Spectacular Spider-Man 193 page 7 by Sal Buscema

Another great Sal Buscema from his famous Spectacular Spider-Man run with John Dematteis. Another Puma page.

And again pure Buscema. First he penciled and inked this one and while he’s had many great inkers, I find he is his best inker. Second, this is a typical Buscema page in terms of page layout first as well as shots, angles and characters poses.

This page also comes from a personal favorite run which is the collaboration by John Dematteis and Sal. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that 15-20 issues run for its deep and heavy psychological tones and themes. Dematteis is the writer who introduced me to adult themes/storytelling in super heroes comics with his legendary Kraven Last Hunt. I really think what he did on Spectacular was a continuation of that approach. And Sal followed with a much more cinematic storytelling himself (which could have been dictated by the writer of course) resulting in a gem of a run. One of the best on ol’ Spidey in my humble opinion.

Puma is quite feral here (that was the theme of this arc). He is present in every panel and the body language used by Sal is perfect for me. He moves like a cat on the hunt would only transposed to the body of a man. And when he is angry, all hell breaks lose. In that regard the second panel is pure Buscema for example.

A great companion to my other Puma page from the same issue.