Art Spotting in general

[srca1941]

Once I become familiar with an artist's work I can usually see the way he draws as you describe. Ones like Pierce Rice, Ken Battefield, Ed Moritz, Maurice Gutwirth, etc. that I've been seeing since I started getting into GA comics, those I can spot looking at the whole body of the page. For ones I am not as familiar with, or have never seen before, that is when I have to study ears and other little "tells." Once I can spot those, then it's like a key opening a lock, and I can start seeing other things.

And I agree, Who's Who is a guide, not a bible. I frequently come across attributions that are off by a year, or are not listed at all. Take Daredevil Battles Hitler for instance. The GCD listings are not even close to accurate, and Who's Who doesn't even list most of the folks I've spotted as having done Daredevil in 1941. My attributions for that story are:

Chapter 1 (DD & Silver Streak): George Mandel
Chapter 2 (DD & The Claw): Unknown*
Chapter 3 (DD & Lance Hale): Harry Sahle
Chapter 4 (DD & Dickie Dean): Frank Borth
Chapter 5 (DD & Cloud Curtis): Emil Gershwin
Chapter 6 (DD & Pirate Prince): Harry Anderson (signed)

*I can’t shake the feeling that chapter 2 looks familiar, but I can’t place it. Maybe it just looks that way because I’ve studied it for so long. The closest I’ve come is possibly Edd Ashe, but I’m not convinced enough yet. I need to look at more of his work.

-Eric

[larrytalbot]

Re: Discussion of art styles.  I'm curious about the Simon & Kirby partnership.  In particular, the development of Kirby's style. I was surprised to learn that the artist for the early Captain Marvel Adventures was Jack Kirby.  Surprised (& disappointed) because of the amateurish quality of the artwork (compared with that of CC Beck & other Fawcett artists).  I take it that Simon was the senior partner because his artwork from this period seemed fluid & professional.  Later Kirby art under the Simon & Kirby label tended to look more & more like Simon art.  So, I take it that Kirby was learning his craft from Simon & came to emulate him.  It seems to me that it was only much later that Kirby evolved his own dynamic style easily distinguishable from Simon's. This Kirby 'timeline' is just a personal impression & I'm curious to know if there's any truth in it.

[srca1941]

Don't judge Kirby on his Captain Marvel. That's a case where he was supposed to follow the house style, which was still in flux by the way. I believe CMA #1 would have come out between Whiz #14 and 15. Beck was starting to solidify his style by then, but wasn't quite there yet. Another factor is Dick Briefer inked that issue. Years ago when I first learned that, and saw the book in Theakston's Complete Jack Kirby, it didn't really register because I wasn't familiar with Briefer. Looking at is right now, Briefer's influence is quite obvious to me, especially in the first story.

-Eric

[Yoc]

Larry, there is a Very indepth look at the evolution of Simon and Kirby's artwork together on the Simon and Kirby blog here -
http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/

It's a fascinating read!
-Yoc

Re: Discussion of art styles.  I'm curious about the Simon & Kirby partnership.  In particular, the development of Kirby's style.

[josemas]

Don't judge Kirby on his Captain Marvel. That's a case where he was supposed to follow the house style, which was still in flux by the way. I believe CMA #1 would have come out between Whiz #14 and 15. Beck was starting to solidify his style by then, but wasn't quite there yet. Another factor is Dick Briefer inked that issue. Years ago when I first learned that, and saw the book in Theakston's Complete Jack Kirby, it didn't really register because I wasn't familiar with Briefer. Looking at is right now, Briefer's influence is quite obvious to me, especially in the first story.

-Eric

Another factor is that Kirby's workload at this time was enormous.  According to Greg Theakston (in his recent two-part bio of Kirby-Jack Magic :The Life and Art of Jack Kirby) Simon and Kirby already were turning out about fifty pages a month of material for Timely and the work for Fawcett was done on top of this!  Kirby is quoted as saying he was turning out as much as nine pages a day! 

It's no wonder some of the material looks rushed. 

It was!

Best

Joe

[josemas]

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 (|:{>

One thing that I think could be done here on DCM is to use the Archives and Collections section to build files on artists.  You could have them set up by year (which I think is the most practical way for following an artist's growth and style changes).   So you could have Matt Baker-1948, Matt Baker-1949, Matt Baker-1950, etc...

Just a thought

Joe

[tilliban]

@josemas:
That really strikes me spontaneously as brilliant!

This was every DCM member could contribute his own special artist files.
Maybe we need a new "Artist files"-section...
But it would be a lot of piecework.

In general I was not thinking about a new picture data base of artist samples, but kind of a
blog where everybody can post mysterious art.
Art spottings would be done by posting a comment.
Could be done cost-free, right?
Blogs on blogspot.com are for free - or is it a question of data quantity?

