I've received an awful lot o' mail about my three-part article called "About Frank Robbins" — more than I think I've ever received about any one thing on this blog since the passing of Johnny Carson. Given how I'm sure the majority of those who read this blog have zero interest in old comic book artists, I'm amazed at the turnout.
If you haven't read the piece and want to, you can start reading with Part 1 here and it will take you to the others. If you have read it, proceed to the letters below starting with this one from my buddy Anthony Tollin. Anthony did a lot of work for DC Comics and is maybe the world's foremost authority on The Shadow…
When I was hired as DC's proofreader in July of 1974, there were only two issues of The Shadow for me to proof because the title was being cancelled with #8. Then it was suddenly put back on the schedule retroactively when the sales figures came in on issue #5, Frank Robbins' first issue! Sales on the title jumped considerably when Robbins replaced Kaluta, perhaps because Robbins had a lot of the Jack Kirby style action that had made Marvel a success. (This was before the direct sale market when most comics were still being bought by kids before the explosion of comic book specialty stores.)
I remember both Irwin Donenfeld (who ran DC Comics in the fifties and sixties) and Whitney Ellsworth (who did just in the fifties) telling me that the artist on a comic book didn't make that much of a difference to sales. I doubt it was as true as they thought it was then but it sure as heck wasn't true later. And given that The Shadow was cancelled three issues after Robbins left the book, it sounds like he really made a difference.
Next up is this message from Paul Levitz, who worked for DC back when Tony Tollin did. Paul wound up running the place…
So since you're writing about Frank, a factoid: when he was doing a wide variety of art for DC (and personally I think he might have done some of his best on a few mystery stories), he would mark the instruction on each page that the letterer shouldn't do balloons or borders (two tasks generally regarded as time consuming and routine). He wanted to do them and have the freedom when he chose to interpret them stylistically.
I went to an office supply store (remember those?) and had them make up a rubber stamp with the instruction instead. Frank got a kick out of it. A very friendly and talented guy. As you say sometimes miscast, often ill served by an inker when not finishing his own work, but a first class talent when not hampered.
And of course, when he wasn't allowed to ink his own work — as I keep arguing was a mistake — he couldn't do his own balloons or panel borders. So that Frank Robbins work was even less Frank Robbins. Moving on, here's a note from another buddy, Andy Paquette, who's a pretty terrific artist himself…
Thanks for the article on Robbins. I recently rediscovered his work and have been avidly buying up everything I can find by him. A lot of his stories for DC had covers by Neal Adams, thus ratcheting up the price, but I only care about the Robbins stories inside. For this reason, I don't buy them in slabs, something I will do for some comics because the cover is all I am interested in.
I prefer Robbins' comics for DC and Marvel to his excellent strip, Johnny Hazard, because they look less like Caniff and more like Robbins. The energy of his inking is fantastic, and the story content engaging. I didn't like his work when I was a kid, but can't get enough of it now. Thinking about the reason why I was less enamored of it then, I think it came down to the fact that his style was so unique that it didn't look like what I expected to find in a superhero comic.
Looking back on his work now, I think he was one of the best artists to ever work in comics.
I should also mention that I have come around to your point of view on Curt Swan. About a year ago, I started buying his work in quantity as well. The funny thing is that I liked those comics when I was a kid, but not the art. I didn't realize that Swan's plain vanilla drawing style was part of the reason I liked the stories, a large part of the reason.
A lot of the letters I received but am not running here said things like "I didn't like his work when I was a kid, but can't get enough of it now." And moving further on, here's one from Doug Pratt…
Thank you for writing about Frank Robbins! Fans who don't care for Robbins' drawing style are oblivious to what others see in his work. He was a total pro who knew his craft and could put exactly what he wanted on the page. I think Robbins' work on Batman and The Invaders is terrific.
He didn't need an inker, but the other Frank — Springer — complemented his drawings perfectly. Those who don't appreciate Frank Robbins as an artist should at least give the Man-Bat stories he wrote a try.
I'm going to disagree with you a bit, Doug. I think good work resulted when Frank Springer inked Frank Robbins…and also when yet another Frank — Frank Giacoia — did. But there was something wonderful in Robbins' work missing when he didn't do the whole thing. This is true of many artists and especially of guys like Robbins who for years did the whole job and were used to doing a lot of the drawing in ink. I'm sure he didn't pencil tightly for himself on Johnny Hazard and probably didn't closely follow what he'd penciled when he inked. Some of the other guys I mentioned who did outstanding work when they inked themselves (like Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, Dan Spiegle, Doug Wildey and others) really had problems penciling for someone else to ink.
The one real interesting pencil/ink combo for Robbins at Marvel was for me, a Morbius story in Adventures Into Fear #27. The inking was credited to "D. Fraser" who was actually Leonard Starr, best known as the man behind the Mary Perkins On Stage newspaper strip.
Starr didn't do much in comic books after the industry went into recession in 1956. Thereafter, his career was that strip plus advertising work plus later he did the Little Orphan Annie strip and also was the main writer behind the Thundercats animated series. But a couple times, he picked up extra dough inking for comics. I was once able to acquire a page from that Robbins/Starr Morbius story and you can see a scan of it if you click here. It's also missing a lot of what I loved about Robbins' work but it was kind of a neat one-time teaming.
I have a lot more e-mails here about Frank Robbins. There will be another one of these in the next few days that may not be the end of it.