As inkers go the way of the dodo, it’s always good to celebrate them, as throughout comics history, “tracers” have done some amazing work on pencilers and added their own stamp to artwork we all love. So today, we wonder: What’s the best (in your humble opinion) combination of penciler and inker in comics history?
How I will answer this might be different from how you will. To me, the best inker/penciler collaboration means which inker made the penciler look miles better than if the penciler did not have the inker. My favorite inker of all time, Al Williamson, did amazing work on John Romita Jr.’s pencils when Romita worked on Daredevil, but I don’t think it elevated Romita’s work so far above when he was being inked by, say, Dan Green, nor do I think the art produced is so much better than other Romita work. It’s better, but not so much so that I can’t even look at Romita’s work unless he’s being inked by Williamson. Similarly, John Byrne’s pencils do improve when Terry Austin inks him, but not so much so that I’m willing to commit to that combination. I’m talking about a penciler who’s fine without the inker, but spectacular with them. That’s a tough needle to thread, but I thought of my example for some reason not too long ago and constructed the Question around it because I really do want to know what you think. You might pick Romita/Williamson or Byrne/Austin for different reasons. That’s perfectly keen with me.
I was tempted to pick Aparo inked by Sienkiewicz just to fuck with people, but even though I do think Sienkiewicz is a pretty good inker, it almost becomes his art because he’s so dominant, and his inks over Aparo’s pencils, while intriguing, are kind of weird. No, my pick does involve Terry Austin (probably my second-favorite inker of all time), but with Marshall Rogers on Detective Comics. Rogers had a long and decent career, but his work never looked as good as it did when Austin inked him on Detective (and, later, on Dr. Strange, but I’ve only seen a few of those pages). You can see several examples here, even though you all know what it looks like!
Unfortunately, I don’t think Rogers ever came close to matching the art on those issues, even though, as I noted, his work in subsequent years was fine. I’m not sure if age caught up with him, because Austin inked him in the sequel to this run almost 30 years later, and it’s just not the same. Maybe both of them had lost a step, which is too bad. Rogers was in his mid-50s at the time and he died not too long after the series came out, while Austin was just a few years younger than Rogers, so maybe they had slowed down a bit (Austin is currently 73, and I don’t know if he’s working anymore). I like Rogers, but I wouldn’t consider him a great artist … but for those few issues in the 1970s (and 1980s, if we count Dr. Strange), he was astounding, and I wonder how much had to do with Austin.
I know I haven’t seen all of Rogers’s work, so perhaps there are some things he drew without Austin that are amazing. That doesn’t change the fact that I think this combination on these issues is my favorite alchemical reaction between penciler and inker. Other art is better, sure, and other inkers do an amazing job, but this combination is superb. So, what’s your answer? Don’t be shy, people!
Gonna go really obscure and say Miller/Janson!
I’m sorry, I’m unfamiliar with those people. I guess they never did anything noteworthy in comics.
I’m going with Gene Colan and Tom Palmer on Tomb of Dracula.
Gene/Palmer art was fantastic on that run and much underrated.
That’s a good one. If you check out the link to the Al Williamson stuff above, you see that Williamson, oddly, was a pretty good Colan inker, as well.
Yeah that’s not bad at all, not many could ink Colan’s work effectively.
I had also forgotten that Williamson had inked Buscema on those early early Wolverine issues, they were good comics.
This is a good question. And I’m not sure! For one thing, a number of my favorite artists are at their best when they ink themselves. You also might want to choose an inker who enhances but doesn’t overpower the pencils. I love when Sienkiewicz inks anybody, but his style really takes over. I also think paper stock has something to do with it– some of the best inks came from being absorbed into old newsprint. But casting my mind to other favorite pencillers of mine…
My favorite Kirby inker is Mike Royer, but Joe Sinnott is close behind. Those few times Wally Wood or Steve Ditko inked him also produced a fun alchemy, though again, they transformed the pencils closer to their own style.
