I can't say I am a huge fan of Sy Barry's work. For much of the fifties he was employed by DC as a house inker and as such he was used to push a slick house style that beat down every form of individuality of their pencilers. Some didn't come out of it well, like Gene Colan, but even those who seemed to fit into it, like Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane, did much better work when they inked their own pencils. But when Sy left DC and took over the Phantom strip, he showed he was a very accomplished artist on his own and he not only kept the feature going but made it an international success. Maybe he was not the brilliant and singular character artist his brother Dan (the Flash Gordon artist) was, but what he created was nice to look at, as you can see here. I have been trying to find the starting point of his run, but other than the fact that it must have been somewhere in 1961/62 I didn't get.
3 comments:
See the comment one post higher for the question. If indeed the Sunday strip started in 1962, later than the daily (which started in 1961) I have included two Sundays not by Barry. But it is interesting to see that they are in a different style from either the Sundays before that and the pure Sy barry ones after it. I think .there may have been a transition period where Barry inked the original artist on the Sundays before taking over the whole thing.
Again, according to the Comics Revue checklist, the story "Fluffy" from 8/20/61 to 10/29/61 was by McCoy and Bill Lignante, the story "Queen Samaris XII" from 11/5/61 to 5/13/62 was by just Bill Lignante, and the story "Treasure of the Skull Cave" from 5/20/62 to 10/28/62 was by Lignante and Sy Barry together. From then on it was just Sy Barry.
Seems right. A transition artist was another solution.
Post a Comment