Erik Larsen on Vince Colletta

[zack kruse]

Erik Larsen on Vince Colletta

Erik Larsen recently posted a column on CBR about Vince Colletta and encoraged Vinny's detractors to take Colletta's work in the context of the times and working conditions. Although, he absolutely points out that Colletta was a hack and most artists dreaded working with him.

I totally see what Larsen's getting at and I think he's being reasonable, but I'm not 100% sold on his point of view. I think integrity is a big part of any job--not just art--and it makes a pretty big negative impact on me when it is noticably absent.

But what say you? Does what Larsen has to say sway or soften your opinion of Colleta's work one way or the other?

[DGoodhart]

Larsen's 100% right, I totally agree with him...

Integrity can certainly be a big deal, but what the hell does it mean if you're given the 20 pages to ink on a Friday and you absolutely have to have them in the office on Monday... that was the times, these weren't considered the objets d'art that fans consider them now and they weren't being written and drawn with 30 year olds in mind...

[zack kruse]

Larsen's 100% right, I totally agree with him...

Integrity can certainly be a big deal, but what the hell does it mean if you're given the 20 pages to ink on a Friday and you absolutely have to have them in the office on Monday... that was the times, these weren't considered the objets d'art that fans consider them now and they weren't being written and drawn with 30 year olds in mind...

Yeah, I definitely get that part and don't necessarily disagree. But, to me, integrity does mean a lot--whether your producing art or just doing another job. I guess the other part that made me think twice about it though is the reaction of the pencilers towards Colletta's work. As an example from the article, when Kirby found out what was being done to his work he apparently made a big stink about it and Vince was moved to another book. That reaction implies that it wasn't just another job to him, it was his art.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Colletta's is necessarily the villain he's often made out to be either. I'm just not 100% sold on the picture Larsen paints of him.

[DGoodhart]

Yeah, I definitely get that part and don't necessarily disagree. But, to me, integrity does mean a lot--whether your producing art or just doing another job. I guess the other part that made me think twice about it though is the reaction of the pencilers towards Colletta's work. As an example from the article, when Kirby found out what was being done to his work he apparently made a big stink about it and Vince was moved to another book. That reaction implies that it wasn't just another job to him, it was his art.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Colletta's is necessarily the villain he's often made out to be either. I'm just not 100% sold on the picture Larsen paints of him.

And integrity to Colletta could certainly have meant getting that job done on the weekend as well...

[zack kruse]

And integrity to Colletta could certainly have meant getting that job done on the weekend as well...

Fair enough. It's entirely possible that was the case

[evaD]

Different times, different world. The bottom line is the guy made a career out of it. He didn't dabble, he wasn't in it for a little bit, he made a career out of it. So he wasn't the best, not every one can be. He obviously wasn't the worst, 'cuz he got and maintained jobs. The guys that worked with him have a right to complain about him if they felt he wasn't complimentary to their work. I'm not sure we really have that right. Yeah we can chime as to whether we liked the books he worked on, but to vilify the man or make some kinda statement about what type of person or artist he was is a bit out of line. And to be honest he was doing something I wish more artists in the field would try to do - meeting deadlines. Pencil artist is pissed because the page is changed from what they originally envisioned, I feel for them but it is a group effort. Compromise is required. Sounds like this dude had more of his fair share of bad judgment, though. Not everyone can be the best, yet somehow we seem to think, deep down, that if these other people that are letting us down, would just try a little harder...

I haven't walked a mile in Colletta's shoes, so I'll give him a pass on the commentary about his work ethic and integrity.

[zack kruse]

...but to vilify the man or make some kinda statement about what type of person or artist he was is a bit out of line...

I completely agree

[JimN]

Erik Larsen on Vince Colletta

Erik Larsen recently posted a column on CBR about Vince Colletta and encoraged Vinny's detractors to take Colletta's work in the context of the times and working conditions. Although, he absolutely points out that Colletta was a hack and most artists dreaded working with him.

I totally see what Larsen's getting at and I think he's being reasonable, but I'm not 100% sold on his point of view. I think integrity is a big part of any job--not just art--and it makes a pretty big negative impact on me when it is noticably absent.

