Jim Aparo looked for a job in comic books at EC in the mid-Fifties,
but, unhired, went into commercial art. He drew the short-lived
newspaper strip "Stern Wheeler" in 1963, and didn't get into comic
books until he landed work at Charlton in 1967.
Or so says the conventional wisdom.
This page of early Aparo is relatively crude, but it's obviously
his—he's not ghosting pencils under someone else's inks (like
Sal Trapani's). If
the final panel close-up isn't a giveaway that this is his art, the use
of a Craftint-type texture paper in that and earlier panels should
identify his style; the trees in the foreground of the tilted fifth
panel are another Aparo technique.
This page comes from the story "The Sinister Stone," published
by a company Aparo is not known to have worked for, Martin Goodman's
Timely-Atlas-Marvel. The comic book is
Worlds
of Fantasy 11,
and the
cover date is February 1958.
Martin, I always thought this was Ed Winiarski's pencils (and perhaps even his own scratchy inks). Has Jim Aparo confirmed this as his?
ReplyDeleteDoc V.
Martin, further, the job # of L-669 p[laces the story to cover date Apr/57 (it was inventory in this issue as were all post-implosion fantasy stories). That means it should have been out on the stands (if not kept in inventory) in Jan/57 and actual drawn in Oct/57.
ReplyDeleteDoc V.
Doc, I entered WOF 10's cover date, I see now; you're right about this being April's issue.
ReplyDeleteI just looked for a Winiarsky story and the first signed one I came across, "Morgan's Mad Machine" in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 49 from '58, does use shading texture like this story's. But I can't see anything in his layouts such as jumped out at me in the bottom tier here; that story's layouts are in the tradition of John Forte's stodgy style.
Aparo never claimed this story before his death. That the close-up in the final panel is an Aparo face struck me when I turned to the page, but it is only my gut instinct.
I see the similarity to Aparo's work but not enough of one to be sure it's him.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit, Mark and Doc, that the panels on this page apart from the bottom tier, and the art on the other pages, would not make me think Jim Aparo at all.
ReplyDelete