I have a bunch of questions about inkers in comics like this one from Joe Frank. Those of you who have no interest in this stuff just skip these posts…
Loved both recent columns about Jack Kirby and his Marvel era inkers. Plenty I didn't know, especially that Steve Ditko would've ever recommended or requested George Roussos. I thought George did him no favors, to put it mildly, on both Dr. Strange and the Hulk. Nor Jack, for seven months, on the Fantastic Four. I am curious about two other inkers of that general time frame.
First, Wally Wood. If he was inking others, towards the end of his roughly one year Marvel run, why not Jack on the Fantastic Four or Thor? I know he did the Daredevil figures in F.F. #39 and the cover to Journey Into Mystery #122. He inked a number of Jack's covers and they were beautiful. Really standouts. Because they worked together so well on Challengers of the Unknown and Sky Masters, why not a reunion or a regular gig? Did Stan think Wally was of greater benefit over Don Heck (the Iron Man story in Tales of Suspense #71 and a three issue Avengers run in #20-22)?
Secondly, Frank Giacoia did wonderful work over Jack: F.F. #39, Journey Into Mystery #115 and many episodes of the Captain America strip. Why not enlist him? I've heard he was easily distracted. Was that it? I look at the Cap art and it was tremendous. Joe Sinnott was my favorite but Frank often came very close.
A lot of the questions as to why didn't this inker ink that comic have to do with two factors: Money and schedules. Frank Giacoia was working for several publishers at the time, most of which paid better than Marvel. He was trying to keep all his accounts happy and sometimes he had to say no to someone and sometimes, that someone was Stan Lee.
If he had promised to always make time for Fantastic Four, I'll bet he could have been the regular inker from #39 on…but he couldn't. It's the same reason that sometimes your plumber has to say, "Sorry, I can't fix your leaky faucet today. How about next Monday?" And you have to get someone else. If Marvel had paid better then, Frank might have been more willing to say no to the editors at DC or Western or wherever.
Also: Readers forget that all the comics that came out in the same month weren't always drawn the same month. At times, Kirby was way ahead on his books. He might be penciling the issue of Fantastic Four that would come out in November at the same time someone was drawing the issue of Sgt. Fury that would come out in August.
So maybe Wally Wood has just finished an issue of Daredevil. He turns it in and they have some time before he needs to start on the next one. And maybe Stan is too busy with other matters to discuss what's going to be in that next issue…but Wally wants to go home with some work so he can earn money. There's no issue of Fantastic Four ready to be inked but there is an issue of The Avengers sitting there that Dick Ayers is too busy to get to.
That's how an awful lot of these decisions were made. Wood was not assigned to draw Daredevil in the first place because Stan thought, of all the books Marvel was putting out, that was the best place for Wally. Wood was assigned to the comic because it needed a new artist the day he came by to look for work.
Here's an actual example. Around this time, Stan very much wanted to have Joe Sinnott start inking Fantastic Four but Joe, as I mentioned in another post, was working for Archie and Treasure Chest and Dell. When Marvel raised their rates a bit, he agreed to ink some things for them and one day, he called up and said, "Hi! I'll be ready to take on some work from you on Wednesday if you have anything."
But there was no issue of Fantastic Four waiting for an inker at that moment. Colletta was inking what would turn out to be his last issue, #43. Kirby hadn't drawn #44 yet or maybe it hadn't been dialogued and lettered yet. So that's why Sinnott inked X-Men #13 and the Captain America story in Tales of Suspense #71 before they had an F.F. for him to ink.
You can't always coordinate these assignments the way you want. If you look at the first issue of The Avengers that Wally Wood inked (#20) and at that Iron Man story you mentioned and at the Human Torch story Wood inked in Strange Tales #134, you may be able to discern something they all have in common…
In each case, Wood's name in the credits was lettered in by Wood himself. That's his lettering in there, not that of the man who lettered the rest of the credits. That means that when the story was lettered — the last step in the assembly line before it goes to an inker — they either didn't know who'd be inking it or they put someone else's name in there and Wood had to change it. Again, it was a matter of "This artist needs work right now and that story needs an inker."
It wasn't always that way. Stan (and Sol Brodsky who had some say in who inked what during this period) did have preferences but sometimes they couldn't assign their first choice or someone suddenly needed work.
As for Thor, people keep asking me why Stan kept Colletta on as its inker for so long. They don't seem to want to accept the obvious answer: Stan liked the way Thor looked when Colletta inked it. That was a creative decision, not one necessitated by scheduling concerns.
It may have helped that Colletta got a slightly lower page rate, thereby freeing up some bucks in the budget that could be spent on better-paid inkers like Sinnott, Wood or Giacoia. But Colletta inked Thor for many years for the same reason Carmine Infantino hired him to ink all of Jack's work for DC in 1970. The guy in charge thought Colletta was the best choice for the job. It involved him being cheaper but it also involved him being super-reliable and, as I keep telling people, they liked the way the art looked after Colletta inked it.
The fact that you might not doesn't mean that they didn't, just as Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby liked the way their work looked when George Roussos inked it.
