A tribute to the Marvel mainstay, who has died at the age of 89… — UPDATED 1/26/26: Today was to be Sal Buscema’s 90th birthday but word emerged that he died three days ago. Here is a piece from his birthday in 2024. For more, click here and here. — Dan — By CHRIS RYALL Sometimes working in comics is pretty great. In fact, minus the complicated business end of things, most parts are great — primarily the chance to get to know and befriend creators whose work made me love comics in the first place. And one of the best creators I had the good fortune to get to know and work with is “Our Pal” Sal Buscema, who is celebrating his birthday. Sal turns 88 and he’s still working, bringing that steady hand and brush to masterfully ink the lines of pencilers like Ron Frenz and Guy Dorian Sr. For all the years I worked with Sal, I never met him in person until 2021, when he and I and Guy signed together at Comics and Gaming, a Virginia comics shop near Sal’s house. (A video interview with Sal at that event, with color commentary from Guy and me, is available on YouTube). To help celebrate Sal’s birthday this year, I tried to dig a bit deeper than the usual Sal covers that get spread around (deservedly, don’t get me wrong; it’s just that he’s done so much great work over the course of his long career that I wanted to see if I could spotlight some lesser-posted images. And besides, 13thD overlord Dan Greenfield already did a great job spotlighting 13 of Sal’s Avengers and Defenders covers in a past celebration. And since I always find it hard to limit myself to 13, I’ll again bookend the official pics with a few additional images before and after the numbered pieces to follow. Up first, I like this single-page Hulk origin piece that Sal produced in a joint collab between Marvel and Coke (back when they were testing out their Gamma Ray-enhanced version of New Coke). The one below didn’t quite make the cut of my final 13 but I felt like any image with M.O.D.O.K. getting punched in his enormous cranium deserves some special attention. And finally, I’ve always loved this self-portrait with Sal at the...
The celebrated Mr. K pays tribute to the artist, who has died at 89… — UPDATED 1/26/26: Today was to be Sal Buscema’s 90th birthday but word emerged that he died three days ago. Here is a piece from his birthday in 2025. For more, click here and here. — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG I can tell you exactly when I first noticed Sal Buscema’s work. It was in Silver Surfer #4 (February 1968), as the inker over his brother John’s pencils. I can also tell you exactly how I reacted to Sal’s inks on his brother John’s pencils: Where has this guy been hiding all this time? At the time, I had no way of knowing that not only had Sal not been hiding, but he had also already worked briefly in comics during the early-1950s and gone on to a career in advertising and commercial art, including work for the U.S. government for the Department of Defense and Department of Agriculture. That early comics work had also been inking over brother John’s pencils on the stories he was doing for Dell Comics, and when Sal (born Jan. 26, 1936) did make the move back into comics in 1968 with John’s encouragement and help, it was, “to be an inker. I didn’t want to pencil,” Sal told comics historian Jim Amash. But he had spent a year under John’s tutelage learning how to produce a dynamic Marvel Comics page, resulting in samples that Stan Lee liked enough to ask the artist to come to New York and draw for the company. “I wanted to work full-time for Marvel, so it was out of necessity that I pencilled,” he told Amash. According to Sal, John was unhappy with Joe Sinnott’s inks on the first three issues of Silver Surfer, feeling his pencils were being overshadowed by the inker’s finishes. Sal told Amash, John “knew that I knew how to ink his work.” And that he did, but as good as the finished product was and as reluctant as Sal was to lay down his brush in favor of the pencil, the younger Buscema was soon one of Marvel’s busiest artists. He would go on to such memorable runs as 10 years as artist of The Incredible Hulk, and eight years on The Spectacular Spider-Man, as well as long...
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