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).
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.
This is not Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Charles Nicholas, Bill Molno, Jack Keller, Wayne Howard, or Jack Abel.
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.
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.
ReplyDeleteHoly 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!
ReplyDeleteMartin,
ReplyDeleteI 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.
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.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that this was a big surprise to me, too!
Please,could you post the entire comic ?
ReplyDeletePlease
I can't post the entire comic, but here's where it's available as a .cbr file:
ReplyDeletehttp://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.