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byJim Amash withEric Nolen-WeathingtonbyJim Amash with

Eric Nolen-Weathington

ComicsFast&

FuriousArtist


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Table of Contents

Introduction by Walter Simonson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter One: Inspiration All Around. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Chapter Two: A Heroic Departurre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter Three: How to Break in the Marvel Way . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter Four: The Workhorse Hits His Stride . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter Five: A New Start with a Different Company . . . . . . . . . 87

Chapter Six: The Craft of Creating Comic Book Art . . . . . . . . . . 97

Art Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

DR. STRANGE, HULK, SILVER SURFER AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


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Jim Amash: You probably dont remember

when this happened, but I know you know

when and where you were born.

Sal Buscema: Of course. [laughs] I was born

in Brooklyn, New York, on January 26, 1936.

My fathers name was John, and my mothers

was Sadie. My brother John was eight years

older than I, born December 11, 1927.

JA: Do you have any other brothers or sisters?

SB: Yes, though unfortunately theyre all

deceased. The oldest, Al, was born on July 28,

1923. My sister, Carol was born on June 22,

1929.

JA: Who was the first one to draw in your

family?

SB: In so far as I can remember, it was John.

I recall a couple of occasions and this is a

recollection from when I was five or six years

old when my brothers both painted a land-

scape of some kind. It was sort of a friendly

competition. I think they may have been

painting from a photograph. They were both

working in oils, and having a good time. It

was just a fun thing that they were doing.

John was always dabbling in this kind of

stuff. He loved to draw and paint. I think Al

there was a very friendly sibling rivalry

between them. They were very close, very

devoted to each other. They loved each other

dearly, as we all did. Al may have been kid-

ding around and said, Hey, I can do as wellor better than you can. Im going to paint a

picture of this right next to you. They both

had canvas boards and a couple of easels.

JA: What inspired you and John to draw?

SB: My maternal grandfather, whom I never

knew my mother was just 13 when he

passed away was a musician by profession.

He taught music; I believe it was the accor-

dion that he taught. He also made accordions,

and was an amateur artist. According to my

mother he was quite good. She described ingreat detail some of the work he did. I believe

he worked mostly in charcoal. I remember

one description she related to us about a

drawing he did that was rather large of this

young boy and young girl running through a

forest in a wind storm with the trees blowing

around them. The way she described it was

quite impressive. Unfortunately, all his work

is lost. We never saw it, so I only have her

descriptions to go by. But that may be where

we got some of the genes.

The earliest recollection that I have is ofJohn sitting at the dining room table drawing.

He loved to draw. I would say that John was

greatly responsible for me pursuing drawing.

He always said that as a kid I was better than

he was. Im not sure I agree with that,

because I always believed that John was

maybe not necessarily more gifted than I

although his drawing was much better. I did

not consider myself a really good draughts-

man by any stretch of the imagination, and

6

(below) For many years,Sal participated in Fridaynight live model drawingsessions at a localcollege. While in histeens, he had to rely ondrawing from thestatues housed at theMetropolitan Museumof Art.

2010 SAL BUSCEMA

Chapter OneInspiration All Around


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7

John was definitely much more dedicated

than I. John was definitely an inspiration,

but I got my inspiration from other areas,

as well. I loved to go to museums as a kid.

When I was in high school, I visited the

Metropolitan Museum of Art as often as I

could. It was almost like a home away from

home for me. I particularly loved the room

they had devoted to Michaelangelos sculp-

tures. Of course, primarily they were all

reproductions, but excellent ones. I just

loved that room. I spent hours in there draw-

ing the sculptures.

JA: What time period are we talking about?

SB: I went to a junior high school that was

actually the first year of high school. So when

I went to the High School of Music & Art in

New York, which is now the LaGuardia High

School of Music & Art and Performing Arts

John went there also, by the way I wasactually in my second year, which would put

me at about 14 and a half.

JA: When you were drawing the sculptures,

what were you paying attention to?

SB: At that age youre really not paying

attention, Jim, because youre so young.

Youre a neophyte in whatever youre

endeavoring to do. I was simply trying to

reproduce what I saw. Thats all. I was just

having fun because I enjoyed drawing.

JA: There were two high schools in New

York: Music & Art and the School of

Industrial Arts. Why did you choose Music &

Art?

SB: Probably because thats the school that

John went to. [laughs] Being eight years older

than I, you have to consider that I was just a

little kid when John was going to high school.

John was kind of a hero to me. Even in later

life he was a man that I greatly admired. If it

was good enough for John, it was good enough

for me. In later years I somewhat regretted it,because Music & Art was devoted to the finer

arts, whereas Industrial Arts was

devoted to commercial arts. And that was

what I wanted to be: a commercial artist.

When you graduate from Music & Art, you

really dont know anything about the com-

mercial art industry, which is the field that

I wanted to enter. In the Industrial Arts

high school, you would have gotten some very,

very pertinent training in that respect.

(above) Sals olderbrother, John Buscema,at his drawing board,circa mid-1970s.

JA: Would John ever critique your work to

try to help you?

SB: Absolutely, constantly. I remember one

instance. There was a photograph of an

Oriental man, a rather large profile shot in

Life magazine. I decided, Oh, Id just love to

draw this, and I drew it on a pad with a reg-

ular #2 pencil. I always showed my drawings

to John and the rest of my family. He just

flipped over it. Boy, this is just terrific! andhe explained to me why he thought it was so

good; that the pencil strokes I had used gave

the flesh an almost breathable feeling. Im

paraphrasing what he said, but words to that

effect. He was very encouraging. I remem-

bered what he said, and tried to apply it to

another drawing that I did of a similar head,

but it didnt come out nearly as good. [laugh-

ter] So what I did subconsciously did not

work consciously.


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JA: John had already come back to comics

before you got into the field. Why did John go

back to comics?

SB: John lived in Port Jefferson, Long Island,

which is quite a distance from Manhattan. He

had to commute, I think it was close to five

hours a day. Maybe not quite that much, but

pretty close. It was really wearing him out. He

would get home very late at night. It was the

type of business where if they asked you to

work on the weekend, you had to work on the

weekend. If he had to work at night, a lot of

times he would miss the last train going out to

Long Island, and have to spend the night inthe city. He really hated that side of it. He

loved the work, but he hated the commute. It

was a real conflict for him.

Ironically, he ran into Stan Lee on the

street one day. They got to talking and Stan

said, Hey, the comic book industry is begin-

ning to flourish again, John. Come and see

me. We need guys. When he saw that

opportunity of being able to work at home, it

was no contest. He took it up right away.

JA: Why did you leave Design Center to gointo comics?

SB: For the simple reason that Id always liked

them. I didnt have that [chuckles] hatred that

John said he had. And it also afforded me the

opportunity of working at home. That is a

tremendous plus. You have that independence

and freedom. Im a fairly disciplined person,

so I didnt have to worry about goofing off. For

as long as Ive been doing comics I put in a reg-

ular five-day week, eight hours a day. I was

commuting into Washington, DC, and the traf-

fic was horrible. It took me over an hour to getto work and over an hour to get home, unless

there was an accident and it took a lot longer.

Once I added it all together and saw that

comics were on the way back and things were

going well again, I said, Lets take a shot and

see what happens.

JA: So John didnt suggest it to you.

SB: Oh, no. As a matter of fact, I asked him,

Do they need guys? and he said, Yes.

JA: What did you do? Did you make an

appointment with Stan?

SB: I actually made up six pages of pencil

samples just a very simple storyline. I used

the Incredible Hulk as the character.

Let me digress for a minute. I had to learn

how to do comic books. I had never drawn

super-heroes before. I had storytelling ability

because of my training in film strips and that

kind of thing, but I had no idea how to do

comics. So I went out and bought a whole

bunch of Marvel comics. I bought those drawn

17

Chapter TwoA Heroic Departure

(below) Opening splash

page from The IncredibleHulk Annual#14. It isfitting that Sal used Hulkin the samples he drewin order to get work atMarvel. Sal went on todraw The Incredible Hulkover an incredible ten-year run.