But what say you? Does what Larsen has to say sway or soften your opinion of Colleta's work one way or the other?

No, but he didn't really say anything that was news to me either. Like Larsen, I disliked Vince Colletta's inks when I was a kid. I still don't like them, even the Thor stuff Erik Larsen seems to enjoy. However, I agreed with most of what he had to say. I understand that Vinnie was a hack and that, once editors realized his willingness to crank out sub-par work to meet a deadline, he was channeled into becoming even more of a hack.

Zack, I didn't get the impression Larsen was making any excuses for Colletta's lack of integrity, just that he was explaining it. Did you have a different interpretation of the article? I'm not clear on what aspect of Larsen's point of view disagree with...

Jim

[zack kruse]

No, but he didn't really say anything that was news to me either. Like Larsen, I disliked Vince Colletta's inks when I was a kid. I still don't like them, even the Thor stuff Erik Larsen seems to enjoy. However, I agreed with most of what he had to say. I understand that Vinnie was a hack and that, once editors realized his willingness to crank out sub-par work to meet a deadline, he was channeled into becoming even more of a hack.

Agree completely.

Zack, I didn't get the impression Larsen was making any excuses for Colletta's lack of integrity, just that he was explaining it. Did you have a different interpretation of the article? I'm not clear on what aspect of Larsen's point of view disagree with...

Jim

No, no. I absolutely don't think that he was making any excuses at all. Especially when he outright calls him a hack. But I did get the impression that he was, with his explanation, trying to soften the mood around the guy. Like I said, in my initial post, I think he's being completely reasonable in his explanation. I guess when you see a guy make a career out of mucking up other guys' work, regardless of his motivations, I'm just a little reluctant to soften my opinion of his work.

Does that make sense? I'm not trying to take any real issue issue with what Larsen says, he comes of as level headed about the whole thing. I'm just saying for me, it's difficult to soften my view of Colletta's work.

I have no opinion of Vinny personally and I don't think it's worthwhile or reasonable to villify him as a man. When I mention integrity, I mean only to refer his work.

Sorry to go on. I'm just trying to be clear.

[evaD]

Does that make sense? I'm not trying to take any real issue issue with what Larsen says, he comes of as level headed about the whole thing. I'm just saying for me, it's difficult to soften my view of Colletta's work.

I have no opinion of Vinny personally and I don't think it's worthwhile or reasonable to villify him as a man. When I mention integrity, I mean only to refer his work.

Sorry to go on. I'm just trying to be clear.

I think you are being clear and you're correct. There's nothing wrong with saying the guy wasn't good. When I was talking about vilifying the guy I was taking that from what Larson wrote and talking about an industry side response, not you personally. I hope you didn't take it the wrong way. I don't think your view about Colletta's work needs to soften, I think Larson was asking that we keep in mind that this is a person we're talking about and keep things in perspective. Looking at the Colletta's work through today's perspective is different then how it might have been viewed at the time. He may have taken great pride in being able to simplify and get done by deadline, and possibly even felt a little vindictive toward the artists who made his speedy services necessary.
Picture it playing out like this:
editor: Hey Vinnie, I know it's Friday and all, but I need these pages inked by Monday and you're my fastest inker. Artist X was really running behind. You think you can get it done by then?
Colletta: Hey, man, you know I can.

Meanwhile, he's thinking: Freaking jackass, can't get pages penciled in time, never gets 'em penciled in time.

[JimN]

Agree completely.

No, no. I absolutely don't think that he was making any excuses at all. Especially when he outright calls him a hack. But I did get the impression that he was, with his explanation, trying to soften the mood around the guy. Like I said, in my initial post, I think he's being completely reasonable in his explanation. I guess when you see a guy make a career out of mucking up other guys' work, regardless of his motivations, I'm just a little reluctant to soften my opinion of his work.

Does that make sense? I'm not trying to take any real issue issue with what Larsen says, he comes of as level headed about the whole thing. I'm just saying for me, it's difficult to soften my view of Colletta's work.

I feel the same way. I understand the circumstances in which some of the work was created by it doesn't change my opinion of the work at all.

