Comics / Cult Favorite

Thinking Inking

By Philip Schweier
February 5, 2011 - 14:59

I’m a graphic designer by trade, and recently I had a conversation with a colleague who expressed a great deal of unhappiness in his chosen profession. I don’t believe he was so much unhappy with the work itself, but with some of the clients with whom he has had to cope.

Graphic design is a creative business, which in itself seems like a contradiction in terms. Art and creativity rarely fit well with business and commerce. From a business standpoint, the creative bar is set ridiculously low, which often leads to frustration for the creative person.

For instance, there have been times when I have been called upon to design an ad, and the client will hand me another ad torn from a publication in another market and say, “I want my ad to look exactly like this one.” Such instructions effectively remove any creative effort from the process. At that point I become the “art robot,” a slave to the fact that I know how to use creative programs such as InDesign and Photoshop and the client does not.

Unlike my colleague, I don’t mind that so much. Such instructions may remove the creative process, but it also removes a lot of the thinking. Let’s face it – who wants to put a lot of thought into how to sell aluminum siding? I’d much rather get such a project off my desk as quickly as possible and move onto something with greater appeal.

For me, graphic design is a series of projects, some fun, others not so much. For my colleague, it’s art with a capital “A.” Neither of us are wrong, just different.

So having said that, let just say I understand the frame of mind of Vince Colletta, as presented in the book, The Thin Black Line: Perspectives on Vince Colletta, Comics’ Most Controversial Inker, by Robert L. Bryant Jr.

Colletta inked Jack Kirby’s Thor in the late 1960s, and later the Fantastic Four. When Kirby jumped over to DC Comics in the early 1970s, Colletta went with him. In the years that followed, Colletta developed a reputation as the go-to guy when a particular issue was running behind schedule.

First of all, let me explain that in the world of mass-market printing – magazines and such – maintaining a schedule was key. Each publication was allotted a specific time to be printed, and if production fell behind, presses stopped, leaving the operators with little or nothing to do, and sometimes adding the double whammy of overtime in order to catch up.

Or the presses might simply move on to the next scheduled publication, and the one that was late? Well, it could be a while, days or even weeks, before the schedule opened up. Naturally this delayed the shipping of the book, and the advertisers who bought ad space with the expectation it would be on the shelf for four weeks might only get two.

So from a business standpoint, guys like Colletta could be a savior, keeping a book from going off the rails. Of course, he wasn’t the only guy who could manage this feat. He simply had one of the strongest track records.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of the fans, he also had reputation for cutting corners. Sometimes he might erase background figures, or black them out. Three-dimensional building were turned into vertical ice cube trays under his pen. For artists who often poured a great deal of detail into their work, such shortcuts were no doubt looked upon unfavorably, especially when one such penciler was fan-favorite Jack Kirby.

Vince Colletta inks over Jack Kirby pencils

For Colletta to erase the pencils of the Man Who Would be King was an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the comic book fans the world over. In fairness, every artist has strengths and weaknesses, and not every artist is well-suited to certain genres. The Thin Black Line argues that Colletta was great at fantasy books such as Thor, but the Fantastic Four was a poor match due to the need for crisp lines, sharp angles and other storytelling elements that kept Colletta from drawing too much freehand.

Also, not every penciler/inker team is a good match. It boils down to issues of amount of detail or accurate anatomy, and understanding what to embellish, and what to ignore. Some of the artists quoted in the book point out that while Colletta did in fact eliminate some background elements in the name of speed, it rarely had an adverse effect on the story or the artistic layout of the illustrations.

Vince Colletta inks over Mike Grell pencile

I grew up in the mid-1970s and came to recognize Colletta’s work. I didn’t mind when he was featured on some books, because many of the characters had a certain generic quality that I rarely cared who drew them. Mike Grell was another matter. He was the first artist whose work I took notice of, and I preferred it when he inked himself. When Colletta inked in his work in the Warlord, I felt much of the fine lines of Grell’s work were being lost.

I appreciate Colletta’s work for its distinctiveness, and I appreciate Colletta’s work for his commitment to fulfilling what was requested of him. Sometimes a book fell behind schedule because of the writer or penciler or editor not caring enough about their own commitments, or perhaps real life simply got in the way. Whatever reason, it seemed to happen on several occasions that an editor asked Colletta, “I need it on Monday. Can you do it?”

Vince Colletta, as drawn by Michael Netzer

And Colletta, unlike many of his peers who may have been asked the same question, said “Yes.”

And true to his word, Colletta delivered. If the work was substandard, it might beg the question of who was to blame. The writer? The penciler? I don’t know, but I feel confident Colletta did the best he could in the time he had.

Because sometimes, comic books or graphic design or music or whatever art form stirs your soul becomes a business. And that’s what Colletta did – he took care of business.

Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12