ART COURTESY OF EELCOVELDHUIZEN

HULK AND 2010 MARVELCHARACTERS, INC.


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by Jack Kirby and Gene Colan and all the guys

who worked for Marvel, and literally worked

every night for about a year to learn how to do

these things. I was that determined to do it. I

thought my wife was going to divorce me.

[laughter] Literally, I would come home from

work, wed eat dinner, and Id go down to my

studio. I had a studio at home even though I

didnt do any freelance work. And I would just

work and practice, and work and practice.

JA: What were you concentrating on?

SB: How to produce a dynamic page. When I

saw what guys like Kirby and Gene Colan,

and my brother, and Jim Steranko were

doing, I would draw up a page and I would

look at it and say, God, this is awful. It took

me a whole year working practically every

night and every weekend. There were also

some things going on at the studio where I was

working that I was not happy about, so thiswas a very, very attractive alternative.

JA: Did you show the samples to John?

SB: Oh, sure. The first few samples I did

which I thought were okay, he ripped them to

shreds. He said, Youre going to be compet-

ing with guys that can put this stuff to shame.

Youve got to be as good as they are. He crit-

icized them over the phone, and essentially

what he said was, Your drawing is okay.

Everything is okay, but you need to become

150% more dynamic. The stuffs just got to

fly off the page. You have to be much more

powerful. What youre doing is too passive

and too quiet. That was the kind of thing

Stan wanted from all of his guys. The first

time I talked to Stan he went through that

same spiel. He told me he wanted everything

to be powerful. Once you draw it and you

think its good enough, redo it and make it

even better. In other words, John was relat-

ing to me what Stan had related to him.

So I went back to work some more. He sawthings that I was not able to see at the time.

Once I got into the business, then I realized

what he was talking about. Once I got the

hang of it I made up those six sample pages of

pencils just pencils, which I regret,

because I wanted to be an inker. [laughter] I

didnt want to pencil. My first few jobs for

Marvel were inking jobs, but I did those while

working for Design Center. I wanted to work

full-time for Marvel, so it was out of necessity

that I penciled.

JA: What did Stan Lee think?

SB: He loved them. He asked me to come on

up to New York, which I did, and I went

through the most fantastic interview Ive

ever had in my life. [laughs] Stan was leap-

ing on his chair and his desk, just to relate to

me physically what he wanted on a comic

book page. It was fascinating and it was

charming all at the same time. He made the

sound effects, the whole nine yards. I

thought the guy was going to leap out the

window. He demonstrated every other wayyou could possibly demonstrate what he

wanted on those pages the dynamics and

so on.

JA: Did you have to go home and do more

samples?

SB: No, they started me on The Avengers,

which was a nightmare because it was a group

book, and those are the most difficult to do. I

believe Sam Grainger was the inker.

18

(above) A photo of Salduring hisAvengers daysused in Marvel editorialmaterial.

(below) For this 1969cover illustration forMarvelmania Catalog#2,Sal reworked his splashpage fromAvengers #71.

ART COURTESY OF JERRY BOYD

ALL CHARACTERS AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


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25

JA: So if you drew a character sneering,

youd be sneering.

SB: Oh, absolutely. And everybody does that.

I remember John doing that all the time. The

few times I did work with John, I would look

up sometimes, and hed have a real snarl on

his face.

JA: Were you identifying yourself with those

characters? Were you putting yourself in

those scenes?

SB: Not really. I tried to feelwhat was hap-

pening. If somebody lunges at somebody else,

youve got to feel it. You want to feel the

impact of the blow. You want to feel the fist

going past the guys jaw. Youve got to feel

that inside you before you start drawing it.

JA: Jack Kirby told me once that sometimes if

he was angry about something, that anger

would come out on the page. Did you ever feelthat way?

SB: I didnt let what was happening to me

personally effect what I was doing on the

page. But when youre working on the page,

youre living the moment of the page. Youve

got to, otherwise it wont work.

JA: How did you develop your concept of

character design and costume design?

SB: I dont know if I ever had it. [ laughter]

People dont think thats one of my strong

points. Later on, into the 80s and 90s, I gotfairly good at it. I dont think I ever created

any characters that were very prominent.

Im not sure I ever had a great feeling for it.

Creating characters and costumes was not

one of my strong suits. One of the ones that

lasted for a while was the Falcon. John

Romita drew the initial costume, but they

wanted to jazz it up a little, which I did in a

Captain America story. I redesigned his cos-

tume, and they loved it. I thought, Oh, my

God. Its just awful. They thought it was

great. What do I know?

JA: In the early days of you working for

Marvel, how often did you go to the offices?

SB: I would probably go up there three or four

times a year. Every two or three months or so.

JA: What were your impressions of Sol

Brodsky?

SB: Sol was the nicest guy in the world, a

great human being. I loved working for him,

and I think everybody else did, too. If you did

something he didnt like, he would yell at you

on the phone. Come on, Sal. Get with the

program, or something like that. But he was

a terrific guy.

I remember one thing specifically. It was

the first Silver Surfer book that I inked over

Johns pencils the one with Thor [issue #4].There was a one-panel close-up of Loki, who

was supposed to be in a spirit form, so the

holding figure lines had to be very, very light

to make it seem like he's not flesh and bone.

Sol called me and said, Sal, this is weak. Its

not such and such and so and so. Sol, this is

what the story calls for. There was a pause

and he said, Well, okay, but this is what I

want you to do with it. He sent it back to me,

and I had to redo a few things on the head. I

think it was because Sol didnt want to admit

that he was wrong. [laughter] I wont accusehim of that, really, because he was a great guy

to work for, and I got very, very few calls from

Sol about anything like that.

JA: Did you spend any time with John

Romita?

SB: One specific time was when they asked me

to do a Spider-Man story. I believe they were

considering giving me Amazing Spider-Man,

which I think John was working on at the

(above) Cap may beavoiding the issue, buthes right. Sal was toldto jazz up Jazzy Johnsrecent costume updatefor the Falcon, and thewings Sal added had theadditional purpose ofenabling our hero to fly.

ART COURTESY OFWWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/ART

CAPTAIN AMERICA, FALCON AND 2010 MARVEL CHARAC-TERS, INC.


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time. Because this was the number one book

for Marvel, Stan wanted to talk to me in per-

son about it. I had to go up to New York, and

talk with Stan and John. They were both

telling me things I needed to know about the

character and so on, and then John and I

went out to lunch. We had a real nice lunch

together, and John was relating to me how heapproached doing comics, and we talked

about personal stuff family and such. It

was a very pleasant lunch. And I dont think

I ever got to do the Spider-Man book, and

I cant remember why. Maybe they just

thought I wasnt ready. Shortly thereafter

John did very loose breakdowns on a Spider-

Man book that they wanted me to do the

finishes for. That was one of the few Amazing

Spider-Man books that I worked on.

JA:As you were learning in those early days,

were you fast or slow?

SB: At first I was very slow. If I knocked out

six or eight pages a week I was happy. Then I

started getting a little bit better, and I could

probably do a couple pages a day. But once I

hit that five-year transitional period, I was like

a machine. I could grind the stuff out. What

was amazing about it, to me anyway and

there might be people who disagree with me

was I was doing the best work of my career. It

was just an amazing process. Everything just

fell into place, and all of a sudden I found it

very easy to do. And it was a lot more fun.

JA: How long did it take you to get comfort-

able with the concept of super-heroes and

super-villains? It was such a change for you.

SB: I was never uncomfortable with it. I

thought it was a blast. I had a lot of fun.

JA: John was always saying how he hated

these characters, but you didnt feel that way

yourself.

SB: No, I did not. I enjoyed it. I thought it

was a great way to make a buck. [laughter]

JA: Do you think John really hated super-

heroes as much as he said he did?

SB: You know, Jim, theres a dichotomy here.

John did not enjoy drawing Spider-Man.

