Spider-man convention drawing – Sal Buscema

There is a saying, “They are as different as two brothers,” and in one respect that certainly applies to brothers Sal and John Buscema as I am sure that everyone reading this can tell the difference between a page of art drawn by the former from one by the latter. But in the time-honoured tradition of exam questions that ask you to not only contrast but also compare I would say that the similarities between John and Sal are more numerous. They are both monumental cornerstones on which Marvel Comics were built. John is the more acclaimed and launched a string of high-profile Marvel titles as did Sal – The Defenders and Rom for example – but I think that he is more recognised as a reliable and trusted professional who could be guaranteed to get a book out on time, month in and month out. One of the happy memories of my childhood was coming to the end of a long school week and getting home to a stack of British comics. In the 1970s British comics were released weekly and cover-dated “Mon” although they came out the Saturday before and one of my favourites was a Marvel UK title called Rampage which reprinted entire issues of the Defenders in black and white but at magazine size. Only one newsagent in town carried this comic and for reasons too personal to go into I was not allowed to go to that shop, so I got a friend to buy it for me and we would make the exchange – money for comic – in a dark alley next door to the newsagent, and looking back this gave the comic an extra frisson because getting it was slightly illicit, similar to “the man” supplying me with hard drugs or underground comics and if Steve Gerber had written the issue of the Defenders I was getting this would be apt as there was definitely an underground-comics sensibility informing the adventures of Marvel’s ”non-team” and Sal Buscema was always up to converting Gerber’s off-the-wall scripts into pictures, with great storytelling. A cool drink, a sarnie, and that week's copy of Rampage – ahh, at that age life did not get much better than that. Check out fellow British CAF member Paul Roach's extensive OA collection with many Sal pages if you were unfamiliar with how good is his work.

At the same time Marvel US put an embargo on US Spiderman titles such as ASM and Spectacular coming into the UK because they thought it would impact on the sale of Marvel UK titles which reprinted Spidey stories, but one title that slipped the net was Marvel Team-Up and the impression that Sal’s work on that title was such that I consider Sal to be one of the three greatest Spidey artists (the others being “Sturdy” Steve and Johnny “Ring a Ding”) so that when Sal came to the United Kingdom Comic Art Convention in 1993 and was executing free head-shots (where the queue was easily as long as or even longer than that for John the following year) there never was any doubt in my mind who I would request. I think it speaks volumes when I say that I do not have any other piece of OA – published or unpublished – that features the Webslinger (at one time my favourite superhero) because if you have a drawing by one of the very best then why would you need another one?

6 Feb. I uploaded the above description and pictures (together with a light-hearted conclusion) late on what would’ve been Sal’s 90th birthday. It was only in the morning that I found out that in the intervening hours the news had broken that Sal had passed away two days previously on the 24th. I don't think I am alone in thinking it extra sad when someone passes just a few days before their birthday and particularly so when it is a milestone anniversary. Sal may not have had the acclaim he deserved because his art was not as slick and eye-grabbing as some of his contemporaries, but one of the comments that has come up again and again in the past eleven days is his superlative storytelling – see Walt Simonson’s appreciation on his IG page which features a picture of him, Sal and Weezie. I have looked again at some of his early Avengers work in my copies of Marvel Super Action and he was very good even then and given how prolific he was – long and distinguished runs on diverse series – it stands to reason that you get better the more you do something, and how he therefore could stand toe-to-toe with any other comic artist in the narrative aspect of his work. The attention and coverage given to Sal and his work in the past eleven days will hopefully drive people who did not place him in the first rank of comic artists to re-evaluate his work; and for those who were too young to see Sal’s work coming out in his heyday to now track it down. I assume that artists would like after they are gone to still have people look at, enjoy and appreciate their work. Thank you, Sal, for the convention drawing, the photograph, but above all for the marvellously entertaining comics you produced.

My deep gratitude to UKCAC ’93 convention organisers, Frank and Hassan – thank you.