Comics Fast &

Furious Artist

by Jim Amash with

Eric Nolen-Weathington

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.

Chapter One

Inspiration All Around

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.

(below) For many years,

Sal participated in Friday
night live model drawing
sessions at a local
college. While in his
teens, he had to rely on
drawing from the
statues housed at the
Metropolitan Museum
of Art.
2010 SAL BUSCEMA

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 landscape 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 kidding around and said, Hey, I can do as well
or 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 accordion that he taught. He also made accordions,
and was an amateur artist. According to my
mother he was quite good. She described in
great 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 of
John 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 draughtsman by any stretch of the imagination, and

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 sculptures. Of course, primarily they were all
reproductions, but excellent ones. I just
loved that room. I spent hours in there drawing 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 was
actually 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 commercial 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.

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 regular #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! and
he 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 remembered 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. [laughter] So what I did subconsciously did not
work consciously.
7

(above) Sals older

brother, John Buscema,
at his drawing board,
circa mid-1970s.

Chapter Two

A Heroic Departure

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 in
the 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 beginning 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: 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

JA: Why did you leave Design Center to go

into 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 regular five-day week, eight hours a day. I was
commuting into Washington, DC, and the traffic was horrible. It took me over an hour to get
to 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.
17

(below) Opening splash

page from The Incredible
Hulk Annual #14. It is
fitting that Sal used Hulk
in the samples he drew
in order to get work at
Marvel. Sal went on to
draw The Incredible Hulk
over an incredible tenyear run.
ART COURTESY OF EELCO
VELDHUIZEN

HULK AND 2010 MARVEL

CHARACTERS, INC.

(above) A photo of Sal

during his Avengers days
used in Marvel editorial
material.

(below) For this 1969

cover illustration for
Marvelmania Catalog #2,
Sal reworked his splash
page from Avengers #71.
ART COURTESY OF JERRY BOYD

ALL CHARACTERS AND 2010

MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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 this
was 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 competing with guys that can put this stuff to shame.
Youve got to be as good as they are. He criticized 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 relating to me what Stan had related to him.
So I went back to work some more. He saw
things 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 leaping 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 way
you 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

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 feel what was happening. 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 feel
that 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 got
fairly 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 costume, 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 accuse
him 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
25

(above) Cap may be

avoiding the issue, but
hes right. Sal was told
to jazz up Jazzy Johns
recent costume update
for the Falcon, and the
wings Sal added had the
additional purpose of
enabling our hero to fly.

ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART
CAPTAIN AMERICA, FALCON
AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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 comfortable 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]

(above) Sal inked John

Romita on this cover to
Amazing Spider-Man #95.
He also inked Romitas
loose breakdowns for
the interiors of this
issue.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS

SPIDER-MAN AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

time. Because this was the number one book

for Marvel, Stan wanted to talk to me in person 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 he
approached 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 SpiderMan book that they wanted me to do the
finishes for. That was one of the few Amazing
Spider-Man books that I worked on.
26

JA: Do you think John really hated superheroes 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 got
to 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, he
loved drawing Conan, because Conan was
pure fantasy. He didnt have to draw skyscrapers. He would draw these neat, little historical 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.

To a great degree, Im like that, too.

Thats why I didnt enjoy penciling so much.
How long did I draw Spectacular SpiderMan? 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 anything 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 penciler 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.

27

(below) This early 70s

ad was obviously done
for a comic convention
program book most
likely one of the New
York Comic Art
Convention shows. Sals
first inking assignment
for Marvel was a
Gunhawk story, but
by the time of this ad
the Western hero had
picked up a partner.
ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART

THE CAT, GUN HAWKS, MANTHING, SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL,

SPIDER-MAN AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.
DOC SAVAGE AND 2010
ADVANCE MAGAZINE
PUBLISHERS, INC. D/B/A COND
NAST PUBLICATIONS.

Chapter Three

How to Break in the Marvel Way

JA: You worked on Sub-Mariner for 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 and
talked 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 SubMariners 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 was
out 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: You left around the time you started inking Conan. 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 wonderful storyteller. His work was very graphic, which is one of the reasons Stan loved
Herbs 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.