John enjoyed drawing people. When youre

doing a character like Spider-Man, youve gotto draw buildings and cars, youve got to

draw all the junk that goes on around these

guys the interiors of rooms, and so on and

so forth. Thats what John did not enjoy. He

loved to draw. Drawing was his life. If this

man was for some reason unable to draw, he

wouldve died not when he did, but years and

years earlier. He ate, slept and breathed

drawing. This was the reason he did not enjoy

comic books that much. Now, Im not sure the

[chuckles] hatred that he professed was as

intense as he made it sound. For example, heloved drawing Conan, because Conan was

pure fantasy. He didnt have to draw sky-

scrapers. He would draw these neat, little his-

torical towns that really did not exist. He

could create anything he wanted. He really

enjoyed that part of it. Thats where the

dichotomy exists. John loved to draw, but

there were some things he hated drawing, and

unfortunately in comic books you have to

draw all this other stuff.

(above) Sal inked JohnRomita on this cover toAmazing Spider-Man #95.He also inked Romitasloose breakdowns forthe interiors of thisissue.

ART COURTESY OF HERITAGEAUCTIONS

SPIDER-MAN AND 2010 MAR-VEL CHARACTERS, INC.


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To a great degree, Im like that, too.

Thats why I didnt enjoy penciling so much.

How long did I draw Spectacular Spider-

Man? I did Spider-Man for twelve years, and

I enjoyed a lot of it, but there was a lot of it I

did not enjoy.

JA: What led you to start inking for Marvel?

SB: I wrote Sol Brodsky a letter. I wanted to

find out who to talk to about getting inking

work, and my brother said, Talk to Sol. So

I wrote this very nice letter and told him all

about myself, and that I could do anything

with a brush or pen, and that I was also very

disciplined and a very dependable individual.

I told him there was nothing more that I

would like to do than ink work for Marvel. He

called me and said, Sal, we dont have any-

thing right now, but hang loose and Ill try to

come up with something for you. I called him

a couple of times just to bug him a little bit

and let him know that I was still alive, and

eventually the first job came through. It was a

rush job. I knocked myself out to get it back

to him real fast. It was a Western. I believe

the character was called Gunhawk. He had

two guns, and for some reason he grabbed the

left gun with his right hand and the right gun

with his left hand. I dont know how thats

physically possible [laughter], but thats

what he did. I dont remember who the pen-

ciler was, but I worked my fanny off on that

to do as good a job as I could possibly do.

JA: The reason Im asking is that I have

Gunhawk [Western Gunfighters #1] down

as 1970, but Silver Surfer came out in 69.

SB: It cant be 1970, because that was the

first job I did for Marvel, and I remember the

month. It was June of 1968.

JA:Maybe it didnt get printed right away.

(below) This early 70sad was obviously donefor a comic conventionprogram book mostlikely one of the NewYork Comic ArtConvention shows. Salsfirst inking assignmentfor Marvel was aGunhawk story, butby the time of this adthe Western hero hadpicked up a partner.


THE CAT, GUN HAWKS, MAN-THING, SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL,SPIDER-MAN AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.DOC SAVAGE AND 2010ADVANCE MAGAZINEPUBLISHERS, INC. D/B/A COND

NAST PUBLICATIONS.


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33

Chapter ThreeHow to Break in the Marvel Way

JA: You worked on Sub-Marinerfor a while,

again with Roy. How did you feel about

drawing underwater environments?

SB: It was fun. It was better than drawing

buildings. [laughter]

JA: As you continued to work with Roy, did

he still give you the same amount of plot?

SB: Roy was very consistent. He gave you a

plot, which means there was no dialogue, and

he wasnt telling you specifically what to draw.

He wrote a plot that was very complete, but

yet gave me tremendous freedom to do what I

wanted to do. He may have called me andtalked about certain aspects of the story for

clarification purposes, but other than that, he

would send me a plot and I would go to work.

JA: What were your thoughts on the Sub-

Mariners personality?

SB: I enjoyed the character primarily

because he was off-beat. Also, because he was

not of this world. He was of the undersea

world a rebellious type of character with

enormous power. He could do everything, he

could fly. He had the one weakness: If he wasout of the water too long, he lost his strength.

It was fun, too, in the sense that I didnt have

to draw conventional backgrounds. I had to

draw all these wonderful undersea scenes.

JA: Did you feel like it was a challenge to

make a regal man out of a guy just wearing

swimming trunks?

SB: No, it was very easy with him. I didnt

have any problem with that. I love the way

John did it. John made him an almost god-

like figure.

JA: How did you feel about his arrogance?

SB: Thats just one of the aspects that makes

him a fascinating character. And he had a lot

to be arrogant about. [laughter]

JA: Why was your stay on Sub-Mariner so

short? I think you were only there for a year

or so.

SB: I think they asked me to do something else.

JA: You left around the time you started ink-

ingConan. I wondered if maybe that was the

reason.

SB: Maybe. You probably know this better

than I do, Jim. That was when Barry Smith

was doing Conan. I remember doing some

work over Herb Trimpe on The Hulk.

JA: What did you think of Herbs pencils?

SB: I hate to say this, but Herb was not a

good draughtsman. I think he would be the

first one to admit that. But Herb was a won-

derful storyteller. His work was very graph-

ic, which is one of the reasons Stan lovedHerbs storytelling. I think Herb wzs a very

talented guy. Drawing was not his strength,

but storytelling was. I think he did a terrific

job on The Hulk, and I think Im the only

guy who drew The Hulk longer than Herb.

He did it for about seven years, and I did it

close to ten, I think.

JA: If you got a penciler whose sensibilities

were different than yours, how would you

meld yourself to be part of a team? Joe

Sinnott, like you said, when he inks someone,he always shows through. The same was true

of you, but to a lesser extent.

(below) They say thatclothes make the man,but in Namors case itsall about the attitude.Here Prince Namor, theSub-Mariner, in all hisregality, prepares for aroyal wedding. This panecomes from page 19 ofSub-Mariner#36. Inks byBernie Wrightson.


SUB-MARINER AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


11/38

SB: Its simply because of my approach. I

believe, having also been primarily a penciler

for most of my career, its up to the inker to

be as true to the penciler as possible, unless

you get the word from the powers that be. Ill

give you an example. When Barry Windsor-

Smith started doing Conan, he was a kid with

a tremendous amount of potential, but his

drawing left a lot to be desired. I think he

would admit that he was not a particularly

good draughtsman yet. He was a wonderful

storyteller, and I tried to be as true to him as

I possibly could, because thats my approach

to inking: Be true to the penciler.

He sort of dropped off the scene for a

while, and when I saw the work he was doing

years later I said, My God, this guys

improved 500%! He was terrific. But back

34

then Roy would call me and ask me to correct

a face or an ear or some detail. In one

instance, Conan was taking a swing at some-

body and Roy was not pleased with it. It just

didnt work, and he asked me to fix it. In

those cases, yes, I would definitely do it, but

only when I was asked to. Ive always

believed that if the client, whether its Marvel

or DC or whoever, is happy with what the

penciler did, then it is up to the inker to be

true to the penciler.

Thats how I want guys to ink me. If Im

penciling something and Im doing finished

penciling, I want them to be true to my pen-

ciling. Unfortunately, a lot of times guys were

not. This is why I was so dissatisfied with so

many of the inkers I had.

JA: You inked several issues of Conan, and

you got to see Barry improve during that

time, but it always seemed like he was moreof a designer than a draughtsman.

SB: It took me an eternity to ink his stuff. If

you want to see tight pencils... they could

have shot from the pencils. When I would fin-

ish inking his work, Id have pencil on my

hand, my arm, and every other part of my

body. [laughter] He was amazingly tight.

JA: In 1970, after Neal Adams left X-Men,

you penciled one issue which Sam Grainger

inked. It turned out that was the last issue of

X-Men before they went to reprints, and thena later revitalization. Do you have any mem-

ory of why you did that one story?

