The Vince Colletta Controversy

[samurainoir]

Anyone read this yet?


I have to admit that I was only aware of the controversy superficially until recently. The big tentpole being Colletta's tendancies to erase Kirby's pencils at the inking stage.

It is kind of fascinating how the dialogue has developed and evolved online with the publication of this book from Two Morrows.

Most do have a solid point that in his day, Kirby wasn't lionized the way he is now, and the fact of the matter was that they were working in disposable children's entertainment. There was no real mainstream movement to recognize the artform... from the standpoint of many who toiled in the industry at low wages it was the assembly line product that needed to get out onto the newsstands each and every month. To this end, it's in fact Colletta's professionalism, adherence to deadlines that made him to go-to guy for rush ink jobs. As much as it's a darn shame that Kirby's pencils were not completely retained in many documented instances, it would appear that contemporary commentators villifying Colletta might be a bit extreme.

After all, who knew that Kirby's work would in fact be of huge historical significance and value, and ultimately collected, reprinted and preserved the way it has been.

[clemso]

Love him or hate him, Colletta did add a certain distinct style to Kirby's Thor. He was horrible on his brief stint with the FF though.

[Brazoo]

This is very interesting to me - I'll check out this book for sure!

Surprisingly I've seen some bloody online battles about this!

Personally, I've never liked Colletta's inking. Thor is actually my least favourite major Marvel Kirby book because of it. I've felt that way long before I knew about the controversy. The sharp angles, unfinished look and sloppy cross hatching just never looked like much to me.

I believe Mark Evanier is the one who really opened this can of worms. According to what I've read by him, Colletta was a really well liked guy - and often used his friendship with management to get away with being a little lazy. Not just cutting corners artistically, but leaving work partially finished for underlings or inkers with less seniority to finish up, so Colletta's reputation as being dependable with deadlines is questioned as well.

I certainly don't curse the guy - and I agree that the vilification is slightly harsh. But that's critics for you!

I think the people at Marvel were genuinely interested in maintaining high quality. In the 60s I don't think Colletta's inking style was only disliked by a minority - so part of this is maybe to do with changing tastes as new artist came in.

And even then only a handful of artists would have been able to notice that Colletta was erasing some of Kirby's art. The only person at the time who could have noticed and said something was Kirby, and in Evanier's opinion Kirby just didn't care too much about how his pencils were finished. Kirby almost never inked his own work - until Evanier came around, he never requested inkers he preferred to work with and Evanier's the one who takes credit for getting Kirby to notice how shoddy Colletta's work was.

It's almost as if all the passion and energy Kirby wanted to spend on comics was at the drawing table. I don't think he thought of his work retrospectively at all until fans and journalists started pushing for him to think that way to get the stories of his creations.

[Surfsup]

I don't think I've ever seen a decent inking job from that guy, he seemed to ruin whoevers pencils he worked on. It makes a lot of the early Thor run unreadable for me.

[Earth 2 Chris]

There's been several articles in BackIssue that dealt with Colletta's tendency to erase details he didn't want to ink as well.

I'd really like to read this. I may have to get a copy at the next TwoMorrow's sale.

Chris

[Brazoo]

One of my favourite artists - Eddie Campbell - is a HUGE Colletta fan and defender. I kind of agree that Colletta did do some nice work - and I do like some of his pencils.

Anyway - here's the other side of the argument, if you're interested:

The Fate of the Artist: Vincent Colletta, my favourite 1960s "Inker"

EDIT: It's a cool article, but just to sum up Campbell believes that most people are judging Colletta's work by reprints that don't do Colletta's delicate linework justice. I agree that most of the reprints do make his work look worse, but I have original 60s Thor issues too, and the improvement is only slight, in my opinion.

[kingdom warrior]

Being the Huge Jack kirby fan that I am and having mostly all of Kirby's Thor run. I honestly never liked Colletta inks over Kirby. Too many fine lines he used a dip pen a lot that didn't mesh with Kirby's pencil that should always be inked with brush. Mike Royer IMO was the best inker on Kirby and why Kirby used him almost all the time later in his career.

I knew of Colletta's constant changes of Kirby's work back in the 80's....but never thought anything of it. Kirby's Superman faces were always changed and inked over.

Not true about Kirby not being a big thing I remember when I started going to conventions in the late 70's he was already a respected artist by fans and peers....
it just grew over the years when people realized the impact and amount of work Kirby did in his glorious career.......He makes even the best artist look like lazy bums....

[kingdom warrior]

Kirby almost never inked his own work - until Evanier came around, he never requested inkers he preferred to work with and Evanier's the one who takes credit for getting Kirby to notice how shoddy Colletta's work was.

