Dan Jameson wants to know…
I understand that in most comics, one artist draws the comic in pencil and then another artist goes over his lines in ink and that second artist is called an "inker." But I sometimes see comics, mostly older ones, where the second artist is credited as an "embellisher" or sometimes a "finisher." What's the difference?
Okay, first thing you need to know is that a lot of credits — especially credits written by Stan Lee or by someone trying to sound like Stan Lee — have used these terms according to no firm definition or set of rules. Stan liked to make things like credit boxes sound interesting so he sometimes phrased things different ways just to be colorful. There are comics that said "Inked by Joe Sinnott" and comics that said "Embellished by Joe Sinnott" where Joe did the exact same thing.
However at times in comics, you have a situation where they decide to have the penciler (the first artist in the assembly line) do a little less of the work and to have the inker (the second) do more. Like, the first guy would do less-finished art with less-detailed backgrounds and the second guy would tighten things up or draw the background or something. When it came time to write the credits, some (I emphasize: some) composers of those credit boxes would use "embellisher" or "finisher" to denote more effort/input by the second artist. And the first artist's credit might be the same or something more ambiguous.
If you treat this kind of thing like there are firm, consistent rules, you're making a mistake.
While we're at it: Someone — in an e-mail I can't find at the moment — asked me a question about credits and you don't need to know the question but the answer would be something like this…
Sometimes in the production of a comic, usually because of a deadline problem, another artist may pop in for a few pages. For example, Frank Giacoia couldn't get Captain America inked by the date they needed it so he (or the editor) had Joe Giella ink a few pages. And that person might or not have been credited. Whether Stan Lee knew about the assist or not, he often did not credit someone who did a few pages.
Also: In the above example, it doesn't mean Frank Giacoia was at fault for not getting the work done. Sometimes, the company piles the work on and makes it impossible. You might have an exchange like this…
EDITOR: Frankie, I need you to ink a Hulk story by next Tuesday.
FRANKIE: I can't do it. I have to finish this Daredevil you gave me.
EDITOR: I'm in a jam here. Can't you get someone to help you?
I sometimes see a post on Facebook or wherever in which someone noticed a style change in the artwork and assumed the artist screwed up and someone else had to come to the rescue. Not always. I, with my extremely-limited skill set, once helped Alfredo Alcala out by inking a lot of backgrounds on a Batman story he inked for DC. Alfredo might just have been the fastest artist who ever worked in the comic book industry but even he couldn't grow an extra drawing hand when he needed one. DC had sent him three full issues to ink and they wanted them all, day after tomorrow.
It was not his fault he needed help…and I was not much. Even I can't look at the finished issue on which I assisted and see a trace of what I did. Alfredo called and asked me to come over and I probably helped him more by bringing dinner along. And of course, I did not receive credit for my inking or for stopping off at Pollo Loco on the way.