SB: It was probably just a fill-in job they

asked me to do. Maybe nobody else wanted to

do it. [laughter] I never asked. Theyd just

(below) Detailed pencils,indeed! Its no wonder ittook Sal a long time to

ink Barry Smiths Conanpages. And thats allbrushwork, too! On theleft is page 7 of Conan#9. On the right is apanel from the final pageof Conan #6.


CONAN AND 2010 CONANPROPERTIES INTERNATIONAL,LLC


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SB: That must have been when he and I were

talking about this possibility of a new book. I

thought it was fun. The whole premise of the

book is that these are very reluctant heroes.Sub-Mariner certainly didnt want to join a

group. The Hulk didnt want it; he just want-

ed to be left alone. Dr. Strange was trying to

hold them together with his leadership quali-

ties in order for them to accomplish whatevergoals they had. It was a very interesting idea,

and I enjoyed it.

JA: Team books are hard to do because you

have so many characters to move around. You

had fewer characters to deal with here, and

from the tone of your voice it sounds like you

liked The Defenders more than The Avengers.

SB: Yes, I did, primarily because I liked the

characters better. My guy [the Hulk] was in

there. Sub-Mariner was kind of an off-speed

character, and I enjoyed doing him. The samewith Dr. Strange. Thats why I liked it better

than The Avengers. There were also fewer of

them, so it was not quite as difficult a book to

do as The Avengers. The Avengers was a real-

ly tough book.

JA: Do you remember the thinking behind

introducing the Valkyrie? Was it because they

felt it was time to have a female member?

SB: I think that was probably the case. Lets

get a beautiful girl in there.

JA: How much input did you have on plots

with Steve Englehart?

SB: Thats something I never really got too

involved with, Jim. I left the writing and the

plotting to the writers and the editorial staff.

I can recall a few instances where I may have

been consulted or asked a question. I dont

remember any specifics, though. It was some-

thing I didnt get involved in that much. I had

all I could handle with penciling the book.

(right) Valkyrie reaffirmsher decision to join theDefenders in this panelfrom Defenders #5 inkedby Frank McLaughlin.


DEFENDERS AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(below) It may well havebeen decided that theDefenders book neededa womans touch, andwhy not? Valkyrie, thesubject of this 70scommission piece, madean interesting additionto the non-team.


DEFENDERS AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


13/38

JA: With his strength he could have easily

killed somebody, but he never did.

SB: No, because he was not bad. He did have

that much control, which is one of the things

they wrote into the story. They cleverly

worked out the circumstances so that he

never killed anybody, because then the people

that misunderstood him would be justified in

feeling the way they did.

JA: Did you have any sympathy for his alter

ego, Dr. Banner?

SB: Of course. Who wouldnt? Put yourself in a

situation like that. Hes a very sympathetic

character. Hes trying desperately to undo this

damage that was done to him. Hes spending his

whole life trying to do that, and nothing seems to

work. And Im glad, too, because if it did work,

then we wouldnt have the character anymore.

JA: It was not long after you took over the art

on Captain America that Steve Englehart

started writing some really terrific stories.

SB: I had a lot of fun working with Steve.

The one that I really enjoyed was the story

and I think Roy had something to do with it

bringing the old Captain America [of the

1950s] into the picture. That was just so

bizarre and really off the wall, that I really

got a big kick out of doing that. I kind of

hated what they did to the old Cap. I mean,

they made him out as kind of a bigot, you

know? I dont think the old Cap was a bigot,

but there had to be a contrast between the two

Captain Americas. Essentially, one of them

had to turn out to be a bad guy, and it

worked. We got a lot of great comments about

that series. Everybody Ive talked to at con-

ventions brings that up.

Steve was great. I enjoyed working with

him tremendously. He would call me with theplots most of the time, and wed kick them

around. Id ask him questions like, What

are you doing here? What are you doing

there? It was very much like the relationship

I had with Len Wein. The chemistry wasnt

quite the same, but I did work very well with

Steve, and I hope he felt the same way,

because we did produce some good stories.

As an aside, I was told at the time that for

some reason Cap did not sell well. It was

always at the bottom of the barrel, no matter

who did it whether Jack Kirby did it, or mybrother, or Gene Colan, John Romita... no

matter what. When Steve and I got on the

book and I give Steve as much credit as

anybody; he certainly deserves it, because he

came up with some great ideas, some great

stories if I remember correctly, the book

hit #5 in sales. It really shot up the charts.

That was very, very gratifying. Here again, it

was not me and it was not Steve; it was a com-

bination of the two of us. In any successful

marriage in comics the writer and the artist

have to gel, and if they do and the chemistryis right, the book is going to be a success.

JA: I thought it was some of Engleharts best

writing, and I think it was some of your most

inspired art, to be honest with you.

SB: Well, it was because we enjoyed what we

were doing.

JA: The only thing I didnt like was Vince

Collettas inks.

46

(below) Falcon takes onthe retconned Cap andBucky of the 1950s.

Somebody had to berunning around in thesuit if the real Cap wasfrozen in a block of iceduring that time, right?Too bad they were acouple of bigots. CaptainAmerica and The Falcon

#154, page 3. Inks byJohn Verpoorten.

BUCKY, CAPTAIN AMERICA,FALCON AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


14/38

48

Richard Nixon. Was that a conscious effort

on Engleharts part or your part to not reveal

who he was?

SB: I think thats the way Steve wanted it,

and I agreed with it 100%. I didnt think that

we had to be that obvious about it. You know,

its fairly obvious anyway. Saying, Oh, my

God! Its Richard Nixon! is about the only

thing we didnt do. [laughter]

JA: And that led into the Nomad storyline

where Steve Rogers quits being Captain

America. Did you have any feelings on that

part of the storyline?

SB: I just wish they hadnt done it. [laughter]

I kept wondering, What is the point? I did-

nt understand the purpose of it. Okay, if

this is what you guys want to do, lets go ahead

and do it. Frankly, I thought it was silly. He

was Captain America, for Gods sake. He

knows that theres good and evil. That was

the part I objected to, painting Richard

Nixon as a totally irredeemable character,

which was not the case. He was a politician.

Look at the crap that goes on today in and out

of the Presidents office. It happens all the

time. Was Watergate bad? Yes, it was bad.

Nixon was not directly responsible for

Watergate, but he was definitely responsible

for the cover-up. He made a huge, huge blun-

der, and he paid for it as he should have paid

for it. But that was the part I objected to.

JA: You hit on something important, and

thats the psychology of Captain America, a

character whos been through World War II.

If anybody in the Marvel universe would

have his head together, I would imagine it

would be Captain America.SB: Absolutely. All of a sudden hes so terri-

bly disillusioned. Give me a break. This is so

unreal. But it gave them a direction to go in.

Whether it worked or not, personally speak-

ing, I dont think it did. It wasnt Captain

America anymore. You give him a different

costume. Okay, fine, hes not Captain

America. Captain America and the costume

are one. If you change that its no longer

Captain America.

JA: Steve Rogers is almost a cipher at times,because that Captain America costume is so

powerful for the statement it makes.

SB: Exactly. I wonder what theyre going to

do with that in the movie. You know how they

change things in movies sometimes. You cant

change that costume. It is so gaudy, yet it is so

wonderful because it is so unique. As I said,

the character and the costume are one. You

cant separate one from the other.

JA: You drew some Marvel Team-Ups star-

ring Spider-Man and other characters. Howdid you feel about doing a book like that?

SB: I was happy to be working on any book.

Thats kind of a blanket statement. If Marvel

called me up whether it was John

Verpoorten or Stan or Roy and they said,

Sal, would you like to do such-and-such? Id

always say, I would love to, because it was

work. Im a very pragmatic individual, and I

like that regular paycheck coming in. And back

then, before the contractual thing came into

(below) As a direct ofthe result of the SecretEmpire storyline, adisillusioned Capforsakes his name andcostume and becomes

The Nomad. Not a badcostume, but its justnot the same as theclassic, star-spangledlongjohns hed madefamous. Captain Americaand The Falcon #180,page 11. Inks by VinceColletta.

