JulianPerez
Council of Wisdom
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Posts: 1168
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« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2007, 07:55:27 PM » |
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People criticize Schaffenberger for being too "Archie" for an adventure strip like Superman, but that's a criticism that is far more accurate against Al Plastino, who had all of Kurt's weaknesses but seldom showed his strengths.
Schaffenberger had a sense of humor, and often rendered people in the backgrounds as being humorous (as Sprang did and as MacFarlane would later do), but he rendered them in a realistic sense, so I don't think he was excessively "cartoony" in his Superman stories. In other words, they were never cartoony caricatures, and like Sprang, his figures always had a sense of solidity.
I'll say this about Schaffenberger: his Superman/Clark Kent, who was square-faced and roguish forehead locked, is the best-looking Superman, right up there with Garcia-Lopez.
People talk about Schaffenberger's women, but I just don't see it. There was one story Schaffenberger did where Lois Lane was temporarily turned into a teenager. I honestly, sincerely can't tell the difference between Lois's body in that story as an awkward adolescent, and her body as an adult.
Schaffenberger's art, for me, depends entirely on how busy he lets his backgrounds be. When he slacks off, you REALLY know it. But when he's on the ball, there's nothing better than his detailed art: look at SUPERMAN #124 (1958), "Mrs. Superman!" Then again, there's just about the entirety of his art on the "Legion" backups, where the background is so blank and empty you start to NOTICE that it goes from orange to yellow to green every panel like a scared chameleon.
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