I'm still receiving e-mails about my three-part piece (which started here) about comic book/strip creator Frank Robbins. Before I get to some more of those missives, I have to make a correction or maybe a clarification…
I said that Robbins wrote, drew and sometimes lettered his Johnny Hazard newspaper strip — six daily strips and one Sunday page — in three days each week without assistants. At times, I believe he did but there were periods when he employed Howard Liss as a writer — or probably more of a co-writer. Also, a French artist named Patrice Serres assisted with the art at times and said there was one other art assistant while he was doing it.
I was told by Gil Kane, Irwin Hasen, Ben Oda (Robbins' letterer at times) and a few others that Robbins produced the strip without assistants but maybe they meant that was so at the time they told me. In any case, no one doubts that Robbins was very fast and I thank Andreas Eriksson for the information he sent me. Now to the mail, starting with this message from David Long…
Thanks for writing about Frank Robbins on your blog. I feel Frank has been under rated as to his contributions to Batman. While everyone credits Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams for moving Batman back to a dark and serious character, I think Frank Robbins did a lot of heavy lifting of moving Batman in that direction that is often overlooked. (Along with artists like Irv Novick and Bob Brown.)
I will admit I did not care for Robbins' art when I saw it on Batman and Marvel's Invaders. It wasn't until after his death that I discovered his work on Johnny Hazard and saw how good he can be in the right venue.
Yeah, that was kind of my main point — one that I think some readers of this blog missed; that comic book artists sometimes don't do their best work on a certain comic or with certain collaborators. As a kid, I often loved some artist's work on one book but not another and I was curious why. I came to the conclusion that the reason was obvious. Most comic book artists were and are pretty consistent in their skills. What varies from book to book is, first of all, which book they're working on and who they're working with.
This next one is from Bob Thomas…
I'm a longtime daily reader of your blog and just finished reading your series on Frank Robbins. I must confess, I was a hater of his Invaders artwork (but loved his writing on the Batman/Detective stories) appreciate you mentioning the non-Neal Adams art bias (of which I suffer). I took what you wrote to heart and am going to reread some of those Invaders stories with an eye towards non-traditional art. I recently did the same with Alex Toth, whom I previously hadn't liked, and found I liked his artwork when I wasn't comparing him to my favorites (Adams, Kaluta, Wrightson, and other "stars").
When Neal Adams kind of exploded in comics in the late sixties, we had kids in our local comic book club who said, in effect, "Yeah, that's how all comic books should look" and became hostile to any that didn't. As good as Neal was, I always thought there were many comics for which his "look" was wrong…and the same applies to Kirby or anyone else.
This is from Rob Weldon…
I wanted to thank you for the excellent sequence on Frank Robbins. Plenty of new information and context for me, it was great. Outside of Rob Liefeld, he's the most maligned artist online, at least as of today.
I think you're right that poor inking hurt his work, but this was pretty common at the time. But his artwork was really special so it stood out anyways. Everyone complains about his anatomy, but he didn't make random errors in random ways, he did the same things consistently, and conveyed complex movements and emotions. His paintings show that he understood anatomy very well.
And his facial expressions are perfect; you can feel the accomplishment of having worked on all those Johnny Hazard strips where you need to make every bit of space carry meaning. You always know what a character is looking at in a scene, and sense their emotions.
A better critic than I could put together a case that what he learned producing strips, comics and paintings was used across the media and improved his work in each.
In any case, I loved his comics stuff when it first came out, I even put up with the Human Fly and the Man from Atlantis while he drew those books. I later looked into Scorchy Smith and Johnny Hazard. But never hear comics readers say anything good about him, only professionals. I can't think of another artist or writer that is true about.
Well, I know an awful lot of comic readers who have good things to say about Frank Robbins. I now have a folder on my computer with over a hundred e-mails from them…and I also know folks who think Rob Liefeld is terrific. There's a wide variety of opinions and sensibilities out there as well as people who expect different things from comic book art.
I expect/hope for smart panel-to-panel continuity but I've encountered folks — and I'm not saying they're wrong even though they are — who just want neat-looking pictures and don't really care if they tell a story or not. I recall debating with one Alex Toth detractor who thought he'd won a debate by saying, "Show me one panel he ever drew that you'd frame and hang on your wall!" I can think of many with Alex but if that's what you're looking for, you're missing the point of what he was trying to do.
With Toth — with most of my favorite artists — judging the work by individual images was like judging a movie by looking at freeze-frames of different moments in the film. As I mentioned, the aspect of drawing comics that Kirby thought was most important was deciding what to draw in each panel. He meant, "…to tell the story well."
Here's one last e-mail for now, this time from Phil Rushton…
I'm in complete agreement with everything you wrote about the wonderful Frank Robbins, but it occurs to me that I'd have really loved to see his version of Blackhawk. I wonder if you ever tried to get him to draw the title when you were editing it — or had he left comics forever by then?
He'd left comics forever by then and Alex Toth — who was my only possible conduit to Mr. Robbins — told me Frank was happy to be out of them…so I didn't ask. I actually didn't seek out most of the artists who did those short backup stories in Blackhawk. It was more a matter of who asked me or who I ran into at conventions or in my everyday life. Robbins would have been sensational on that feature.
Thanks to all who wrote. I may do at least one more of these. I certainly have enough e-mails to fill ten or more.