I had the chance to take to my career in a similar direction. Very early on, I did some inking for a few Chicago-based companies (First and Now). I was hungry for work and was rapidly developing a reputation as an inker who could crank out pages when necessary. Initially, I took whatever work was offered because I wanted to get my foot in the door (and pay the bills). However, I quickly realized that, once I was perceived as an inker who could bail a late project out of trouble, those companies wanted to keep me in that role. It was useful to them. Instead of getting my foot in the door, I was setting myself up for a career full of rush jobs. That wasn't for me and thankfully, circumstances led me in another direction.

I have no opinion of Vinny personally and I don't think it's worthwhile or reasonable to villify him as a man. When I mention integrity, I mean only to refer his work.

Sorry to go on. I'm just trying to be clear.

No need to apologize. After all, I asked for clarification.

Jim

[David]

Here's a bonus, maybe a less ire-raising (except to me and Vince)

WAYBACK WEDNESDAY!!

[David]

Some of my favorite points from Larsen's column:

Vinnie erased background figures and simplified backgrounds and turned fully realized drawings into silhouettes.

. . .

A trick Vinnie utilized often was to scribble in excessive skinny lines in a frantic random pattern, which gave the illusion of pages being worked over, while simplifying or eliminated elements that needed to be inked with care. This made it appear as though he was bringing a lot to the page even though he was taking away as much as he was adding.

. . .

Yes, Vinnie took a few, liberties but one could argue that those liberties should have been taken. In the case of the train example mentioned earlier, its absence made the panel a better composition. The train was an unnecessary distraction. One could argue that Jack’s women needed a little prettying up and that simplifying backgrounds pushed them back and made readers focus on the more important components of those panels.

But that argument only goes so far.

In many cases, Vinnie’s omissions were detrimental to the final product. By erasing secondary figures, the once bustling Asgard seemed like a ghost town. And there were numerous times where Vince did the work an incredible disservice, the reader was shortchanged and left to wonder why Kirby was knocking himself out on “Fantastic Four” while taking so many shortcuts on “Thor.”

The problem is that the reader never got to see the pages before they were inked -- they just saw what it looked like after the fact. If pages looked empty and simple, there was no way for the fan to know what details the inker omitted. And Vinnie omitted plenty of details.

The late, great Gil Kane once told a buddy of mine that Vinnie Colletta was his second favorite inker. My pal asked him who his first favorite inker was and Gil replied, "Anybody else."

The advent of publications like Twomorrows’ “The Jack Kirby Collector” have made it possible for fans to see for themselves what effect Colletta had on Kirby’s pencils. Un-inked Kirby pencils, reproduced from stats taken at the time are often printed side-by-side with the pages as they saw print and often it’s pretty appalling to see what damage Vinnie inflicted.

. . .

Kirby had not paid a hell of a lot of attention to the printed page. He thought that an inker was an inker and they were all pretty much the same. When it was pointed out that Vinnie was taking incredible liberties with his work and omitting details that Kirby thought were important -- well, let’s just say that Mr. Colletta finally found himself working on other assignments.

. . .

This was an inker that many artists dreaded. Mike Grell even wrote Colletta into an issue of “Warlord” (#44, "The Gamble") in which Warlord cut off a thinly disguised Colletta's hand. Warlord didn't object so much to the Gambler being a cheat, but rather that his actions made others become cheats as well and Colletta inked that issue.

The real tragedy of Colletta was not that he was a hack, but rather that he turned others into hacks. Pencillers who had been putting in long hours at the drawing board and who were appalled to have their work butchered would start cutting corners themselves. Often it resulted in them slacking off because, as they'd say, "Vinnie will just ruin it anyway."

. . .

Vinnie was a hack, but he was hired because he was a hack. There would be jobs that needed to get done overnight and Vinnie would get the job done in the time that it needed to get done, hang the quality.

The willingness to sign your name to substandard work is where you separate the hacks from the artists. It's also where many old timers might separate the professionals from the amateurs.

. . .

I've known several artists who assisted Vinnie, including “Special Forces” and “Plastic Man” artist Kyle Baker.

