Sal Buscema started at Marvel Comics in 1968, inking his older brother John’s pencils on “Silver Surfer”. In the 1970s and 1980s he became one of the fastest, most dependable, and most prolific artists at Marvel, drawing up to four books a month. His brother John could manage three books a month, and Jack Kirby, who was a real workhorse and incredibly fast and inspired, could turn out five books a month. So Sal fell in between. I don’t think Sal ever rose to the heights of his brother John or Jack “King” Kirby, but he did define the house style with his brother at Marvel in the ’70s and ’80s. Sal developed an instantly recognizable, rock solid, yet sketchy style of drawing that became more and more personal, showing a keen eye for composition. He preferred inking, but it was his pencils that really caught my attention all those years ago. His run on “The Incredible Hulk” was the ONLY time that comic was popular in Denmark. I didn’t take to his art right away, in fact in the early ’80s I thought he was rather bland on those Hulk comics. But then he took over “The Mighty Thor” from Walt Simonson and that was a minor revelation – he was a worthy successor on that book, creating some outstanding and dignified artwork of mythical proportions. Such was the impact on me, that after Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema’s stints on that title, the series effectively ended for me. I haven’t collected it since. And that was a long time ago. Sal was so prolific, it would be a gargantuan task to try and collect everything he drew. I don’t think I need “Nova” or “The Defenders”, for example. But his memorable run on “The Mighty Thor” has been collected in two trades and his 100 issues-long run on “Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man” was also remarkable, for that was where his style really matured and became very personal. That run has been reprinted in bw in four fat volumes of Essential. A true professional, it was a shame that Sal Buscema went into semi-retirement in the mid-1990s, but he did return to Marvel again this decade, inking Ron Frenz on “Spider-Girl”, another comic I don’t really need. Let us now enjoy a visual tribute to a true comics legend, the great Sal Buscema.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stjni_4lYbw

The two Thor trades:

Earlier this year, the first book on Sal Buscema was published by Twomorrows Publishing:

Sal Buscema: Comics’ Fast & Furious Artist (Hardcover) [Hardcover]