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Phil Southern
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 206
Posted: 20 October 2024 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

LIke everyone, I love Frank Robbins' Invaders work, especially once Frank Springer starts inking the title.  I just recently (and finally) scored an original art page that I am anxiously awaiting in the mail!
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Dave Kopperman
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Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3502
Posted: 21 October 2024 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Since this thread appeared, I've been idly coming back to Robbins. Pretty fascinating artist, in many ways.  This page (inks: Springer, Power Man #34) really sums up what I see as his strengths and weaknesses neatly:


First things first - aesthetically, it's a thing of beauty.  There's so much energy in the marks and the blacks. The panels showing the phone conversation have a great clarity and flow, and it's interesting how in exaggerating the expressions and going into more of a cartoony vibe, he's somehow grounded it more than a less dynamic and stylized approach.  

But contrasted below that is one of his action beats, which I find to be a fairly chaotic read. The anatomy is exaggerated at the expense of coherence, and the spotted blacks and textures end up so uniformly distributed in weight and density that it's hard to trace which limb belongs to which figure in the tangle. And while it could be argued that the background would have worked if it hadn't been overwhelmed by the copy, I think that the balloon/caption placement actually does some of the heavy lifting in focusing the visual flow, there.  As it is, the background is almost completely abstract, and so busy that it fights with the figures for attention.  But, again, the panel is full of energy.

Ultimately a pretty fascinating artist. I'd be interested to see how well he structures his full stories; sometimes looking at a page in isolation does a disservice to the artist, when they're originally thinking of it as one in a series of 20+. But I think he'd be much better suited for a romance book or Mary Worth-type talking head comic than a superhero action title.


Edited by Dave Kopperman on 21 October 2024 at 3:16pm
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Scott Gray
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Joined: 16 August 2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 44
Posted: 23 October 2024 at 10:16am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I've always been blown away by panel 4: that little girl, locked in her own world following the death of her brother, so huge in the frame that she bisects the panel. And her father, tiny and helpless in the bgrd, sandwiched between two thick strips of solid black. Such a powerful composition that says so much.
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Brian Price
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 26 June 2012
Posts: 47
Posted: 27 October 2024 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I periodically buy cheap golden age comics off of Instagram live sales.  I get them mostly just to experience comics from that era, and pick them based on the covers, just like the kids buying them off the stands did.  This is the latest one I picked up:


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Dave Kopperman
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Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3502
Posted: 27 October 2024 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Beautiful cover.  If that’s his own inks, he’s probably better served inking himself than paired with anyone else I’ve seen.

Though that arm is kinda impossible, no?
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133688
Posted: 27 October 2024 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Yes. Beautiful rendering but a bit Reed Richards in that arm.

It amazes me how many really good artists have trouble when parts of limbs go off camera.

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Brennan Voboril
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 15 January 2011
Posts: 1748
Posted: 27 October 2024 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

When I was younger, I didn't care for his art (probably because he took over for Kaluta on the Shadow).  As I got older, I came to love his work.  
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Scott Gray
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 16 August 2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 44
Posted: 28 October 2024 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

That cover looks nothing like Robbins, either drawing or inking. And that "All brand new" blurb suggests that other people put the interiors together as well. 

Brian, could you take some photos of a few pages and post them? I'd be curious to see them.
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Dave Kopperman
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Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3502
Posted: 28 October 2024 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I think you’re right, Scott.  I was unaware of the strip and this is apparently one of those bundled reprint things, so I can easily believe that it was just assigned to a bullpen artist or whoever King worked with for their book line. Certainly doesn’t look much like the strip from the era (1949), which I’ll assume was more Robbins than assistants.

Which now presents a whole new mystery: if this cover isn’t Robbins, I wonder if it’s another known artist?
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Peter Hicks
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Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1992
Posted: 28 October 2024 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

 Though that arm is kinda impossible, no?”
******
Plot twist: That’s a Polynesian native warrior hand coming up out of the water!   That cover is instantly 10 times more exciting!
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Scott Gray
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 16 August 2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 44
Posted: 28 October 2024 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Dave Kopperman: Certainly doesn’t look much like the strip from the era (1949), which I’ll assume was more Robbins than assistants.

********

As far as I know, the only art assistant Robbins ever employed was Patrice Serres in the mid-60s for a couple of years - which makes his 33-year run on Johnny Hazard even more impressive.
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Doug Centers
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 February 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 5647
Posted: 28 October 2024 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Robbins' had said his style was influenced by Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff but later found his own style. If you look at some of those Johnny Hazard strips in the seventies it looks much how we seen him in the comics. Thirty years of evolution.
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