Savage Tales # 7 - Ka-Zar & Zabu by Buscema and Adams!

A truly gorgeous page featuring two giants of the medium at their height - this is pure, dynamic John Buscema on pencils with Neal Adams and the Crusty Bunkers on inks.

Looking closely at this awesome piece, it's clear that Adams had a significant role in the inking - possibly the smaller Zabu panel, but certainly the large middle one shows fine line and hints of drybrush effect which is Adams through and through. I think the facial inks on the priest could be Adams (there's drybrush again on the second to last panel), but the final panel featuring Ka-Zar ending him almost definitely is - the quality of line in rendering the anatomy is pure Adams.

My bro, who has one hell of an eye for this sort of thing, reckons that Dick Giordano had a hand in some of the inks here and I agree. There's some of his stylings on the penultimate panel's Ka-Zar for sure. He also thinks that Russ Heath probably inked the lizard creature.

Some lovely half-tone washes on this piece give it the volume and solidity which characterised black and white Marvel mags at their best in the 1970s.

In all, one hell of a sweet page and a great example of a Bronze Age Marvel Masterpiece!