CAPTAIN AMERICA, NOMAD AND 2010 MARVELCHARACTERS, INC.


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49

vogue, you were a freelancer, and you earned

your check by the amount of work that you did.That was your livelihood. And if you were one

of those fortunate guys, which I thank God con-

stantly that I was, who had work all the time,

that was just a joy. And thats one of the rea-

sons I consider myself a company man. Its not

a totally selfless thing. Theres a certain amount

self-interest there, because I want to make sure

that Im working on a daily basis.

Im kind of beating around the bush here.

Did I enjoy doing that book? Yes, I did. First

of all, because there was a new character to

deal with every month, which made it kind ofinteresting. But primarily because it was

work. This is my feeling I dont know if

other people feel this way. Ive heard guys

say, Oh, I really want to work on this char-

acter. After a while, when youve done a

dozen super-heroes, theyre all pretty much

the same. Theyre all a bunch of guys in span-

dex running around saving the world every

month. The only difference was the

Incredible Hulk. Spider-Man was a different

type of character, the Sub-Mariner was dif-

ferent, Man-Thing... those were the charac-ters that I loved to do, because they werent

cut from the same cookie cutter.

When you ask, How did you feel about

this book? How did you feel about that

book? pretty much the same way. It was

work. I enjoyed working. I loved doing what I

was doing, and I sure enjoyed it when that

paycheck came.

JA: You did some Marvel Two-in-One stories

with the Thing as the main character. The

Thing, of course, has a different personalitythan Spider-Man.

SB: And hes a great character that I should

have mentioned, too. I love that character.

Hes tough to draw, though. Hes very diffi-

cult to draw. His personality is very difficult

to capture.

JA: How did you handle the iconography of

the character? Did you think of his skin as

plates or rocks?

(above left) Spider-Manwas, indeed, a differenttype of character, as washis team-up partner inMarvel Team-Up #45,Killraven. Inks by MikeEsposito over Salsbreakdowns.


KILLRAVEN, SPIDER-MAN AND2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS,INC.

(above right) TheX-Men for all their

mutant angst were stillessentially your gardenvariety super-heroes.Marvel Team-Up Annual

#1, page 1. Inks by MikeEsposito over Salsbreakdowns.


SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN AND2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS,INC.


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59

Chapter FourThe Workhorse Hits His Stride

JA: Was there ever a case where an assign-

ment came along that you liked better than

what you were doing, and you asked to

switch books?

SB: No.

JA: I thought your work sometimes suffered

from doing breakdowns because of who did

the finishes. Would you be more forgiving

with someone finishing your breakdowns

than with someone inking your full pencils?

SB: You had to be, because youre not giving

them as much to work with. Under the cir-

cumstances, it was a necessity. During thatperiod when I was doing pretty much nothing

but breakdowns for Marvel, it was because

thats what they asked me to do. They wanted

to get more work out of me, and the only way

I could give them more work was by doing

breakdowns. Everything was there except the

blacks. I did not spot the blacks. I didnt mess

around with textures that much. I would do a

texture or design on a shirt or tie.

JA: But you wouldnt do rock textures.

SB: No, no. Everything was done in line. All

the details were there. There was nothing

vague. The only thing the inker had to do was

spot his own blacks.

JA:How many pages of breakdowns couldyou do in a day versus full pencils?

SB: On a good day I could breakdown four or

five pages. That was a comfortable day. With

(below) Breakdowns forWhat If?#44, featuringCaptain America versushis 50s counterpart,which was inked byDave Simons.


CAPTAIN AMERICA, WATCHER AND 2010 MARVELCHARACTERS, INC.


17/38

60

full pencils, probably two-and-a-half to three

a day. Once I got to that five-year point I men-

tioned earlier, I got comfortable enough with

it that I gained speed, because I had a lot of

confidence in what I was doing.

JA: On books you did breakdowns on, they

didnt always put the best person over you.

Do you feel that hurt your reputation at all?

SB: I think so, but there again it was a neces-

sity on both sides. I was doing what Marvel

was asking me to do, and I had no problems

with it because, monetarily, it was wonderful.

I was making a lot of money. You know, I was-

nt terribly worried about my reputation side

of it, because I never was a big fan-favorite

anyway so that side of it didnt bother me.

After a while, I think I got the reputation

of being a hack. That didnt sit very well. I

heard that from a couple of different sources.

But I said, Well, Im doing what the compa-

ny is asking me to do. If I rebel against that,

then maybe Im no longer a company man.

I dont have that big an ego, Jim. Thats

the thing. Everybody has an ego, and I cer-

tainly have one, but I think the key word here

is that Im a very practical individual. I did

what I thought was necessary. Then it got to a

point where that was no longer necessary,

and, unfortunately, nobody told me about it.

[laughs] I found out about it sort of sideways.

I think it was during a conversation I had with

Bill Mantlo when I was working with him. We

were talking about one thing and another, and

how this came up I dont remember, but Bill

said, Youre getting the reputation of a guy

who just bangs the work out. I said, Well, I

dont bang it out. Im just doing what Marvelasks me to do. He said, Well, theyre not

doing that kind of thing now.

Here is the classic case of the terrible lack

of communication, and it was my fault

because I didnt go up there often enough.

The reason for that impression of me was sim-

ply because this was what was expected of me

for a long period of time. They were constant-

ly asking me, Sal, can you do this? because

I was one of the few guys they had who was

fast enough to do fill-in issues and my regular

work at the same time. I was being dependedupon to do this, and I was more than happy to

do it. Obviously, the money was great, but I

also felt like, These people really need me.

I felt like I was a really important part of the

operation. I considered Marvel a client my

only client. I was going to do everything with-

in my power with whatever ability I had to

keep them as happy as possible.

Then, all of a sudden, Jim Shooter becomes

editor-in-chief, and the whole policy changes.

He said, Were not going to do things this

way anymore. I want the very best qualitythat we can get. I want people to spend a lot

more time on the books. I dont want guys

turning out four and five books a month. I

want guys to do one book a month, and to put

all that theyve got into that one book. There

was one problem with that: Nobody ever told

me about it.

When I found out about it, I called Jim

Shooter immediately. I said, Jim, this is what

Ive heard. Whats going on? and Jim very

(below) The openingsplash page of IncredibleHulk #219, with finishesby Ernie Chan over Salsbreakdowns. Chan wasan excellent artist in hisown right, but wheninking others he tendedto overpower their work.



(facing page) IncredibleHulk #269, page 7,written by Bill Mantlowith full art from Sal.



18/38

66

one of those guys who seems to be able to han-

dle situations. I think I just called him, and

said, Ralph, this is just not working. I dont

want to do the book anymore. And I really

regret doing that, because I enjoyed The

Hulk. It was one of the books that I had a lot

of fun with.I thought it was funny, too, it was shortly

after that incident that I found out I had the

reputation of being very difficult to work

with. And I had never, never had that prob-

lem before. Or since, for that matter.

Evidently there was some bad-mouthing going

on at the time.

JA: You rose above it, but it had to bother you

to hear that.

SB: Of course it did. One of the problems with

working away from the establishment is com-

munication. You may say things over the

phone that can be construed in a completely

different way than what you intended. As I

said before, I regret not paying more visits to

Marvel so that they could know me better as a

person, rather than as just a voice on the

phone. You can have people saying things

about you that you dont even know about.

Then you find out some time later, and how

do you defend yourself against something like

that? Its very difficult, if not impossible, to do.

JA: Its also a testament to your work,

because for a lot of people, not being around

the office is career suicide.

SB: Exactly. John, for instance, lived in Long

Island, and he didnt go up to Marvel very

often, but he sure went up a heck of a lot more

than I did. With me it was an all-day affair. Ihad to lose a whole days work, which I hated

doing because they kept me so busy. I had to

catch a train very early in the morning. I did-

nt want to fly up, because the trip from the

airport to New York was horrible. You literal-

ly made better time with the train, because

you got off right there in the heart of the city.

