Joe Kubert's Zorro, and More

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.

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