Remembering John Buscema

digresssmlOriginally published February 15, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1474

I’d never been to a viewing.

You know: A viewing. Where the body of the recently deceased lies in a coffin while people gather, one at a time, and stare. It always seemed grotesque to me, an exercise in morbidity. Why gather in large numbers to stare at a shell? The body… the body isn’t the person. Whatever it was that made up the person, whether you believe that its purely biological neurons, personality traits hardwired into DNA, or a soul… whatever it is, it’s gone. To me it would be like appreciating a fine wine by gazing at an empty bottle. The whole notion just kind of creeped me out. It probably doesn’t help that I’m a regular viewer of HBO’s Six Feet Under where they show corpses being prepared for viewings while the ghost of the deceased chats with the morticians.

And there’s always people looking around saying, “(The deceased) would have liked that,” be it the flower arrangements or the suit chosen to be dressed in or the number of mourners showing up. Except I always think that what the deceased would really have liked is to not die, and everything else is just beside the point.

I’m sorry. I know it sounds like I’m making light of a topic that’s all too serious. I do that; I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable talking about something.

Like the death of John Buscema.

I can’t pretend I knew him particularly well. That we were best buds, that he’d call me up all the time and we’d chat the afternoon away, or we’d go out for drinks or roll a few frames or hit the links or whatever. I didn’t really know him.

What I do know is that some years back, when I was writing Spectacular Spider-Man, we were falling behind on deadlines and editor Jim Owsley wanted me to come up with a stand-alone issue that could be done by four different artists simultaneously without looking like a mishmash. And I said, “Well, let’s riff Rashomon.” Owsley stared at me blankly. I explained, “It’s a famous Kurosawa film. It focuses on the nature of reality, by showing how different people have different perceptions of the same event. (As an aside, it’s out on DVD end of March.) So we can have some event that Spider-Man is involved in, and different characters, like JJ and Mary Jane and Peter, all have different takes on what happened. And each of the sequences, including a framing sequence that sets everything up, would then be done by a different art team.”

Owsley immediately loved the idea, and that’s what we did. I wrote the story while he started lining up art teams. And then one day he came to my office (I was still working in sales during the day at the time) and said, “Who’s your best friend in the world? Who cares about how your stories look?”

“What happened?” I asked. “What’d you do?”

Grinning, he said, “Guess who I got to draw the framing sequence.”

I wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. “Who?” I said.

“John Buscema pencils, John Romita Sr. inks.”

I was stunned. Excited, elated. You have to understand, I grew up reading the work these guys produced. I was something of a latecomer to Marvel; I wasn’t in there at the very beginning. I didn’t cut my teeth on Ditko and Kirby. Instead I started slow and played catch-up. The first Spider-Man issues I bought were drawn by John Romita, Sr. (before he was a senior). And my first exposure to the Silver Surfer was not in the pages of Fantastic Four, but instead in the first issue of his comic book (which I bought ‘cause the cover looked so weird. Imagine seeing the Surfer for the first time with no background on him and all and thinking, “What’s up with this guy?”) And it was penciled by an artist of such power and strength that it made most other comics I’d been reading up until then look sick in comparison. Those issues of Surfer remain, to me, an absolute pinnacle of comic book storytelling.

Spec Spidey was the first time I had the honor of working with either of the gentlemen, and the excitement I felt when those first Buscema pencil pages came in, I can’t even begin to express. I worked with him on one or two other occasions, and it was a joy to see the stories produced in that clear, unmistakable style, but nothing can possibly compare to that first rush of enthusiasm that comes with having the opportunity to collaborate with someone whose work you’ve always admired.

John Buscema, as you know, passed away on January 10. I learned that services were going to be held at a funeral home that was barely a half hour away from me. I didn’t feel I should go to the funeral; I’d always felt that such things should be reserved for close friends and family, while I was just an occasional co-worker and long-time fan. I would have felt intrusive. But I felt that, at the very least, I should pay my respects to the man and his family by attending the viewing to be held the day before, despite my reservations. So with Kathleen at my side, I went to the viewing which was being held from 2 to 4 Sunday afternoon.