[JVJ (RIP)]

Re: Discussion of art styles.  I'm curious about the Simon & Kirby partnership.  In particular, the development of Kirby's style. I was surprised to learn that the artist for the early Captain Marvel Adventures was Jack Kirby.  Surprised (& disappointed) because of the amateurish quality of the artwork (compared with that of CC Beck & other Fawcett artists).  I take it that Simon was the senior partner because his artwork from this period seemed fluid & professional.  Later Kirby art under the Simon & Kirby label tended to look more & more like Simon art.  So, I take it that Kirby was learning his craft from Simon & came to emulate him.  It seems to me that it was only much later that Kirby evolved his own dynamic style easily distinguishable from Simon's. This Kirby 'timeline' is just a personal impression & I'm curious to know if there's any truth in it.

I've lots more to say on the general topic here, but this post cries out for an immediate response. Your conjectures, IMHO, are 100% backward. Simon could never draw all that well, and certainly not very dynamically. What I've seen of pre-Kirby Simon work is not very "fluid and professional" - the very best of it would be the Fox covers of 1940 and those are poorly staged and very derivative. Kirby goes back three years before Simon even starts (witness his work on Eisner & Iger's strips from 1937). Kirby was the driving force and the real talent of the team - again IMHO.

The Capt. Marvel job is an anomaly and in no way indicates the capabilities of either artist.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JVJ (RIP)]

One thing that I think could be done here on DCM is to use the Archives and Collections section to build files on artists.  You could have them set up by year (which I think is the most practical way for following an artist's growth and style changes).   So you could have Matt Baker-1948, Matt Baker-1949, Matt Baker-1950, etc...

Just a thought

Joe

My thoughts on this are: why do we need a file on Matt Baker when we've got DCM and GCD to give us the information? Search for Matt Baker sorted by Date in GCD and then go look on DCM for what you find. Voila, you've got the info. I think we're past that sort of duplicating effort. If people want the info, it's there for them.

What we "need" is not for everybody to be able to identify well-known artists - I think that's pretty much been done, or can be done by anyone who's interested - but some way to put names to styles that haven't been I.D.'d.

Another approach would be to post a couple of pages of an unknown artist every day and get input on what people are seeing or think they are seeing.

My efforts want to focus on adding MORE names to the lexicon or comics or adding more credits to little known artists. YMMV.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[JVJ (RIP)]

Three more comments then I'll shut up and let other people talk:
1. I like Tilliban's "post a mystery artist" idea. But too many at once will dilute the effort. Space them out to allow for proper examination.

2. Eric's listing of his ID's on SilverStreak #1 would be a good place to begin. Five or six points of discussion should make for a lively jump start to the project.

3. No offense intended, but your question, LarryTalbot, is one that has been discussed to death in print and on-line for decades. I'd like to keep this "Art Spotting" thread free of any comparative bickering of who is better that whom. If you've read all of the Simon and Kirby and Simon material that's been published, I don't think you'd ask the question. If you haven't, you should do that first so we can discuss things with more shared knowledge. Just not here, okay? [By which I mean please start another thread and discuss it to your heart's content.]

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

Hi Jim,
If you've got a few pages of a specific 'mystery artist' you'd like to track down how about starting a new numbered topic and share the samples there?
Ie - Name this artist - mystery scanner #1' or something like that.  Each artist getting their own topic as time goes on.

And yes, Larry, we don't want to see bickering over the merits of Kirby, Simon or Lee.  They seem to turn into hot button topics on most other boards.  Let's keep this topic of general art spotting low key and none contentious as much as possible.  Thanks.

[JVJ (RIP)]

Hi Jim,
If you've got a few pages of a specific 'mystery artist' you'd like to track down how about starting a new numbered topic and share the samples there?
Ie - Name this artist - mystery scanner #1' or something like that.  Each artist getting their own topic as time goes on.

And yes, Larry, we don't want to see bickering over the merits of Kirby, Simon or Lee.  They seem to turn into hot button topics on most other boards.  Let's keep this topic of general art spotting low key and none contentious as much as possible.  Thanks.

Amen, Yoc.

Here's a thought. Go the scan of SilverStreak #1 and pull out a couple of pages from each of the first three chapters and put them into three different "mystery artist" threads with Eric's attributions for each as the second post in each thread. Go from there.

(|:{>

[srca1941]

From side discussion in an upload thread, to a topic, to a separate board in just a few days! Talk about a meteoric rise! 

-Eric

[Yoc]

Yep, when I see a good idea I think it's worth moving on it!
I'm starting the Daredevil Battles Hitler Mystery Artist topics now.

[narfstar]

One of my ideas to differentiate GAC and DCM is an artist centric section. DCM has character archives. GAC may have artist archives. Watch for changes coming to GAC. I started an art ID site. Would welcome visits and suggestions

http://narfstar.cwahi.net/ArtID/