Youd grab a cab, and be at the office in five

or ten minutes. It was a two-hour ride from

the airport into the city. It was a hassle for

me. I did it at first, I made a few trips up

there, but then after a while I didnt feel anygreat necessity. I spoke to people on the

phone, and it worked fine for many years.

But it was a lack of my knowing enough about

human relations, and this is where I kind of

lost it a little bit. Thats why I should have

gone up there more often, so they could get to

know me, the person, rather than just my

voice on the phone.

JA: You did some Conan covers and one story.

SB: I think I did a few of the black-and-white

magazine stories, too.

JA: I assume you referred to your brothers

work. We talked before about how John

preferred Conan to super-heroes. Did you

have the same feelings?

SB: Absolutely. I loved the character. Conan

was a great character. And sword-and-

sorcery just reeks of fun for the illustrator.

It was so much fun. It really whetted the

creative juices.

(facing page) A pagefrom one of Sals storiesfor Savage Sword ofConan.

ART COURTESY OF RAIMONFONSECA

CONAN AND 2010 CONANPROPERTIES INTERNATIONAL,LLC

(above) Sal obviouslyhad fun drawing theHulk. It shows in everypage. Incredible Hulk#245, page 22.




19/38

68

JA: Speaking of sorcery, you did a little Dr.

Strange, too, outside ofThe Defenders. I was

wondering how you felt about that character.

SB: I thought Dr. Strange was one of those

characters that was quite unique. Anything a

little off-beat, a little off the wall, was what I

enjoyed doing. Dr. Strange was definitely in

that category.

JA: You had a long run on Spectacular

Spider-Man in the 1980s to early 90s.

Considering the status of that character, did

you feel an added responsibility that you might

not have felt on a fill-in title or lesser title?

SB: I approached every book the same way. I

tried to give it my best under whatever cir-

cumstances I was working. I never got a book

and thought, Ah, this is an unimportant

book. Ill just bang this out, or, This is a

really important character, so Ill really do mybest. I tried to be even-handed with every-

thing that I got, because I wanted to maintain

whatever success I had achieved at Marvel.

JA: When Steve Ditko drew Spider-Man, he

put him in strange poses. He made him more

spider-like.

SB: Nobody draws like Steve Ditko. He had

such a unique body language hed give to his

characters. Nobody could capture that.

I thought of Spider-Man as a spider.

Thats all you can do. [laughs] I did things

myself in my studio trying to capture certain

positions. How can you make a human body

look like a spider? I would literally try to

assume those positions myself, and that

would give me a basis from which to work.

With him and the Hulk especially, when I had

them do their thing when I had Spidey

swinging through the city, when I had the

Hulk leaping from one place to another I

always tried to exaggerate what they were

doing. Because of the nature of those charac-

ters especially Spider-Man Stan, as I

recall, wanted him to be off the wall and off-

beat. He loved that Ditko approach to the

character. Of course, when John Romita took

it over, being such a good draughtsman, he

gave it a completely different flavor.

I tried to do my own thing with the char-

acter, especially when I started theSpectacular Spider-Man series. That was

something I got excited about, because I had

never been asked to launch a new series

before. And, of course, launching a Spider-

Man book is kind of a feather in your cap, so

I got really excited about that. I think I did

the first 20 or 25 issues. I gave it my all.

JA: The initial idea of that series was to focus

a little more on Peter Parker, and the sup-

porting characters than Amazing Spider-Man

did, but it didnt seem like they worried aboutthat too much once they got into the series.

SB: I never really got that feeling, either. To

me, it just turned into another Spider-Man

book, which was fine. I had no problems with

that. If you dont want the book to fail, you

have to concentrate on the character. They

dont buy the book for Aunt May and Mary

Jane. They buy the book for Spider-Man.

Thats where you have to go.

Witness the success of the character in the

movies. Theyre treating the movies, as far as

Im concerned, exactly the way the characterwas treated in the comic books. Its the singu-

lar most successful character in the comic

book industry, as far as I know. The only one

that rivals it may be Batman. X-Men at one

time was the number one bestselling book,

but that was a group of characters. But

Spider-Man sold phenomenally well, and the

supporting cast had a lot to do with it. There

was a realism about that series that was

unique in the comic book industry.

(facing page) Spideydoesnt get much morespidery-looking than inthis illustration for theSpider-Man: Round Robin

trade paperbackcollection.

SPIDER-MAN AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(above) It appears Salgot the feel for drawingSpider-Man prettyquickly, as evidenced bythis panel from PeterParker, the Spectacular

Spider-Man #3. Inks byMike Esposito.




20/38

money in it. It just wasnt worth it on a mon-

etary basis to do it permanently. I was happy

to do it as a fill-in anytime, as a favor to Stan.

JA: Between the 70s up until 1996 when

Marvel went bankrupt, how often did you go

to conventions?

SB: Not a whole lot. There was a young man,

a teenager at the time, that I met who was a

big comic book fan, and I got kind of friendly

with him and his parents. His name was Gary

Groth. The first convention I went to was one

he put together. I wanted to help him out,

because it was his first venture. I think he was

only about 16 or 17 years old at the time. He

might have been younger. His mom and dadhelped him out, too.

I did not do a lot of shows. John and I

would have conversations about this. After

doing a few conventions here and there, we

decided, This is a money-making operation

for the people who run these conventions.

This is not a charity. They dont do it for the

love of the industry or the love of the fans.

They do it to make money. Every convention

that Ive ever been to has been like that.

JA: Thats not always true, but more oftenthan not, yes. I used to put on conventions,

and as long as we broke even we were happy.

SB: If theres somebody out there whos a little

more altruistic, I dont think Ive ever come in

contact with them. I think you will admit that

San Diego doesnt do it to be altruistic. San

Diego does it because its a big business.

JA: Ive known a couple of exceptions, but for

the most part youre right about that.

82

(below) Sal not onlybecame friendly with ateenaged Gary Grothand his family, but healso provided this coverillustration of Dr. Strangeas well as a shortinterview for a 1969issue of Groths FantasticFanzine.

ART COURTESY OF JEFF BELL

DR. STRANGE AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(right) Larry King makesan appearance in thisSeptember 1, 1996Spider-Man Sunday news-paper strip. Inks by JoeSinnott.




21/38

83

SB: There are exceptions to every rule.

Anyway, John and I decided that we were not

going to do these things for nothing.

Whenever I talk to people they say, You can

make money by charging for sketches. I just

tell them, Look, Im not going to charge a

nine-year-old kid $25 for a drawing. I would

rather charge you a fee, and then you can

advertise the fact that Sal Buscema is going to

be there doing free head sketches of any char-

acter that they want. A lot of them bought

that. They thought that was a great idea.

There were also a lot of times when people

would call me about a convention, and as

soon as I said, This is my fee, there would

be this pause, and then they would say, Oh,

we dont pay. We only cover your expenses.

Sorry, I dont work for nothing, and I con-

sider this work. If Im going to work for you

for nothing, Id just as soon stay home, and

do my own work and make money.When youre talking about the bigger con-

ventions New York, Philadelphia, whatev-

er its a money-making operation. But I

think its because of my policy that I have not

been invited to that many conventions.

JA: Youre not the only person whos charged

for an appearance.

SB: No, Im sure Im not. As a matter of fact,

the prices I charged were probably a lot more

reasonable than most of these guys.

JA: Do you enjoy conventions?

SB: I enjoy meeting the fans if Im at a table

just signing autographs and doing quick head

sketches and that type of thing. I get a kick

out of that. Im not too crazy about the

panels, though. John and I only did one con-

vention together, and that was years ago in

New York. We were together for maybe an

hour at a table doing sketches, then he had to

go his way, and I had to go mine.

