One of the finest illustrative comic book artists ever, John Buscema worked his artistic magic on stories from ACG in the fifties, including today’s offering from
Forbidden Worlds #75 (1959). I was reading the ACG titles at the time; I remember Buscema and I marveled at his drawings. Marvel Comics readers also “marveled” at his drawings a few years later when he became one of Marvel’s most prolific action artists.
“Legend of the Clock” has a mood which I know well. Mrs Pappy and I visit antique stores quite often. Although we love them, we have never had an antique store manager give us a story like the young couple gets in this tick-tock tale. Ol' skeptic Pappy wouldn’t believe it, anyway.
Here are two 1959 stories from
Adventures Into the Unknown. Just click on the thumbnail:
I think that's the earliest John Buscema art I've seen. Like most people, I know him more for the work he did for Marvel from the mid-1960s on. Nice to know he was every bit as talented in the 1950s (and, really, why wouldn't he be?) as he was during what's now seen as his glory years.
ReplyDeleteIs John Romita next?
Ah, post-code mystery stories, most of them never seem to know how to end!
ReplyDeleteBuscema is fully formed here in 59, a good while before his glory days at Marvel. It's amazing work, in flow and in action. Really one of the greats of the period.
I can't stand the ticking of clocks so that thing wouldn't last a minute in my house!
Kirk, I don't have a lot of Romita's '50s work, except for some of the super hero work he did for Stan Lee in the early '50s. I understand he worked a lot in love comics, and so far his identifiable work has eluded me.
ReplyDeleteBrian, my memory is of a grandfather clock in my grandfather's house, a Victorian-era house where I spent a couple of nights as a boy. The damn clock chimed every hour, day and night, and I never got used to it, so I was awake all night while Grandpa sawed logs, able to sleep through anything, I guess.
ReplyDelete