Honestly he never had the time he was drawing three books a month and always doing promotional art for marvel....Kirby himself was a great inker

If anyone can get a copy of the Comics Journal #134 Feb 1990 issue Kirby is interviewed by Gary Groth here is a bit where Kirby talks about Colletta

Groth asks Kirby about Colletta

Groth:Let me ask you something that's been on my mind for many years. I thought Vince Colletta did not do your pencils justice.

Kirby:Yes
Groth: In Fact,he was one of the weakest inkers on your work,and he inked a lot of your Thor books. How did you feel about his work?

Kirby:I liked Sinnott the best. i like Mike Royer. Colletta was a good professional inker. but i didn't care too much for his particular style.

Groth: he seemed to mitigate the power of the drawing.

Kirby:Well there was nothing i could do about these things at any rate. It was the company that hired these guy, and it was the company that gave them the assignments.,and my part in asking for an inker was nil. I never made the choice.

Roz Kirby:Some of the inkers would actually erase the lines.

Kirby: Yeah. They'd erase my pencil lines. And so I could do nothing about it.I couldn't make those choices.My main concern was just making a living.I wasn't going to get temperamental and fight about inkers or anything else.I did what i had to do to supplement my family.

[Brazoo]

Being the Huge Jack kirby fan that I am and having mostly all of Kirby's Thor run. I honestly never liked Colletta inks over Kirby. Too many fine lines he used a dip pen a lot that didn't mesh with Kirby's pencil that should always be inked with brush. Mike Royer IMO was the best inker on Kirby and why Kirby used him almost all the time later in his career.

I knew of Colletta's constant changes of Kirby's work back in the 80's....but never thought anything of it. Kirby's Superman faces were always changed and inked over.

Not true about Kirby not being a big thing I remember when I started going to conventions in the late 70's he was already a respected artist by fans and peers....
it just grew over the years when people realized the impact and amount of work Kirby did in his glorious career.......He makes even the best artist look like lazy bums....

I love Royer's inks as well - but my personal favourite by far is Joe Sinnott.

Didn't DC sometimes get others to redraw Kirby's Superman faces to be more like model sheet images of the character? I didn't think that had to do with Colletta - but I certainly could be wrong!

I'm not sure, but I think samurainoir was talking about Kirby being lionized in the industry, not just by fans. I'd argue that he wasn't ever properly treated in the industry - and I think he was a star artist both at DC and Marvel, but still not given as much control and money as he should have gotten.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Al Plastino and Murphy Anderson redrew most of the Superman and Jimmy Olsen faces.

Chris

[kingdom warrior]

I love Royer's inks as well - but my personal favourite by far is Joe Sinnott.

I'm not sure, but I think samurainoir was talking about Kirby being lionized in the industry, not just by fans. I'd argue that he wasn't ever properly treated in the industry - and I think he was a star artist both at DC and Marvel, but still not given as much control and money as he should have gotten.

Sinnott was great on kirby's inks. Nobody was everyone was work for hire slaves churning out stellar work for little money. Most of the artist really wanted to do advertising because that's where the money was.

Kirby was beast and could just pump the art out like water....he had to take care of his family so he did what he had to to support them.

Kirby would be a multi millionaire if he was getting today's money back then......

[samurainoir]

I'm not sure, but I think samurainoir was talking about Kirby being lionized in the industry, not just by fans. I'd argue that he wasn't ever properly treated in the industry - and I think he was a star artist both at DC and Marvel, but still not given as much control and money as he should have gotten.

What Brazoo said.

Marvel was still messing with him around the original artwork to try and get him to sign retroactive contracts in the late eighties after decades of broken promises. I also think it says a lot that he had to do Superfriends and Toy Designs for him to reap any additional benefits from the DC work and New Gods characters.

I don't think there is any doubt these days that Darkseid is now DC's Doctor Doom given how he's appearing in pretty much all the DCU/Justice League cartoons, Smallville as the major villain this season, just about every major DC crossover seems to have some New Gods tie in.

With the ridiculous amount of wealth at their disposal, and many of the rights and profit sharing that creators are afforded now, it now seems rather short-sighted (in hindsight) for the Big Two not to have given up a percentage point or two for the long haul. Compared to what they pay in PR and marketing, it was pretty clear what could happen when Seigel and Shuster made their move against Warners (once again) opposite the release of the Superman film in the seventies.


Not that Kirby himself didn't suffer from this short-sightedness either. By siding with Marvel in court against Joe Simon, he was basically shooting himself in the foot. Marvel never did give him the payday they were dangling in front of him, thus both Kirby and Simon were left out in the cold when it came to Captain America.

It still baffles me to no end whenever I see fans coming out AGAINST creators and their heirs with these current ongoing lawsuits launched by the Kirby, Seigel and Shuster estates in recent years. All DC and Marvel had to do to avoid paying through the nose NOW was to give the smallest share back in the day. Dental Plans, health benefits, pension, royalties for TV/Movies/Toys/Bedsheets doesn't seem like such a high cost does it? I mean how much is the combined marketing budget of the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Captain America, Avengers, Thor, X-Men feature films in comparison?