But the simple fact of the matter is that its a

business. It kind of ticked me off when peoplewould ask me to come to their convention and

Id tell them, My fee is such and such, and

then theyd say, Well, we dont pay. Wait a

minute. You want me there, you want my broth-

er there, you want a whole bunch of other peo-

ple there, because we are the people that are

going to be drawing fans into your convention,

and hopefully making you a potful of money,

and yet you dont want to pay for the work that

were going to be doing. It just annoyed me.

On the other side I want to be fair about

this a lot of times people would call and ask

me to do a convention. Id say, Is it a week-

end, a day, or what? Theyd tell me, Id say,Okay, my fee is this in addition to expenses,

and theyd say, Okay, thats fine. They

wouldnt even bat an eye, and I appreciated

that because they handled it in a very profes-

sional manner. Im not sure about this, but

John and I may have been the first ones to do

this. I cant think of anyone else that was

charging before us. John said, You know

whats going to happen. Nobodys going to

invite us to conventions. I said, Well, thats

okay, because I can think of other things that

Id rather do on a weekend.I was invited to Barcelona, Spain, to do a

convention there. Its a huge convention.

Believe it or not, it actually dwarfs the one in

San Diego. I believe they told me that they get

90,000 people there. Its held in an old train

station that is no longer in service, and they

used the entire space. It was mammoth. I got

to meet the legendary Will Eisner and his wife

there. What a delightful man he was, and his

wife was just a sweetheart. My wife and I just

(above) A 1994 conven-tion head sketch of yourfriendly, neighborhoodSpider-Man.




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Chapter FiveA New Start with a Different Company

JA: You were doing a lot of inking for Marvel

up to the time they went bankrupt. A lot of

editors lost their jobs. A lot of books were cut.

SB: In the space of two or three months,

Marvel got rid of two or three hundred peo-

ple. It was a bloodbath. I lost all of my work.

JA: What were your thoughts on the company

going public?

SB: I thought it was a good sign. I had no idea

that the company was going to get into any

kind of financial trouble. Im a capitalist

through and through, and I thought it was a

good idea. I even floated the idea of buyingsome stock. Im glad I didnt. [laughter]

JA: How did you get the news in 96?

SB: I knew what was happening. I anticipated

it. I was only doing Spectacular Spider-Man

at the time, and I got a call from Ralph

Macchio telling me that all the sales were down

and they were going to have to make changes.

I said, That means Im not doing the book

anymore, and he said, Right. I said, Am I

doing anything else? He said, Well, I dont

have anything for you, Sal. I dont knowabout any of the other editors. I said,

Essentially, the answer is no. It was a nice

conversation, because Ralph and I always got

along well, but that was the end of it.

I was under contract to Marvel at the time,

and the contract stated that as long as I was

under contract I couldnt work for anybody

else. So I had to call Bob Harras, who had

recently taken over as editor-in-chief, and tell

him I was terminating my contract. The con-

tract was almost silly, because either party

could terminate it any time they wanted to. Inthis case, I terminated it because I had to earn

a living, and to do that I had to get work from

other people. He said, Fine, Sal. We hope

things will turn around. Well be in touch.

And then I went to DC, and happily they

started giving me work.

This is very important. I was near the end

of my career. I was 60 years old, so I wasnt

far from retirement. It bugged me a little bit,

because Im a guy who likes to plan way in

advance. Im always looking five or ten years

down the road, and I had plans for essential-

ly doing what Im doing now. My thoughts

were that I would like to go to issue #350 on

Spectacular Spider-Man and that would have

been right around the time I could retire.

Then all I wanted to do was ink one book a

month thats all just to maintain a pres-

ence in the industry, and to do something that

I really enjoyed doing. Well, thats essentially

(below) Sals run on

Spectacular Spider-Manended earlier than hewould have preferred,with issue #238. Inks by

John Stanisci over Salsbreakdowns.


DRAGON MAN, SPIDER-MAN AND 2010 MARVELCHARACTERS, INC.


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whats happened to me now, so in that respect

I have been very, very blessed. But the big

thing and this is the point I want to make

there were so many guys with families they

needed to support, and these were the people

I really felt for. My career was essentially

behind me. I had to squeeze out a few more

years the best that I could, but there were so

many guys in their 30s and 40s that still had

years to work, and all of a sudden the whole

industry went to pot, and all these people

were out of work. It was just a terrible, terri-

ble time. And Im not saying this to sound

noble or anything like that. Believe me, I was

very, very upset. Id been working for Marvel

for over 30 years, and here I was just shoved

aside. But it happened to so many other peo-

ple, and they were the ones I really felt for.

JA: Who was your first contact at DC?

SB:Mike Carlin. The first project they put meon was a doozy. It just blew me away that they

would trust me with it. It was a double-sized

issue with Batman. And they asked me what

writer I would like to work with! I had read

some stuff that Chuck Dixon did. He wrote

The Punisher when John Romita, Jr. was

drawing it, and that was just a fantastic book.

When they asked me who Id like to work

with, I immediately said Id love to work with

Chuck Dixon. The next thing I know, Im get-

ting a plot for Detective Annual#10.

JA: How closely did you work with Chuck?

SB: It was a good story. It had to do with for-

eign intrigue and a South American dictator,

and I just had a ball with it. But I really did-

nt talk with Chuck. I got the plot in the mail,

and I dealt with the editor, I sent the pages in,

and that was that.

JA: Did you work from a plot or a full script?

SB: Im pretty sure I worked from a plot. Ive

done a couple of very small penciling jobs

for Marvel in the last three or four years just two or three pages where they wanted an

old-fashioned style, and they asked me to

do it, which really makes me laugh. [laugh-

ter] They were full-script, and I hated every

minute of it. I despised it.

It was so refreshing when Stan came up

with the new concept of having the artists

work from plots. It was revolutionary, and I

think it was responsible, more than anything

else, for the creative explosion in comic

books. I cannot understand why theyve gone

back to full scripts.

JA: How did you feel about drawing Batman?

SB: It was great! I was just flipping out when

they asked me to do Batman, because I love

the character. And the plot that Chuck came

up with was just wonderful. I really had a lot

of fun working on that. It was great working

with the Batman team, too. They were a

bunch of nice guys.

JA: How was the money?

SB: I was getting paid exactly the same as I hadbeen at Marvel. Scott Peterson, the Batman

group editor, and his two associate editors

took me out to lunch, and the reception that

I got from them was just wonderful. It was

so gratifying. They seemed really happy to

have me. Unfortunately, it didnt last too long,

because the whole industry was falling apart.

But it reenergized me. It was a whole new

experience, and I took advantage of the situ-

ation in the sense that I did what I did not do

when I was with Marvel. I went up there more

frequently. Not that much, because I onlyworked for DC for two or three years, but I

made several trips up there to let them know

that I was alive and breathing. The short time

that I worked for them was great. I enjoyed it

thoroughly, and they treated me superbly. I

cant say enough about it.

JA: For the most part, you just wanted to

ink at this point. You didnt want to pencil

anymore.

89

(above) A moodyBatman in these panels

from a ten-page storyfor Batman 80-Page Giant#2. Sal did the full artfor this story, a rarityduring his time at DC.


BATMAN, ROBIN AND 2010DC COMICS.

(facing page) A full-pagesplash from Sals first jobfor DC: Detective Annual#10. Inks by one of Salsfavorite collaborators,Klaus Janson.

BATMAN AND 2010 DCCOMICS.


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92

(right) Very often whileat DC, Sal was called into ink new pencilers. Hehandled many differentstyles, and it was Salsversatility that made himideal for such situations.In Batman/Scarecrow 3-D,Sal inked Carl Critchlow,a British artist with a

somewhat cartoonystyle who had workedfor 2000 AD, but onlydid a handful of jobs forDC in the late 90s.

BATMAN, ROBIN, SCARECROW AND 2010 DC COMICS

(below) A page from Batman Chronicles #16s

back-up story, Harold, penciled by Chris Renaud,who after working in comics from 1996-2000 left togo into the field of animation.

HAROLD AND 2010 DC COMICS

(above) The one title Sal worked on with anyconsistency for DC was The Creeper. There heinked Shawn Martinbroughs high-contrast pencilsfor the entirity of The Creepers twelve-issue run.