Upon arrival, we were handed a little card which I was told is traditional at such things. It had John’s name, date of birth and passing on it. Usually such cards have a picture of Jesus or a saint on them. Not John’s; his (at the suggestion, I believe, of his son) had a lovely Buscema rendering of Conan roaring into action alongside a fierce lion.

Familiar faces were in the viewing room. Tom DeFalco and Al Milgrom, Marie Severin, Bob Larkin, John Romita Sr. and his wife, Virginia. Saying “It’s good to see you” always seems so odd in those situations, because the reason you’re seeing each other is such a dámņëd depressing one. But what else can you say?

Tom reminisced about little things, such as an ongoing debate he would have with Buscema over who was the better storyteller, Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard. Tom solidly believed the former (for the record, I concur), but he remembered laughingly how sometimes out of the blue he’d get a phone call from Buscema who, without even bothering to identify himself, would start busting on him about how Howard was far superior to ERB.

People spoke of how Buscema was always dismissive of his work. That he acted as if his career choice was a waste of time, how it was disposable and meaningless. But no one believed that he truly believed that. Because John Buscema’s obvious love for the medium in which he plied his trade for decades was evident in every line, in every brushstroke.

At the far end of the room lay John Buscema, which was more than enough reason for me to remain at the opposite side. But his widow, Dolores was near the coffin, as were his grown children, John Jr. and Dianne. It was only right that I go talk to them, even though somehow I irrationally felt as if I was invading John’s privacy by going so near his body. So grasping Kathleen’s hand firmly, we approached. We extended our condolences to the family, and inquired as to brother Sal’s whereabouts. Dolores informed us that, as if things weren’t bad enough, Sal never made it up. Instead he’d been taken to the hospital with chest pains. Fortunately enough he was back home at that point and resting comfortably, his condition probably due more to stress than anything else. How horrific, though, would that have been? If Sal Buscema had made it up for the funeral and collapsed upon arrival?

Other people were waiting to speak to the family, and Kathleen and I stepped aside. It brought us within such close range of the coffin that I found myself yielding to—please pardon the expression—morbid curiosity. I took several steps closer, looked at what appeared to be the sleeping form of John Buscema, nattily attired in jacket and tie.

And there, neatly tucked between his fingers… was a drawing pen.

I do not lie. I am not making an extremely poor joke. It had been carefully placed there, presumably at the request of the family.

Big John Buscema, one of the greatest artists in the history of Marvel Comics, went to his final reward with a pen in his hand.

I think he would have liked it that way.

(Peter David can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

4 comments on “Remembering John Buscema

  1. Utterly poignant. Loss of a true giant there. John, IMO, was in the top three artists to ever work at Marvel. Ever. And a good case could be made that he topped that exclusive list.

    Traditionally, I’ve always been a Spidey fan first and foremost, so I didn’t see much of his work until late in life (John didn’t draw Spidey often). But, man, what an impression he made on me when I did.

  2. John Buscema will always be my favorite comic book artist.

    PAD, the Wolverine arc that you did with Big John is one of the few solo Wolverine stories I’ve ever liked.

  3. I always remember with fondness seeing John’s art in The Avengers and of course later in Conan. I grew up reading Marvel Comics since the late 60’s and never felt like Buscema ever “dialed in” his artwork and that it seemed like just a paycheck to him. I know from interviews with him and his contemporaries, comic book work was a “job” but the sheer beauty of those lines and effortless movement that every character had, just contradicted that notion. Both John and Sal were artists that I aped as a young budding artist growing up in sunny southern California. Yes, there were flashier artists who caught my eye but the Buscemas told stories as well as delivering solid artwork every single time. To me, John Buscema was always be THE Conan artist. Even now over a decade later, I feel the loss as a fan but take great joy in the fact that his artwork will live on forever.

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