John Buscema ( bew-SEM-ə; born Giovanni Natale Buscema, Italian: [dʒoˈvanni naˈtaːle buʃˈʃɛːma]; December 11, 1927 – January 10, 2002) was an American comic book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop-culture conglomerate. His younger brother Sal Buscema was also a comic book artist.
Buscema is best known for his run on the series The Avengers and The Silver Surfer, and for over 200 stories featuring the sword-and-sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. In addition, he pencilled at least one issue of nearly every major Marvel title, including long runs on two of the company's top magazines, Fantastic Four and Thor.
He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2002. In October 2024, Buscema was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.
Born and raised in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City, from Sicilian parents who emigrated from Pozzallo, Ragusa, John Buscema showed an interest in drawing at an early age, copying comic strips such as Popeye. In his teens, he developed an interest in both superhero comic books and such adventure comic strips as Hal Foster's Tarzan and Prince Valiant, Burne Hogarth's Tarzan, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, and Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates. He showed an interest in commercial illustration of the period, by such artists as N. C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Dean Cornwell, Coby Whitmore, Albert Dorne, and Robert Fawcett.
Buscema graduated from Manhattan's High School of Music and Art. He took night lessons at Pratt Institute as well as life drawing classes at the Brooklyn Museum. While training as a boxer, he began painting portraits of boxers and sold some cartoons to The Hobo News. Seeking work as a commercial illustrator while doing various odd jobs, Buscema found himself instead entering the comic book field in 1948, landing a staff job under editor-in-chief and art director Stan Lee at Timely Comics, the forerunner of Marvel Comics. The Timely "bullpen", as the staff was called, included such fellow staffers as established veterans Syd Shores, Carl Burgos, Mike Sekowsky, George Klein, and Marty Nodell. Fellow newcomer Gene Colan, hired roughly two months earlier, recalled that "... John never seemed very happy in comics ... there always seemed to be something else he really wanted to do."
His first recorded credit is penciling the four-page story "Till Crime Do You Part" in Timely's Lawbreakers Always Lose #3 (Aug. 1948). He contributed to the "real-life" dramatic series True Adventures and Man Comics (the premiere issue of which sported one of Buscema's earliest recorded comic book covers), as well as to Cowboy Romances, Two-Gun Western (for which he drew at least one story of the continuing character the Apache Kid), Lorna the Jungle Queen, and Strange Tales. Until the bullpen was dissolved a year-and-a-half later, as comic books in general and superhero comics in particular continued their post-war fade in popularity, Buscema penciled and inked in a variety of genres, including crime fiction and romance fiction.
Buscema married in 1953. He continued to freelance for Timely, by now known as Atlas Comics, as well as for the publishers Ace Comics, Hillman Periodicals, Our Publications/Orbit-Wanted, Quality Comics, St. John Publications, and Ziff-Davis.
Buscema's mid-1950s work includes Dell Comics' Roy Rogers Comics #74–91 (Feb. 1954 – July 1955) and subsequent Roy Rogers and Trigger #92–97 and #104–108 (Aug. 1955 – Jan. 1956 & Aug.–Dec. 1956); and the Charlton Comics series Ramar of the Jungle and Nature Boy — the latter, Buscema's first superhero work, with a character created by himself and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.
Buscema next produced a series of Western, war, and sword and sandal film adaptations for Dell's Four Color series. Buscema recalled, "I did a bunch of their movie books ... that was a lot of fun. I worked from stills on those, except for The Vikings. ... I think one of the best books I ever did was Sinbad the Sailor."
He drew at least one issue of the radio, film, and TV character the Cisco Kid for Dell in 1957, as well as one- to eight-page biographies of every U.S. president through Dwight Eisenhower for that company's one-shot Life Stories of American Presidents.
During a late 1950s downturn in the comics industry, Buscema drew occasional mystery, fantasy, and science-fiction stories for Atlas Comics' Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, and Strange Worlds, and American Comics Group's Adventures into the Unknown, and Forbidden Worlds before leaving comics to do freelance commercial art. He began a freelance position for the New York City advertising firm the Chaite Agency, which employed such commercial artists as Bob Peak and Frank McCarthy.
Buscema spent approximately eight years in the commercial-art field, freelancing for the Chaite Agency and the studio Triad, doing a variety of assignments: layouts, storyboards, illustrations, paperback book covers, etc. in a variety of media. Buscema called this time "quite a learning period for me in my own development of techniques".
He returned to comic books in 1966 as a regular freelance penciller for Marvel Comics, debuting over Jack Kirby layouts on the "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." story in Strange Tales #150 (Nov. 1966), followed by three "Hulk" stories in Tales to Astonish #85–87 (Nov. 1966 – Jan. 1967). He then settled in as regular penciller of The Avengers, which would become one of his signature series, with #41 (June 1967). Avengers #49–50, featuring Hercules and inked by Buscema, are two of his "best-looking [issues] of that period", said comics historian and one-time Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, who wrote those issues. Thomas and Buscema introduced new versions of the Black Knight and the Vision during their collaboration on The Avengers.
In order to adapt to the Marvel Comics style of superhero adventure, Buscema "synthesized the essence of [Jack] Kirby's supercharged action figures, harrowing perspectives, monolithic structures, mega-force explosions, and mythological planetscapes into a formula that he instantly integrated into his own superbly crafted vision," wrote comics artist and historian Jim Steranko. "The process brought Buscema's art to life in a way that it had never been before. Anatomically balanced figures of Herculean proportions stalked, stormed, sprawled, and savaged their way across Marvel's universe like none had previously".
Buscema would pencil an average of two comics a month in collaboration with such inkers as George Klein, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Joe Sinnott, his younger brother Sal Buscema, Tom Palmer, and, occasionally, Marvel production manager and sometime inker-cartoonist John Verpoorten. John Buscema named Frank Giacoia, Sal Buscema, and Tom Palmer as his favorite inkers.
Among Buscema's works during this period fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books are The Avengers #41–62 (June 1967 – March 1969) and The Avengers Annual #2 (Sept. 1968); the first eight issues of The Sub-Mariner (May–Dec. 1968); The Amazing Spider-Man #72–73, 76–81, 84–85 (ranging from June 1969 – June 1970 providing layouts finished by either John Romita Sr. or Jim Mooney), and two issues he himself finished over Romita layouts. Buscema drew the first appearance of the Prowler in The Amazing Spider-Man #78 (Nov. 1969).
In August 1968, Buscema and Stan Lee launched a new title, The Silver Surfer. That series about a philosophical alien roaming the world trying to understand both the divinity and the savagery of humanity was a personal favorite of Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee, who scripted. Buscema penciled 17 of its 18 issues — the first seven as a 25¢ "giant-size" title at a time when comics typically cost 12¢. "Beautifully drawn by John Buscema, this comic book represented an attempt to upgrade the medium with a serious character of whom Lee had grown very fond," assessed comics historian Les Daniels. Roy Thomas said Buscema considered Silver Surfer #4 (Feb. 1969), featuring a battle between the Silver Surfer and Thor, "as the highpoint of his Marvel work". Characters Buscema co-created in The Silver Surfer include the long-running arch-demon Mephisto in issue #3 (Dec. 1968).