THE CREEPER AND 2010 DC COMICS


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(below) Cap certainlylooks heroic in thesepanels from CaptainAmerica #153. Inks by JimMooney.

ART COURTESY OF AL BIGLEY

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS,INC.

Chapter SixThe Craft of Creating Comic Book Art

JA: Weve talked some about the craft of cre-

ating comics, but lets really focus on that

now. Lets start with your philosophy regard-

ing working with writers.

SB: The way I enjoyed working was getting

the plot from the writer. I wasnt the type of

penciler that would contribute a lot. I always

felt that my job was to interpret what they put

in their plot and turn that into 22 pages of pic-

torial storytelling. To me, that was difficult

enough.

And the other side of it is I cant recall any-

body ever calling me up and saying, You

know, Sal, this really doesnt work. Youve gotto redo this. Im not throwing accolades at

myself, Im just simply stating a fact. One of

the things I heard from so many people was

that the reason they enjoyed working with me

was because I told the story so well pictorially.

My philosophy was to try to give the writer

what he wants, so that when he writes his dia-

logue its going to be as easy for him as it can

be. Thats what I always worked towards. So

the personal relationships between me and the

writers frankly did not exist in many cases. I

would do a book, and then Id get the plot forthe next one and Id sit down and think about

it, figure it out, and execute it. Then Id send

the pages in and get the next plot. Thats the

way it worked. It was almost machine-like.

JA: As far as the writers you worked with,

who was the most helpful to you in terms of

the direction they gave you in the scripts?

SB: Len Wein, Tom DeFalco, Marc

DeMatteis... guys I worked with for a period

of time. So many of the writers I only did a

few books with. Its really hard to get a han-dle on that. But the guys I mentioned were

just consummate professionals, and that in

and of itself was a great help to me. They

made my job easy.

JA: Moving on to penciling, were you ever

asked to redraw panels?

SB: Not a whole lot, but, yes, I was. As a mat-

ter of fact, one of the first things I ever did for

Marvel, believe it or not, was redraw a couple

of panels that my brother did. [laughter] It

was on a Captain America book, and it was

simply because Stan wasnt happy with the

storytelling. Not the drawing, obviously,

because the drawing was fantastic. I had gone

to the office for some reason and Sol Brodsky

asked me, Sal, we need this panel changed.

Can you do this and this? And I said, Id be

happy to. As a matter of fact, I was thrilled

to, because it was literally the first penciling

work that I did for Marvel. It was kind of

gratifying that they asked me to change some-

thing that John did.

JA: When you were drawing super-heroes,

how conscious were you of proportion?

SB: You had to be conscious of it, because

youre drawing heroic people. The propor-

tions have to be there. Its very difficult to

make somebody look heroic if theyre dumpy-

looking. This is something that Stan required.

He wanted all of the super-heroes and hero-

ines to be very heroic-looking, and thats the

way you do it. Theyve got to be eight, nine

heads tall.

It was the same with the villains, becausethey have to look like a match for the super-

heroes. The philosophy, at least when I first

started with Marvel, was that the heroes

always had to look like the underdogs. There

always had to be the sense that, Oh, my

gosh, hes in trouble now! You wanted to

make the super-villains look like formidable

97


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99

opponents, so you had to give them the same

proportions. Of course, it depended on who it

was, but the reader had to see that the villain

posed a real challenge to the super-hero.

If youre drawing Loki, hes a god. Even

though hes an evil god, you have to give him

that persona, that aura. He has to look majes-

tic. It all depends on what the super-villain is

all about and what the hero is all about.Spider-Man is kind of a departure from that,

because Spider-Man is a teen-aged kid. At

least, thats the way he started. Hes smallish.

Hes a departure, and that may be one of the

things that made Spider-Man become the

number one super-hero in the comic book

universe. He was smaller, but look at what he

was capable of.

The Vulture was creepy-looking and not

heroic-looking at all. The very nature of a

vulture, its probably the ugliest bird out

there. You had to capture that persona in the

character. And the same thing, in a different

way, for Doctor Octopus. Where the Vulture

could fly, Doc Ock had those mechanical

arms. His stature was anything but heroic. He

was a short, plump professor type. This is the

challenge that every comic-book artist has.

He has to be convincing to the audience withwhomever he happens to be drawing, and to

do that he has to be versatile.

I did a podcast interview recently, and I

was bowled over that anybody would even

want to bother with this, but it was celebrat-

ing my fortieth year in the industry. They had

some surprise guests, and one of them was

Stan, which absolutely blew me out of the

water. I had no idea that he was going to be on

the show, and I was deeply honored because,

In the page fromSpectacular Spider-Man

#163 (facing page), youcan see how Sal drawsSpidey as slender andwiry. And villains dontcome much creepierthan Hobgoblin andCarrion. The panel fromSpectacular Spider-Man

#210 shows Spideysrogues as terrifying, andthe reactions of theirvictims sells that idea. Fullart by Sal.


ALL CHARACTERS AND 2010MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


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Art Gallery

(above) We begin the gallery with images of Sals favorite character: The Hulk. And what better place to start than with this illustration doneforMighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 obviously, this was Decembers image. As it happens, December 1975 was the cover date for Sals firstissue as penciler of Incredible Hulk, and the start of his nearly ten-year run.

ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS

HULK AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(facing page) A commission illustration of Ol Greenskin.



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Cover art for Incredible Hulk Annual#14, cover dated December 1985. Inks by John Byrne, who also wrote the issue.

ART COURTESY OF EELCO VELDHUIZEN

HULK AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC


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Like many other comic book artists, Sal would occassionally sketch on the back of whatever board he happened to be working on either towork out a problem or simply to take a break and have a little fun drawing something different. The drawings on these two pages come fromthe backs of two such boards.



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From left to right: Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema, and Tom DeFalco the creative team behind Spider-Girl. This photo was taken at the 2008Pittsburgh Comicon.

A recent photo of Salinking at his drawingboard.


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Without question, one of Sals most memorable covers.Avengers #89, cover dated June 1971

COURTESY OF SAM NEWKIRK

AVENGERS, CAPTAIN MARVEL AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC


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Sal drew several covers for Marvels many reprint titles of the '70s, which meant he was able to show his interpretation of some of the keymoments from Marvels history, including the coming of Galactus.Marvels Greatest Comics #36, cover dated July 1972.

COURTESY OF SAM NEWKIRK

FANTASTIC FOUR, GALACTUS AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


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145

Iron Man #34, cover dated February 1971


IRON MAN AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC


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162

A page from The Night Before X-Mas, part of 1994sMarvel Holiday Special.

X-MEN AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.


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(above) Artwork done for Universals Islands of Adventure themeparks Marvel Super Hero Island, which opened in 1999. These and three

other pieces are on display in the park as large, full-color standees. Inks by Tim Townsend.


ALL CHARACTERS AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

SALBUSCEMA:

Comics Fast &Furious Artist

In 1968, Sal Buscema joined the ranksof Marvel Comics and quickly becameone of their most recognizable anddependable artists. Following in thefootsteps of his big brother JohnBuscema, Sal quickly came into hisown, and penciled some of Marvelsmost memorable storylines, such asthe original Avengers/Defenders war,as well as The Secret Empire Sagaand the Nomad arc in the pages of

Captain America. He also had a ten-year run on the Hulk and drew 100 consecutive issues of Spectacular Spider-Man,making him one of the few definitive artists of the Bronze Age. Sal Buscema: ComicsFast & Furious Artist, by Alter Egos Jim Amash with Modern Masters Eric Nolen-Weathington, explores the life and career of this true legend of the comics industry,through an exhaustive interview with the artist, complete with extensive examples ofhis art, including a deluxe color section, and a gallery of work from Sals personal files.Fans love the fast and furious style of Sal Buscema, and this first-ever career-spanningbook is guaranteed to please!

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THELINK BELOW TO ORDER THIS BOOK!
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=793http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=793

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