Romita Jr looks best with Williamson and Janson– and I feel those inkers have opposite effects on the pencils. Janson might be my overall favorite inker. I like a bold, inky line. You can always tell it’s him, but he doesn’t go too overboard.
But my answer might be another Batman team: Norm Breyfogle and Steve Mitchell. I’m a big Breyfogle fan, but inkers he worked with later on (especially on slicker paper) just couldn’t reproduce the same effect. But with Mitchell, he was definitive.
Back when I featured Breyfogle in the Year of the Artist, he hinted that he might have done most of the work, so I’d love to see his uninked pencils to see how much Mitchell added, because I know Mitchell is a good inker. He inked Sienkiewicz’s early Moon Knight issues, and those are pretty keen.
I tried this a few minutes ago and Captcha wasn’t working….
I don’t think it is my favorite, but I always liked Dan Jurgens with Art Thibert. Thibert might be a little overpowering, but I like the two together and it might be the first time I really noticed a difference between inkers.
Rogers/Austin is a good team. Aparo/Sienkiewicz is and interesting pairing. I don’t think 80s-90s Aparo was very good, but his mid-70s work was excellent. I think he was inking himself then, so Aparo/Aparo might be a good answer.
Now let me copy this so I don’t have to retype it if it gets lost (good thing I did!).
Thibert is a pretty good inker, and I think he adds nice gravitas to Jurgens’s work.
I first encountered Aparo in the late 1980s and did not love him, but, yeah, his 1970s work is stellar. I am pretty sure he did ink himself, but that doesn’t count here! 🙂
That’s weird about Captcha. It seems to be working for me, so I hope it doesn’t crap out on anyone else!
Another shout out for Tom Palmer but this time it’s for his inking on John Buscema’s art from their time on Silver Surfer and Avengers.
Also from a pure nostalgia pick, I’m going with Scott Hanna (whose been inking John Romita, Jr. at Marvel for a while now) on Graham Nolan’s art from Detective Comics.
Nolan’s art on Detective was really good. I’m sure I knew Hanna inked him, but I wouldn’t have been able to pull it out of my head without looking it up!
I would probably say Klaus Janson is my favorite inker of all time – he did incredible stuff over Miller, Sal Buscema, JR Jr., Rich Buckler, and many more. I don’t know if he’s part of my favorite penciler/inker team, though.
I feel like you can do a whole sub-genre of “favorite Kirby inker” – I’d probably put Sinnott, Everett, and Royer as my 1-2-3.
Final answer might be Bissette/Totleben because they each have a relatively small corpus of work independent of each other, but enough work that I feel fairly comfortable saying that they brought out the best in each other. Totleben’s style is definitely the dominant ingredient in their work together (in that a Totleben solo joint looks a lot more like their work together than Bissette solo does), but I think Bissette was very much penciling with Totleben’s eventual finishes in mind on Swamp Thing and his layouts and compositions are a little more striking than what Totleben would do on his own in Miracleman or some of his covers. Similarly, I like a lot of what I’ve seen of Tyrant and there are several good Swamp Thing issues penciled by Bissette and inked by Alcala or Ron Randall, but the Totleben-inked stuff is just a lot finer and more magical than the stuff Bissette did solo in my opinion.
With the Swamp Thing stuff, it’s so hard for me to distinguish who did what, so I usually leave it alone. I think I can tell Veitch’s stuff, but I can’t be sure. It feels like Totleben’s solo art on Miracleman was very close to a lot of the Swamp Thing work, but then I start doubting myself. I agree that their art together is lovely, but I just don’t know how much is Bissette’s pencils or Totleben’s inks.
Off the top of my head:
* Infantino / Anderson. Their Silver Age Flash covers especially.
* Richard Case / John Nyberg on Doom Patrol. I think it was Nyberg I preferred; been so long since I read DP. Any recommendations on Case generally, an artist I only know from that Morrison run?
* Rogers / Austin, Detective & Dr Strange. My views on them are very much the same, Greg. I’m mystified why Marshall Rogers’ later stuff didn’t shine: maybe it was Terry Austin sprinkling the magic dust after all. But as you say, Dark Detective didn’t sing. Age? Certainly Austin’s inking style HAD evolved.
