Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Joe Kubert's Zorro, and More

Four Color 497 Zorro

At Western Publishing /Dell, Joe Kubert pencilled three features from novelists: Zorro, Max Brand's Silvertip, and Ernest Haycox's Western Marshal; and one TV tie-in: Steve Donovan, Western Marshal. The page above is from "The Sword of Zorro" in 1953

In the beginnings of Kubert's work on these, his inker was tending mostly to the close-up faces and nearer figures. Kubert's inks show on the backgrounds and distant figures. Even some of the display lettering is Kubert's. The emanata, to use Mort Walker's expression for the lines indicating emotion, are certainly a Kubert tool. The point arrives where Everett Raymond Kinstler inks mostly everything, but you can look hard enough and still see Kubert, ghostly, underneath; see the jail and especially its sign from "Silvertip's Trap" in 1959.

Four Color 898 Silvertip

The only inside-front-cover page where I can see Kubert pencils is "Zorro's Pistol" in FC 538.

I haven't seen FC 572, "Silvertip's Search," but like the rest of these it's attributed to Kinstler, so it 's probably the 15th Kubert-and-Kinstler issue. The art on the other Silvertip not listed here, FC 835, "The False Riders," is by other hands.

As I was getting together these books out of order, it was after I'd started this list that I found this 2013 comment from Josemas on Comics Plus for FC 491: "Looks like Kinstler had been studying Kubert before doing this job."

Four Color
Pencils by Joe Kubert
Inks by
Everett Raymond Kinstler and Kubert

Aug/53 491  Silvertip
Sept/     497  The Sword of Zorro
Feb/54 534  Western Marshal
Mar/     538  The Mask of Zorro
Aug/     574  The Hand of Zorro
Oct/     591  Western Marshal: The Spanish Mine
Feb/55 613  Western Marshal and the Cattle War

Pencils by Kubert
Inks by Kinstler


Aug/     640  Western Marshal and the Iron Horse
Dec/     667  Silvertip and the Stolen Stallion
Feb/56 675  Steve Donovan: Showdown
Oct/     731  Silvertip and the Fighting Four
Feb/57 768  Steve Donovan: White Gold

Steve Donovan: Two Men Out
Apr/     789  Silvertip and the Valley Thieves
May/59 898  Silvertip's Trap

2 comments:

  1. On Silvertip 667 I get the impression I see Bob McCarty on the faces. This could be the effect of Kinstler inking KUbert, but the feeling remains.

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