Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Trapani Ghost: Can You See Who?


El Dorado close-up of John Wayne

It looks like this has been a question mark for 45 years (if not, the attribution hasn't gotten onto the Internet): the penciller under Sal Trapani's inks on Dell's Movie Classic of the John Wayne Western, El Dorado (Oct/67).

El Dorado sequence

Trapani's inks are pretty overwhelming on most of the book; I think it helps to narrow things down to a few panels and sequences, ones where the penciller's style shows through as best it can.

El Dorado panels

This is not Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Charles Nicholas, Bill Molno, Jack Keller, Wayne Howard, or Jack Abel.

El Dorado sequence

I've left this penciller's name on the comment screen so you can guess the artist with a fresh eye and without the influence of glimpsing my ID.

El Dorado panels with sound effects

6 comments:

  1. Sal Trapani's ghost penciller on El Dorado is Jim Aparo. Like the others I mentioned, his stint at Charlton is probably where Trapani ran across him. Aparo lettered at least the sound effects in the last panels here.

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  2. Holy cow, Martin! You're absolutely right! As the self-considered #1 Aparo fan on the internet, this is huge news to me! My almost-complete Aparo collection is now a little less complete, but thanks a million for this discovery!

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  3. Martin,

    I guessed correctly! The face of Wayne, as well as the shading and figures reminded me of Aparo's style. Excellent work! I will add this credit to the GCD with a proper vredit to you and your site.

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  4. M.W. and Nick, it's too bad Aparo didn't get to ink this as well, but I guess the editors expected a little something of the artist they assigned the job.

    I have to admit that this was a big surprise to me, too!

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  5. Please,could you post the entire comic ?
    Please

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  6. I can't post the entire comic, but here's where it's available as a .cbr file:

    http://www.sendspace.com/file/sdl2tg
    or
    http://www.filefactory.com/file/e90yuayjwwh

    If you don't have a comics reading app like CDisplay, you should be able to open it into the individual pages with a zip file managing app.

    ReplyDelete