be identified" quote, I agree, it's absurd. I can understand it from a legalistic standpoint of there always being room for doubt and debate, but that can still exist even when something IS signed! [EDIT: John beat me to it!]

-Eric

[Yoc]

What seems to work is having the spotters all look at a questionable page or two and saying 'ok, who did this'  And letting people express their opinions.  It certainly seems to be knowledge that is very hard to hand down without a LOT of work as Jim pointed out.  But he and Hames have been working together for years and their system seems to work.  If it could be brought to a digital forum like here it might speed things up for them but that's just a suggestion.

I know I speak for the staff when I say Jim is an incredibly generous and valued member of DCM (and GAC) and he's ALWAYS welcome to share his thoughts on anything he'd like to.

-Yoc

[srca1941]

There is a lot of time and visual memory involved in spotting, and I think someone has to be pretty detail oriented to pick up the skill, but it can be learned. When I'm trying to I.D. an issue, such as one I'm posting here, the first thing I do is look for a signature, or initials. (Assuming it's an artist I can't spot right off the bat.) Failing those, I search Who's Who and see who is known to have done that particular feature or series. From there I eliminate or confirm artists I am familiar with. If I eliminate all the artists I know, then I look up the bodies of work of the artists I'm unfamiliar with, find something that I know they did (either in my collection or here) and start comparing the work.

If the known work is similar to what I'm trying to I.D., then I fall back to what Jerry Bails told me to do, and look at the ears. Even though artists change their styles over the course of their careers, or will use house styles and stock poses when drawing main/recurring characters, they almost always seem to draw their ears the same. If the artist in the unknown sample draws ears the same way as in the known sample I am comparing to, then I know I may be on to something, and will look for other similarities. If the ears are not the same, then I look closer anyway, as inkers can often cause discrepancies like that. If the two samples are close enough (and that is where it gets really subjective), then I will usually attribute the work to the artist, but put a question mark behind the credit to indicate that the attribution is only a best guess. If the works are sort of similar, but I still have significant doubts (again, subjective), then I leave the credit as “unknown.” It’s hardly an exact science, and relies a lot on gut instinct, but it is a place to start.

-Eric

[JVJ (RIP)]

It's difficult to explain, Eric,
and I don't want to in any way disparage your techniques and approach, but what I "see" is the WAY the artist draws (not elbows or ears or girls or any one thing). You're absolutely right that inkers hide an awful lot (often quite awfully), but the one thing that is the hardest to hide is the story-telling and what I call the "body positions". Looking at that one Pierce Rice Destroyer panel, the way the bodies are flung around the panel, with elbows flying and (well-said) rubbery limbs, it simply screams Pierce Rice.

In addition to your other "tells", the Who's Who is the most relevant in that one needs to understand the career paths of each artist and to get a feel for whether or not there is an historic possibility that he or she could be working for this company at this time. I was just looking at some Timely work from late 1942 and early 1943 that has yet to be identified and I am nearly convinced that it is early Gil Kane. I went to Gary Groth's TCJ interview with Kane to learn what I could of his early career and it's possible (despite Groth not pinning him down on dates) that he was at Timely freelancing at that time. The WW has him there in 1943 and not on the features I was reviewing.

Which brings up another point: the Who's Who is NOT the last word on the subject. It's a beginning and an incredibly grand and useful one, but it's incomplete and occasionally in error. Which mean YOU might be right and Bails might be wrong. A month or so before his death, Hames and I had finally convinced Jerry that L. Bing was NOT Munson Paddock. Proof positive, not argument on Jerry's part, well done, etc. Jerry died before removing the entry and it remains "permanently" ensconced in the WW to this day. "m just sayin'.

I like your approach of "eliminating artists you're familiar with". I think that's a wise approach. So many people spot a panel or a figure that reminds them of someone and say, well, it must be so and so. Just look at that panel - totally ignoring the rest of the strip that couldn't possibly have been drawn by said artist. And there's always what I call "the story." You have to be able to explain a credible scenario that allows the artist to be working at this company at this time. For instance, it would not be easy to come up with a story that would explain a Gil Kane story at Atlas in 1958.

Sadly, there are simply too many unknowns for Yoc's suggestion of a posted page with solicited opinions to work. Believe it or not, there are as many "unknowns" as there are "knowns" in comics from 1936-1960. Most people won't want to accept that fact, but it's true. I'd welcome someone starting such a site, but how do you organize it? It's hard to alphabetize an unknown...

Peace, Jim (|:{>