Kyle told me a story about working for Vinnie. He was hired to ink all the backgrounds, but not the figures. Kyle had brought in the finished pages to Vinnie and he looked through them, stopping at a panel with a dead guy lying on the ground. Colletta asked Kyle why he didn’t ink the person on the ground. Kyle said he was supposed to ink the backgrounds -- not the figures. Colletta responded by saying, “the guy’s dead -- he’s a background.”

This used to be a job -- and writers, pencillers and inkers used to be professionals -- not prima donnas. This was commercial art. It was a way of earning a living and providing for ones family. For generations, artists did the work, got their paycheck and didn't raise a stink. That doesn't mean that they loved the end results.

. . .

Most readers liked Vinnie’s inking well enough. Given the choice, many preferred the slicker inks of Sinnott and Giacoia, but given their control over things they took what was served to them. When a comic book cost 12¢, it didn’t have to be very good in order for a reader to feel as though they’d gotten their money’s worth.

A number of readers have disliked Vinnie’s work for decades. And it's not simply because of seeing what Jack's pencils look like in the “Kirby Collector” -- readers could see and compare artists inked by other inkers side-by-side with those inked by Colletta and determine for themselves which ones they preferred.

. . .

Few professionals asked to work with Vinnie.

Which, again, is not to say Vinnie was universally loathed -- because he wasn't. The top brass at DC liked him enough to make him art director for a time, but the scales tipped very much in the direction of "dislike" for the majority of pencillers.

. . .

A good chunk of the readers were unaware of what an inker did and simply didn't notice or care who inked the pages. Of the readers who did notice or care, a decent chunk loved him and a good-sized chunk hated him. On books where he was the regular inker, readers generally put up with him and often liked what he did. In cases where he did fill-ins, generally the reaction was quite negative.

I can't think of many pencillers who requested working with him (I can name only two off the top of my head, Paul Smith and John Byrne, and in both cases he inked only a single issue) but I know of a bunch of them who actively lobbied to try and get him off of their books.

. . .

The bottom line is this -- those that hate him generally cut him no slack. The truth is that he was not the worst inker in comics by any means, but the shortcuts he took really get a lot of people fired up. He was a man with more talent than he generally put to good use, often paired with pencillers whose work he was unsuited to ink. When it clicked -- and when he was on -- he was pretty good. But he's likely to be remembered more as a guy who hacked it out and erased backgrounds, because he was a guy who hacked it out and erased backgrounds and nothing anybody can say or do is going to change that.

"Mediocre professional standards" was what was expected of creators and what Vinnie most often delivered. That one-time page rate was the only revenue a creator was likely to see. They didn't get art back so there was no financial incentive to having it be an awesome piece of work. True, a person didn't want to do work that was so bad that they couldn't get their next assignment, but this was a job and the primary goal was to get the job done and have it turned in on schedule. The brass wanted artists that were quick and reliable and able to produce work that met "mediocre professional standards." Creators able to deliver that did cut it for a long time in this publishing business.

. . .

The fact that Vinnie did an incredible amount of books in his 40+ years is not proof that Vinnie wasn’t a hack -- it's proof that he was a hack. He had to cut corners in order to produce that body of work and cutting corners -- erasing backgrounds and eliminating details -- is hard evidence that he was hacking it out.

[Scott C.]

Show me on the doll where Vince Colletta touched you.

[David]

Show me on the doll where Vince Colletta touched you.

I'll show you in the book where Colletta's ink didn't touch the pages.  How's that?

[Scott C.]

I'll show you in the book where Colletta's ink didn't touch the pages.  How's that?

That'll work. 

[Spooky]

I'll show you in the book where Colletta's ink didn't touch the pages.  How's that?

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/95SYdjRVCR0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/95SYdjRVCR0&rel=1</a>

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

I'll show you in the book where Colletta's ink didn't touch the pages.  How's that?

[DGoodhart]

Twomorrows has this coming out later this summer, and I have to say, I cannot wait to read this book.  There's been so many stories, obviously about his work, but also about his "connections" (if you know what I mean) and so I'm real eager to read the real story... obviously, I hope this touches on his stint as Art Director at DC as well, where he gave a lot of great talent (like Marshall Rogers amongst others) their start...

[David]

Zack's ordering the book and I hope I'm lucky enough to borrow it from him when he's done reading it.