As a jack Kirby inker, Vince Colletta has gotten a lot of flak for certain aspects of his craft. Most notable would be his tendencies to simplify Kirby’s elaborate architecture and figure work, black it out or in some cases erase it completely.

I thought that I would display some of Colletta’s better work for this entry. The first example is from Thor#137. For the sake of studying the inking here, it is wonderful to utilize these  original art pages displayed on the Heritage Auction website, which also contain fragments of Kirby’s margin notes, much of which sadly have been trimmed off.

Here above is a panel taking up more than half a page, and Kirby’s composition is one that in my opinion puts him in a league with classic painters like Tiepolo or Velasquez when it comes to the complex arrangement of figures in motion intertwined.

The composition is set up so that the reader’s eye will find its way to Thor’s besieged form in the center. The eye enters at upper left and moves downward and to the right, but each figure is an anatomical marvel of kinetic energy. Mark the warrior with the spear melding with the one with the spiked club and then check out the one suspended upside down in the air in front of Thor. Our hero’s torso is much too long, but we suspend belief for the sake of action.

Colletta’s pen line and brush are sleek and sinuous and his use of black spotting is exceptional. Known mostly for his crow quill pen line, the inker’s facile use of the brush can be admired most notably in the highlights on the armor of the large figure at bottom center. We tend to see Colletta’s brush when there are embellishments like the sheen of armor or more subtle and sinuous strokes of black such as hair and feather.

The next sample, seen above is from Thor #139, wherein we witness Ulik the Troll holding Thor’s hammer as a well as a replica of that mighty weapon. Here again, we are treated to some masterful black spotting as well as splendid brushwork in the Troll’s hair and beard. As many of Kirby’s compositions are, this is a very busy panel which we are intended to see in color, but Kirby’s spotting of strong areas of black drawing and Colletta’s professional inking enable our eyes, even at the black and white stage to separate the various shape masses from one another.

Finally, we feast our eyes on a page from Thor #142, which has some of the subtlest uses of black that we are likely to behold. This page showcases Kirby’s ability to be extraordinarily cinematic in his approach to comic storytelling. In the first panel, we see one of Kirby’s wondrous machines, a “firebolt”-projecting device. Look well at the proportions here of the cannon to the minions firing it, and in particular the figure on the balcony in the upper left corner. Kirby has given us a miniature set here, as complex and compositionally perfect as anything that could be constructed for a high budget feature film. The mind boggles at the brain at work here that is capable of such creation.

Panel two gives us an equally cinematic angle for a close-up and showcases Colletta’s beautiful brushwork in Mogul’s headgear and the dark cloth that covers his face. Panel three gives us a dynamic hand in forced perspective as Mogul reaches for the flask held in Sulibeg’s proffered glove. Finally, we cut to the long shot of the two figures in a fanciful setting, another of Kirby’s miraculous exercises in architecture, combining high tech with mythological. Sulibeg cringes while Mogul threatens to dose him with a deadly potion. Here again, we see a nice balance of strong pen line with confident brushwork. The amount of inking on this page alone would overwhelm a less than confident inker, so we must praise Colletta for his sheer tenacity and remember that he was often called on to finish Kirby’s detailed pencils in order to meet a deadline.  Yes, he can be criticized for his faults, but we can also praise him for his strengths and accomplishments.

Image 1- Thor #163, Jack Kirby, plot and art-  Vince Colletta, inks-  Stan Lee, plot and text.

Image 2-Thor #139, Ibid

Image 3- Thor # 142 Ibid