[samurainoir]

Thanks for the link BTW...

[Brazoo]

Honestly he never had the time he was drawing three books a month and always doing promotional art for marvel....Kirby himself was a great inker

If anyone can get a copy of the Comics Journal #134 Feb 1990 issue Kirby is interviewed by Gary Groth here is a bit where Kirby talks about Colletta

Groth asks Kirby about Colletta

Groth:Let me ask you something that's been on my mind for many years. I thought Vince Colletta did not do your pencils justice.

Kirby:Yes
Groth: In Fact,he was one of the weakest inkers on your work,and he inked a lot of your Thor books. How did you feel about his work?

Kirby:I liked Sinnott the best. i like Mike Royer. Colletta was a good professional inker. but i didn't care too much for his particular style.

Groth: he seemed to mitigate the power of the drawing.

Kirby:Well there was nothing i could do about these things at any rate. It was the company that hired these guy, and it was the company that gave them the assignments.,and my part in asking for an inker was nil. I never made the choice.

Roz Kirby:Some of the inkers would actually erase the lines.

Kirby: Yeah. They'd erase my pencil lines. And so I could do nothing about it.I couldn't make those choices.My main concern was just making a living.I wasn't going to get temperamental and fight about inkers or anything else.I did what i had to do to supplement my family.

Sorry - I'm certainly not saying Kirby couldn't ink well, just that he almost never did. I was pointing out Mark Evanier's opinions about the whole thing.

With Kirby I think you need to look at multiple sources of info for his own history. Like everyone, his memory of events changed over time - and there are many direct interviews with Kirby at different times saying completely different things. I'm not trying to knock Kirby at all - I worship him - I'm just saying that his memories - particularly in the 80s and 90s interviews, are revised and influenced by other people.

Evanier claims that when he was Kirby's assistant he showed him how bad Colletta's work was - and Kirby was slightly dismissive at first. You'd assume with all the passion he put into his work he would be more picky with the final product. But the evidence shows he generally wasn't. The passion was for him and his drawing board only - it took other people to push him into fighting for his financial rights later, for example.

A lot of the other star comic artists went on to commercial work and made much better money in the early 60s - Kirby stayed with comics. That, I think, speaks volumes about a certain narrow mindedness he had for comics. He talks a lot about just working his butt off to provide for his family - and I don't doubt that - but I do think if cash was his main motive he wouldn't have stayed in comics, and his work wouldn't have been as great.

The way Evanier tells it (which, again, just makes the most sense to me) it had never really occurred to Kirby that he should try to control more of what happened to his product after it left his drawing table. He just seemed to have that singular commitment and drive to create.

I don't buy that he couldn't have said "I don't want Colletta inking my work" at almost any point. He wasn't treated great, but I can't believe they would have chosen to keep Kirby happy that way. It was really no benefit to Marvel or DC to keep Colletta over Kirby. And in fact when he did finally make that request at DC they did what he asked, so I honestly don't think it was part of his personality or mindset until it was pointed out to him.

For another example - It took him years to get peeved about Lee changing his work - and Lee was doing a lot more than erasing minor details.

[Brazoo]

Not that Kirby himself didn't suffer from this short-sightedness either. By siding with Marvel in court against Joe Simon, he was basically shooting himself in the foot. Marvel never did give him the payday they were dangling in front of him, thus both Kirby and Simon were left out in the cold when it came to Captain America.

I think Marvel sold Kirby on the idea that Simon was trying to take full ownership of Captain America. It's not hard to imagine that the pressure of keeping his current employer happy mixed with god knows what feelings about his old partner - I mean, who really knows the complex feelings Kirby vested in his opinions of Simon at that time.

I don't think Kirby had a good understanding of IP rights, and I don't think he liked to spend too much time on the business side. With hindsight it's easy to see how wrong Kirby was - but at the time it's not hard to imagine how he could have been that short-sighted - as you say.[/QUOTE]

It still baffles me to no end whenever I see fans coming out AGAINST creators and their heirs with these current ongoing lawsuits launched by the Kirby, Seigel and Shuster estates in recent years. All DC and Marvel had to do to avoid paying through the nose NOW was to give the smallest share back in the day. Dental Plans, health benefits, pension, royalties for TV/Movies/Toys/Bedsheets doesn't seem like such a high cost does it? I mean how much is the combined marketing budget of the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Captain America, Avengers, Thor, X-Men feature films in comparison?

It still baffles me as well. Even small dividends and royalties would have been life changing for these guys. It's just how things went at that time though. Record publishing is full of this stuff too. It will be very interesting to see what happens now that the Seigel Shuster rights being re-distributed and what happens with the Kirby estate.