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 godlike 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.
33

(below) They say that

clothes make the man,
but in Namors case its
all about the attitude.
Here Prince Namor, the
Sub-Mariner, in all his
regality, prepares for a
royal wedding. This panel
comes from page 19 of
Sub-Mariner #36. Inks by
Bernie Wrightson.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS
SUB-MARINER AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(below) Detailed pencils,

indeed! Its no wonder it
took Sal a long time to
ink Barry Smiths Conan
pages. And thats all
brushwork, too! On the
left is page 7 of Conan
#9. On the right is a
panel from the final page
of Conan #6.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS

CONAN AND 2010 CONAN

PROPERTIES INTERNATIONAL,
LLC

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 WindsorSmith 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

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 somebody 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 penciling. 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 more
of 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 finish 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 then
a later revitalization. Do you have any memory 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

34

(right) Valkyrie reaffirms

her decision to join the
Defenders in this panel
from Defenders #5 inked
by Frank McLaughlin.
ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART
DEFENDERS AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(below) It may well have

been decided that the
Defenders book needed
a womans touch, and
why not? Valkyrie, the
subject of this 70s
commission piece, made
an interesting addition
to the non-team.
ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART
DEFENDERS AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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 wanted to be left alone. Dr. Strange was trying to
hold them together with his leadership qualities in order for them to accomplish whatever
goals 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 same
with 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 really 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 something I didnt get involved in that much. I had
all I could handle with penciling the book.

38

(below) Falcon takes on

the retconned Cap and
Bucky of the 1950s.
Somebody had to be
running around in the
suit if the real Cap was
frozen in a block of ice
during that time, right?
Too bad they were a
couple of bigots. Captain
America and The Falcon
#154, page 3. Inks by
John Verpoorten.
BUCKY, CAPTAIN AMERICA,
FALCON AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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 conventions brings that up.
Steve was great. I enjoyed working with
him tremendously. He would call me with the
plots 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 my
brother, 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 combination 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 chemistry
is 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) As a direct of
the result of the Secret
Empire storyline, a
disillusioned Cap
forsakes his name and
costume and becomes
The Nomad. Not a bad
costume, but its just
not the same as the
classic, star-spangled
longjohns hed made
famous. Captain America
and The Falcon #180,
page 11. Inks by Vince
Colletta.
CAPTAIN AMERICA, NOMAD
AND 2010 MARVEL
CHARACTERS, INC.

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 didnt 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 blunder, 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 terribly disillusioned. Give me a break. This is so
unreal. But it gave them a direction to go in.
Whether it worked or not, personally speaking, 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 starring Spider-Man and other characters. How
did 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

48

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 constantly that I was, who had work all the time,
that was just a joy. And thats one of the reasons 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 of
interesting. 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 character. After a while, when youve done a
dozen super-heroes, theyre all pretty much
the same. Theyre all a bunch of guys in spandex 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 different, Man-Thing... those were the characters 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 personality
than 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 difficult 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?
49

(above left) Spider-Man

was, indeed, a different
type of character, as was
his team-up partner in
Marvel Team-Up #45,
Killraven. Inks by Mike
Esposito over Sals
breakdowns.
ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART

KILLRAVEN, SPIDER-MAN AND

2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS,
INC.

(above right) The

X-Men for all their
mutant angst were still
essentially your garden
variety super-heroes.
Marvel Team-Up Annual
#1, page 1. Inks by Mike
Esposito over Sals
breakdowns.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS
SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN AND
2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS,
INC.

Chapter Four

The Workhorse Hits His Stride

JA: Was there ever a case where an assignment 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 circumstances, it was a necessity. During that
period 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 could
you 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

59

(below) Breakdowns for

What If? #44, featuring
Captain America versus
his 50s counterpart,
which was inked by
Dave Simons.
ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART
CAPTAIN AMERICA, WATCHER
AND 2010 MARVEL
CHARACTERS, INC.

