Mike Sekowsky's pencils are buried at times under Robinson's inks on the Lassie stories. This page is from "The Yawning Pit." I'd say Sekowsky is most obvious in the first panel; if you judge by the middle tier as you flip through the comic, you might be hard put to attach his name to the page.
This title, by the way, is an example of why when I've mentioned the separation between Western Publishing's East and West Coast offices I've said something along the lines of "most of the time," because West Coast writer Gaylord Du Bois and East Coast artists like Sekowsky, Robinson, Bob Fujitani, and Jack Sparling share a long run on Lassie.
Sekowsky/Robinson art on Lassie
| Jan/63 | #60 | Between Life and Death |
| The Milk of Human Kindness | ||
| Apr/ | #61 | The Yawning Pit |
| Spears Among the Shadows | ||
| July/ | #62 | Monster of the Marshes |
| The Raft |
My understanding when I worked for Western was that Du Bois was the only freelancer working for both the west and east coast offices routinely as if they were separate companies. When you see Dan Spiegle turn up in an east coast book, that was usually because the editors in L.A. called the editors in N.Y. and said, "We have no assignment we can give Dan right now. Do you have something to keep him busy until we have more scripts for him?" But Du Bois sold to both divisions on his own and I don't think he was based in L.A. or N.Y. for most of that time.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the mystery anthologies were, unsurprisingly, the easiest way for the editors to supply that work for Dan Spiegle; I count 15 or so of his stories in them, and off the top of my head can't recall his appearing elsewhere in the East Coast titles.
DeleteDan drew the last DOCTOR SOLAR stories Western published. Those were for the East Coast office.
ReplyDeleteThat would be exactly what I didn't recall!
DeleteMartin:
ReplyDeleteI don't think Mike Sekowsky penciled this one... Rather, I think it's Bob Forgione, who ghosted a lot of Dell/Gold Key stuff for Jerry Robinson. Forgione is one of the many unsung heroes of comics. I think he did his best as a ghost penciler on The Phantom daily strip for Sy Barry from 1961-65.
Best,
Alberto
Alberto,
ReplyDeleteIn DEAR NANCY PARKER, compare the penciling style of the final story in #2, "Going Steady," to that of the other Nancy Parker stories in #1 and 2. You've IDed him on "Going Steady"; Mike Sekowsky is easy to see there under inks by Giacoia (and maybe Giella too)--but his figures and faces can be made out under Robinson's inks in all those other stories. Look at page 2 of issue 1, for instance.
As with Elephant Boy in LASSIE, the backup, Great Loves, is penciled in quite a different style. Could those be the ones Bob Forgione ghosted? "Going Steady" tells me that Sekowsky wasn't ghosting for Robinson in the first place--he was working directly for Western on these books, as on so many others.
Martin