Friday, February 17, 2023

Swan/Burnley on Tommy Tomorrow?

The Who's Who's credits for John Fischetti started out as just "Fischetti" on Tommy Tomorrow, if I remember correctly, but now encompass any number of 1950s series at DC--most of them inking Curt Swan, going by the list's matching up with Swan's series there at the time.

These four stories at the end of Swan's run on Tommy Tomorrow look to be inked by someone else with a heavier brush, and I would think it's Ray Burnley, who was inking Swan on Gangbusters and such. Swan/Burnley would soon be the art team on Jimmy Olsen when that title started up in 1954, and for a number of years.

Action 167, 170, 171 Tommy Tomorrow

These tiers from Action 167, 170, and 171 showcase faces finished with a heavier line than I see in the earlier Swan TT stories. What do you think?

Edmond Hamilton wrote almost all the Tommy Tomorrow stories from Action 147 to 175 (158 and 172 I don't think are his) and a few after that, so these four are his scripts.

Curt Swan (p)/Ray Burnley (i)
Tommy Tomorrow in Action Comics


Apr/52 167  The Man Who Stopped Space-Flight
May/      168  The Meteor Mystery
Jul/      170  The Great Brain of Space
Aug/      171  The Phantom Space Ship

6 comments:

  1. I agree, Martin, it does look like Burnley inks IMHO.

    Although a big Swan fan, I never knew he penciled TT, not having any Action Comics from this period.

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    1. When I first saw reprints from the 1950s House of Mystery and Gangbusters, around 1970, it took me a little while to realize I was seeing Curt Swan's work under inkers so different from the ones I was familiar with--having no idea that he'd worked on anything outside of the Superman Family.

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  2. John Fischetti had a full time job as an editorial cartoonist, so it surperises me that he did as many as folks think he did.

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  3. That's the subtext of my first paragraph--Bails and Ware in the first edition of the WHO'S WHO said Fischetti, surname only, but soon fandom conflated him with editorial cartoonist John, and here we are.

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  5. And oh, hey, everybody, I just found I lost access to writing this blog when I lost my old phone number, the sole verification Google uses to enable my logging in. Go to Who Created the Comic Books 2!

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