(facing page) Incredible

Hulk #269, page 7,
written by Bill Mantlo
with full art from Sal.
HULK AND 2010 MARVEL
CHARACTERS, INC.

(below) The opening

splash page of Incredible
Hulk #219, with finishes
by Ernie Chan over Sals
breakdowns. Chan was
an excellent artist in his
own right, but when
inking others he tended
to overpower their work.
ART COURTESY OF EELCO
VELDHUIZEN

HULK AND 2010 MARVEL

CHARACTERS, INC.

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

a day. Once I got to that five-year point I mentioned 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 necessity 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 wasnt 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.

60

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 company 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 certainly 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 Marvel
asks 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 simply because this was what was expected of me
for a long period of time. They were constantly 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 depended
upon 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 within 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 quality
that 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

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

working away from the establishment is communication. 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.

(above) Sal obviously

had fun drawing the
Hulk. It shows in every
page. Incredible Hulk
#245, page 22.
ART COURTESY OF EELCO
VELDHUIZEN

HULK AND 2010 MARVEL

CHARACTERS, INC.

(facing page) A page

from one of Sals stories
for Savage Sword of
Conan.
ART COURTESY OF RAIMON
FONSECA

CONAN AND 2010 CONAN

PROPERTIES INTERNATIONAL,
LLC

one of those guys who seems to be able to handle 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 problem 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.
66

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. I
had 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 didnt want to fly up, because the trip from the
airport to New York was horrible. You literally 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 any
great 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-andsorcery just reeks of fun for the illustrator.
It was so much fun. It really whetted the
creative juices.

(above) It appears Sal

got the feel for drawing
Spider-Man pretty
quickly, as evidenced by
this panel from Peter
Parker, the Spectacular
Spider-Man #3. Inks by
Mike Esposito.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS
SPIDER-MAN AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(facing page) Spidey

doesnt get much more
spidery-looking than in
this illustration for the
Spider-Man: Round Robin
trade paperback
collection.
SPIDER-MAN AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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

Strange, too, outside of The 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 circumstances 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 my
best. I tried to be even-handed with everything 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.
68

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 characters especially Spider-Man Stan, as I
recall, wanted him to be off the wall and offbeat. 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 character, especially when I started the
Spectacular 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 SpiderMan 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 supporting characters than Amazing Spider-Man
did, but it didnt seem like they worried about
that 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 character
was treated in the comic books. Its the singular 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.

(right) Larry King makes

an appearance in this
September 1, 1996
Spider-Man Sunday newspaper strip. Inks by Joe
Sinnott.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS
SPIDER-MAN AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

(below) Sal not only

became friendly with a
teenaged Gary Groth
and his family, but he
also provided this cover
illustration of Dr. Strange
as well as a short
interview for a 1969
issue of Groths Fantastic
Fanzine.

money in it. It just wasnt worth it on a monetary basis to do it permanently. I was happy
to do it as a fill-in anytime, as a favor to Stan.

ART COURTESY OF JEFF BELL

DR. STRANGE AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

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 dad
helped 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 often
than 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

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 character 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 consider 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 conventions New York, Philadelphia, whatever 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 convention 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 people
would 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 brother there, you want a whole bunch of other people 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 weekend, 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 professional 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
83

(above) A 1994 convention head sketch of your

friendly, neighborhood
Spider-Man.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS
SPIDER-MAN AND 2010
MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

Chapter Five

A 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 people. 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 buying
some stock. Im glad I didnt. [laughter]

advance. Im always looking five or ten years

down the road, and I had plans for essentially 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 presence in the industry, and to do something that
I really enjoyed doing. Well, thats essentially

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 know
about 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 contract was almost silly, because either party
could terminate it any time they wanted to. In
this 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
87

(below) Sals run on

Spectacular Spider-Man
ended earlier than he
would have preferred,
with issue #238. Inks by
John Stanisci over Sals
breakdowns.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS
DRAGON MAN, SPIDER-MAN
AND 2010 MARVEL
CHARACTERS, INC.

