Fantastic Four 274 page 15 by John Byrne and Al Gordon

Cool Birthday Byrne! Way to Ink, Al!

Wolf puberty is definitely not conducive for a prison break. 

You are quite right. This was a fun issue. Lovely page.

I've often said that an artist's best work is USUALLY that which they ink themselves, because the final product is the true and complete artist's vision. There are always exceptions to every rule however, and in my view, Byrne was always one of those exceptions. While I DO enjoy Byrne's own inks, they were just never nearly as clean and eye appealing as Austin's on X-Men, rather they looked somewhat muddy. I think Al Gordon and Jerry Ordway inked the FF run far more attractively than Byrne did himself, though even here I have some issues. Particularly in the fact that as pretty as his lines are, Gordon didn't vary his line weights at all, which is very evident on this page as you can see that he he put a ton of pretty lines, yet the majority of the page still looks very white. Just not enough solid blacks to give the page more focus and balance.

This is reminicent of Al Vey's inks of Grummett on the New Titans run, which we've previously talked about in private. I enjoy all the beautifully detailed lines that Vey laid down on those pages, but just like Gordon here, a severe lack of variety in line weights still has most of the pages looking very white with almost no solid black areas. At any rate, even in spite of this, I still always appreciated the lovely ink lines Gordon supplied than Byrne's own. Oh, and I loved this issue!

Gorgeous!

Holy cow!!! It's the Wolfman.

This is more illustrative than the superhero look of Byrne inking himself.  It works better with the darker and old time theme of these classic monsters of literature.

Really lovely page!  I feel like it was Gordon's inks that really made this issue special; they added a richness of detail that really elevated the fun and intentionally (and affectionately) campy story.  Case in point is that bottom panel; as you say, Byrne drew the wolf absolutely perfectly, but Gordon's inks there (as well as with all the fine lines in the transformation panels) are what really make the image(s) sing!  Lovely details on the trailer, and wheels, and Ben's arms...  As a young lad, I remember finding the Gordon inks a bit jarring (I just hadn't seen anything like that over Byrne's pencils before), but I quickly figured it out and -really- ended up loving the pairing of Byrne and Gordon!  Great job landing a "bargain" Byrne!  Congrats and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Sockamagee!

Very cool Byrne FF page from the monster mash issue, love that last image, congrats!

It's a great page. Gordon's inks work really well here. Like you, I was spoiled by Byrne inking himself (and that remains my preference) but this works. 

Nice one! Bearded Ben Grimm really works. I remember seeing this result the next day and kicking myself for not logging in and bidding!

This is John's period where he didn't want any blacks (except, obviously, for solid blacks) on the pages.  It was difficult to figure depth without the blacks... but this page looks pretty decent.  Nice job by John.