Vince Colletta

Vincent Joseph Colletta (born October 15, 1923 in Casteldaccia, Sicily; died 1991) was a highly prolific American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's Silver Age inkers, including on landmark early issues of Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four and a long, celebrated run on the character Thor in Journey into Mystery and The Mighty Thor.

Biography

Early life and career

Colletta entered comics in 1952, freelancing first as a penciler, inking his own work, for the publisher Better Comics. The following year he began his decades-long collaboration with Marvel, at the company's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics. Primarily a romance comics artist, on the Atlas titles Love Romances, Lovers, My Own Romance, Stories of Romance, and The Romances of Nurse Helen Grant, Colletta's work also appeared in such genres as jungle adventure (Jungle Action, Jann of the Jungle, Lorna the Jungle Girl) and horror/fantasy (Uncanny Tales, Journey into Mystery).

During an Atlas retrenchment in the late 1950s, Colletta freelanced as a penciler on the DC Comics romance titles Falling in Love, Girls' Love Stories, and Heart Throbs, and Charlton Comics' Love Diary and Teen Confessions. His last confirmed pencil work for decades is "I Can't Marry Now" in Love Diary #6 (Sept. 1959).

Colletta's first confirmed work as an inker of another's work is unknown, largely due to credits not being given rountinely in 1950s comics. Two possibilities suggested by historians and researchers are the cover of Atlas' Annie Oakley Western Tales #10 (April 1956), co-inking with Sol Brodsky over Brodsky's pencils; and the three-page story "I Met My Love Again", penciled by Matt Baker, in My Own Romance #65 (Sept. 1958). The primary possibilities for his first "pre-superhero Marvel" science-fiction/fantasy story, all penciled by Baker, are "The Green Fog" in Journey into Mystery #50 (Jan. 1959), "I Fell to the Center of the Earth" in Tales to Astonish #2 (March 1959), or "The Brain Picker" in World of Fantasy #17 (April 1959).

Historians pinpoint his first inking of Jack Kirby's pencils as either the cover of Kid Colt: Outlaw #100 (Sept. 1961) or (with Colletta's credit confirmed), the cover of Love Romances #98 (March 1962).

With the folding of early Marvel's romance comics in the early 1960s, Colletta teamed with penciler Joe Sinnott on Charlton romance stories.

Marvel Comics

As an inker for Marvel in the 1960s, Colletta worked on nearly every title, including some of the earliest issues of Daredevil (over penciler Joe Orlando). Notably, he inked Kirby's The Fantastic Four #40-43, as well as The Fantastic Four Annual #3, featuring the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm and guest-starring virtually the entire Marvel Comics stable at the time.

Colletta began his six-year run on Kirby's "The Mighty Thor" feature with the "Tales of Asgard" backup in Journey into Mystery #106 (July 1964). Colletta graduated to the lead feature with #116 (May 1965). He continued through the book's retitling to The Mighty Thor with #126 (March 1966), and — except for one issue (#143) — inked it through #167 (Aug. 1969), picking up again from #176 (May 1970) to Kirby's final issue, #179 (Aug. 1970) (inking John Buscema in #178). Colletta also inked the Journey into Mystery Annual #1 (1965), which introduced Hercules to the Marvel universe, and The Mighty Thor King-Size Annual #2.

He would also pencil stories in many 1960s issues of Charlton Comics' Teen-Age Love and First Kiss (at least some of which has been credited in reprints as by "Vince Colletta Studio"), and occasionally ink for Charlton's Gunmaster, and Dell Comics' Guerrilla War, Jungle War Stories and Western comic Idaho.

DC Comics

In 1970, Colletta — who had been freelancing for DC Comics since 1968 on the romance titles Falling In Love, Girls' Love Stories, Secret Hearts and Young Romance — stepped up his inking for the company following Kirby's move there. Collettta inked the initial issues of the Kirby series Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and the Kirby "Fourth World" titles The Forever People, Mister Miracle and The New Gods. He also inked Kirby's two black-and-white magazine one-shots, The Days Of The Mob and Spirit World (both Oct. 1971). Colletta went on to ink an immense array at DC, including a variety of Batman, Superman and Green Lantern titles; the TV tie-in series Isis and Super Friends; and nearly every issue of Wonder Woman from #206 (June-July 1973) to #270 (Aug. 1980), over pencilers including Don Heck, Dick Dillin, Curt Swan, and Jose Delbo.

Colletta was named DC's art director in May 1976, resigning the post in May 1979.

Before and after his tenure, he continued to do a small amount of inking for Marvel, as well as for Skywald Publications' black-and-white horror magazine Psycho. Well into the 1980s, Colletta continued to ink a wide assortment of comics for both DC and Marvel. His final credit may have been on a Marvel humor one-shot, Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe (July 1989).

Art Cappello was Colletta's frequent background assistant. Wally Wood was among those who also assisted or ghosted for Colletta, who maintained an active studio in Manhattan.

Quotes

Rodrigo Baeza: "Colletta was appreciated by publishers because of his ability to turn out professional-looking work on a short time. However, in his efforts to meet deadlines, Colletta would frequently erase details from the pencilled pages he received.... Magazines like the Jack Kirby Collector have shown examples of the pencilled pages Colletta received side-by-side with the finished, inked pages, and the differences can be very evident. The end result would still be printable, but costume details would disappear, patterns in buildings would be simplified, and sometimes background objects would be rubbed out".^[1]

Pierre Comtois: "...Colletta's hair-thin, detailed inking style — which seemed devoid of large areas of black, [which are] used to give figures weight and heft but an artistic concept yet to be fully explored by the time of the Middle Ages, an era whose crude woodcuts most reflected the art style needed by the Thor strip — captured the elusive quality of otherworldly drama that the strip would increasingly demand as Lee and Kirby took it away from the everyday world of supervillains to a mythic plane where the forces of evil were on a far more gargantuan scale. Despite the serendipity of the two men's styles, Colletta would later be criticized, with good reason, for compromising Kirby's artistic vision by eliminating much of the detail that the artist put into his work".^[2]

Mark Evanier: "In 1970 when Steve Sherman and I met Steve Ditko, he asked us about the new Kirby books that were then about to debut at DC. When we told him Colletta was handling the inking, he winced and said that he would probably not look at the comics. Back when he was working for Marvel, Ditko said he'd pick up the latest issues in the office and always check the credits before taking the comics home. If he found Colletta's name — especially as Kirby's embellisher — he would make a point of putting the comic back, or even in a wastebasket. And he'd make sure Stan saw what he was doing and knew the reason why".^[3]

Len Wein, on what he enjoyed most about working on Luke Cage: "Getting to work with the wonderful George Tuska, before Vinnie Colletta got his hands on the pencils and ruined them".^[4]

Jim Shooter, on Frank Miller breaking into comics: "[He] ended up getting a small job from Western Publishing, I think. Thus emboldened, he went to DC, and after getting savaged by Joe Orlando, got in to see art director Vinnie Colletta, who recognized talent and arranged for him to get a one-page war-comic job".^[5]

Footnotes

References

• The Lambiek Comiclopedia: Vince Colletta
• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
• The Grand Comic Book Database
• The Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index: Vince Colletta
• POV Online March 19 2003 and July 16 2004
• Comics Commentary 15 October 2003
• DC Timeline 1976-1979
• The Jack Kirby Comics Weblog
• What is Last Kiss?
• "Creepy & Eerie" by Russ Jones

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