* Miller / Janson, D.D. Klaus Janson was also great over Sal Buscema on Defenders: definitely what you were after, Greg, in the “these guys sing together” department.
* Adams / Giordano, the usual suspects!
* Palmer was equally, if not better, over Adams (Neal was probably his own best inker)…
,,,, but I want to reserve Tom Palmer for Gene Colan, Their work on Tomb of Dracula & Dr Strange was phenomenal. Very few “got” Colan.
* Byrne / Austin, again, no prizes for guessing on what.
…. mainly boring answers I know, but these guys are celebrated for a reason.
***
Others’ picks: Breyfogle/Mitchell; Bissette/Totleben were good ones.
I steered clear of Kirby since that’s a topic on its own – but if you had to pin me down I’d say Sinnott at Marvel, Royer at DC. But what other people said was fine.
Oh yeah, a favourite? Rogers/Austin, for lightning in a bottle striking twice, to sort of mix my metaphors.
Case did some issues of Shade very late in the run. I know he did a Vertigo mini-series, but other than that, I don’t know what else he’s done. It’s frustrating — I know some people do not like the art on Doom Patrol, but I think he fit the sensibility very well.
I haven’t seen enough earlier Infantino to have an opinion about him and Anderson. I like Infantino, but I’ve usually only seen his later work.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt Marshall Rogers’ Batman followups were not the revelation his first run was. Certainly, he no longer had the advantage of coming out of left field. But he was modeling the characters differently – with more of a 50s influence. It was still very good, but I absolutely favor the initial run. Austin’s inking had evolved as well, but I don’t think that was as jarring.
Penciler/Inker:
Swanderson, of course.
But I saw a story where Al Williamson inked Swan and it really turned my head. Would have liked to have seen more of that combo.
I always prefered Dick Dillin when he was inked by Frank McLaughlin.
For that matter, Novick/McLaughlin was the best Flash team for my $$$.
I recently saw a page for an unplublised (I think) Superboy story by Infantino & Janson that made me want to see more. I’m not sure if it counts, since it wasn’t published, and it was inked so heavily, an argument could be made that it was actually “layouts and finishes”.
Janson over Infantino would be weeeeiiiiirrrrrdddd, I would think!
You can find an Infatntino/Janson page here (it’s #5)
https://13thdimension.com/paul-kupperberg-13-comics-that-might-have-been/
Wow — that is weird! I kind of like it, though!
Hmm, late to this conversation; I’ll just go with something I noted at the end of my post last week: Kirby and Ditko. The latter is simply one of the best inkers for Kirby.
My pick is not the most high profile team…I think Doug Hazlewood’s inks over Tom Grummet’s pencils took him to another level. I remember when Tom was pencilling Superboy and Robin at the same time and had Doug inking him on Superboy and Ray Kryssing on Robin. To my tastes Robin looked very good, Superboy looked great!
That’s interesting. I like Grummett but never thought he was the greatest artist ever, so it’s neat that we can compare his work so directly with two different inkers!
@Greg (because I don’t like the reply feature)
I was going to say the Richard Case penciled Darkhold for Marvel, but after checking Atomic Avenue I see he only did issues 1 and 2 (two of the three issues I have).
Wikipedia says he did Ghostdancing, your Vertigo book, and the last arc in Hunter: The Age Of Magic. His first work was in Strange Tale (vol. 2) 10, and apparently that (and some Sandman pages) was all his penciling work before he moved to computer game illustration.
Steve Ditko/Wally Wood
Jack Kirby/Mike Royer
John Buscema/Alfredo Alcala for non-superhero work
John Buscema/Tom Palmer for superheroes
Neal Adams/Tom Palmer
Gene Colan/Tom Palmer
So what you’re saying is … you like Palmer! 🙂
Swanderson: Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. They were a fantastic combo, with Anderson livening up Swan’s pencils. Just look at their stuff in the Kyrptonite No More storyline.