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, terrible 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 people, 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 me
on 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 getting 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 foreign intrigue and a South American dictator,
and I just had a ball with it. But I really didnt 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. [laughter] 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 had
been 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 situation 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 only
worked 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 moody
Batman in these panels
from a ten-page story
for Batman 80-Page Giant
#2. Sal did the full art
for this story, a rarity
during his time at DC.
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE
AUCTIONS

BATMAN, ROBIN AND 2010

DC COMICS.

(facing page) A full-page

splash from Sals first job
for DC: Detective Annual
#10. Inks by one of Sals
favorite collaborators,
Klaus Janson.
BATMAN AND 2010 DC
COMICS.

(right) Very often while

at DC, Sal was called in
to ink new pencilers. He
handled many different
styles, and it was Sals
versatility that made him
ideal for such situations.
In Batman/Scarecrow 3-D,
Sal inked Carl Critchlow,
a British artist with a
somewhat cartoony
style who had worked
for 2000 AD, but only
did a handful of jobs for
DC 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 to
go into the field of animation.
HAROLD AND 2010 DC COMICS

(above) The one title Sal worked on with any

consistency for DC was The Creeper. There he
inked Shawn Martinbroughs high-contrast pencils
for the entirity of The Creepers twelve-issue run.
THE CREEPER AND 2010 DC COMICS

92

But with Klaus, I couldnt wait to get the

pages, because I enjoyed inking him so much.
It was an absolute blast. I wanted to work on
his pencils forever.
Hes a master black-and-white artist.
Black-and-white art is more difficult to do
than color. He does things that are just brilliant. In that respect, it was so much fun just
to see his pages, because his pencils were
pretty tight. He has a very stylized flavor to
his drawing. It was almost to the point that I
could say, Gee, I wish I penciled like this. It
was not work, believe me. To use the old
clich, it was a labor of love.
JA: Of the DC characters you worked on,
and you worked on a fair amount, which was
your favorite?
SB: I would have to say Batman. Batman is a
very unique character. Hes very dark and
foreboding not quite over the line.
JA: You penciled Superman: The Man of
Steel, too. Did you think of Superman as
something special, or was he just another
super-hero to you?
SB: Who ever knew that Id be doing
Superman one day? In that sense there was a
little bit of excitement there, but once you get
into it, its just another job.
JA: Why did you leave DC after only three
years?
SB: Business started slowing down for
them, too. The sales were not good. The
Batman editors I had been working with
Scott Peterson and Jordan Gorfinkel and
the rest all left at different times. They
had kept me constantly busy, but I guess the
editors that took over decided that they didnt want my services any more. I officially
retired when I turned 64. Im still working,
though.
JA: Youve been working on Spider-Girl for
quite some time.
SB: And I hope were on it for quite some
time to come, too. I have a fantastic relationship with Ron Frenz. Ron is a friend, and
Tom DeFalco is a friend.
Tom is not only a terrific writer, hes also a
delightful guy. We had a great working relationship, and we still do, although were not
in contact as much as we were when he was
writing Spectacular Spider-Man for me. Im

just doing the inking on Spider-Girl. I dont

know anybody who knows more about this
business than he does. His storytelling ability
is outstanding. This is a guy who really knows
how to write. He could probably teach writing; he knows it that well. Ron and I talk
about this a lot.
Now, Ron is one of the guys who does
contribute an awful lot to plotting and ideas
and so on. And Ron has enormous respect
for Toms ability and talent, simply because
the guy just knows what hes doing. He
knows how to tell a story. When I worked
with Tom on Spectacular Spider-Man, it
was just as smooth as silk. Tom has a talent
for stimulating you and really bringing the
best out of you.
95

(above) Before their

longstanding pairing on
Spider-Girl for Marvel, Sal
inked Ron Frenz on
Superman: The Man of
Steel #94.
SUPERMAN AND 2010 DC
COMICS.

(facing page) One of the

many artists Sal inked
during his brief tenure at
DC was legendary
Batman artist Jim Aparo.
Batman #558, page 18.
ART COURTESY OF SPENCER
BECK
BATMAN AND 2010 DC
COMICS.

Chapter Six

The Craft of Creating Comic Book Art

JA: Weve talked some about the craft of creating comics, but lets really focus on that
now. Lets start with your philosophy regarding 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 pictorial storytelling. To me, that was difficult
enough.
And the other side of it is I cant recall anybody ever calling me up and saying, You
know, Sal, this really doesnt work. Youve got
to 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 dialogue 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 for
the 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 handle 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.

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 something 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 proportions have to be there. Its very difficult to
make somebody look heroic if theyre dumpylooking. This is something that Stan required.
He wanted all of the super-heroes and heroines 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, because
they have to look like a match for the superheroes. 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

JA: Moving on to penciling, were you ever

asked to redraw panels?
SB: Not a whole lot, but, yes, I was. As a matter of fact, one of the first things I ever did for
Marvel, believe it or not, was redraw a couple
97

(below) Cap certainly

looks heroic in these
panels from Captain
America #153. Inks by Jim
Mooney.
ART COURTESY OF AL BIGLEY
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND
2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS,
INC.

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 majestic. 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 with
whomever 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 celebrating 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,
99

In the page from

Spectacular Spider-Man
#163 (facing page), you
can see how Sal draws
Spidey as slender and
wiry. And villains dont
come much creepier
than Hobgoblin and
Carrion. The panel from
Spectacular Spider-Man
#210 shows Spideys
rogues as terrifying, and
the reactions of their
victims sells that idea. Full
art by Sal.
ART COURTESY OF
WWW.ANTHONYSNYDER.COM/
ART

ALL CHARACTERS AND 2010

MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

104

105

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 done
for Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 obviously, this was Decembers image. As it happens, December 1975 was the cover date for Sals first
issue 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.

HULK AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

110

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.

115

Like many other comic book artists, Sal would occassionally sketch on the back of whatever board he happened to be working on either to
work out a problem or simply to take a break and have a little fun drawing something different. The drawings on these two pages come from
the backs of two such boards.
HULK AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

116

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

A recent photo of Sal

inking at his drawing
board.
133

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.

135

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 key
moments 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.

144

Iron Man #34, cover dated February 1971.

ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS

IRON MAN AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

145

A page from The Night Before X-Mas, part of 1994s Marvel Holiday Special.
X-MEN AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

162

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE

LINK BELOW TO ORDER THIS BOOK!

SAL
BUSCEMA:

Comics Fast &

Furious Artist

In 1968, Sal Buscema joined the ranks

of Marvel Comics and quickly became
one of their most recognizable and
dependable artists. Following in the
footsteps of his big brother John
(above) Artwork done for Universals Islands of Adventure themeparks
Marvel Super Hero Island, which opened in 1999. These and three
Buscema, Sal quickly came into his
other pieces are on display in the park as large, full-color standees.
Inkspenciled
by Timsome
Townsend.
own, and
of Marvels
ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS
most memorable storylines, such as
the original Avengers/Defenders war,
ALL CHARACTERS AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.
as well as The Secret Empire Saga
and the Nomad arc in the pages of
Captain America. He also had a tenyear 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: Comics
Fast & Furious Artist, by Alter Egos Jim Amash with Modern Masters Eric NolenWeathington, explores the life and career of this true legend of the comics industry,
through an exhaustive interview with the artist, complete with extensive examples of
his 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-spanning
book is guaranteed to please!

(facing page) Sal has inked the work of Ron Frenz more than any(192-page
other artist,
thankswith
in color
large& part
to their
longtime
collaboration
on$10.95
the
HARDCOVER
16 bonus
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various incarnations of Spider-Girl. Spider-Girl #79, page 17, cover dated December
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Pencils
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Frenz.
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(176-page trade paperback with color) $26.95

ART COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS

QUEEN OF THE GOBLINS, SPIDER-GIRL AND 2010 MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC.

166