Colletta’s inks definitely stand out from other inkers of that era in that his lines were always random and asymmetrical rather than the formulaic approach used by the Sinnotts, Giordanos, Adams, etc. Vince’s shading techniques on anatomical features creates a three dimensional look, therefore provides the characters with movement and depth. Most of the other inkers mentioned have a cleaner line but that’s the point exactly, where most others used just one or two lines to show a bicep, for instance, Colletta scritch-scratched twenty or thirty small lines to enhance the illustration.

Sid Greene was always recognizable for me. He was quite overpowering…. but you could still tell who pencilled it if Greene inked Gil Kane.

the late Jim Mooney was overpowering….. for me i could see more Mooney than the penciller.

Like other fans, I think very highly of Terry Austin. His work with John Byrne and Marshall Rogers was fantastic.

I did not become a John Romita Jr. fan until he worked with inker Scott Hanna. Hanna to me brought out the best in Romita.

Tom Palmer is good. I liked his inks on Romita Jr. and Neal Adams as well.

One of my least favorites is Mike Royer. He made Kirby’s work look even rougher.

Jerry from upstate NY

I can’t believe only one person’s mentioned John Totleben. He’s one of the few inkers I can spot AND whose stuff I like a lot.

I was surprised too. He is the number one most recognisable inker I can think of (and possibly the best).

Most of my favorite inkers have such clean lines that I have trouble distinguishing them, ’cause they just make everything look good: Terry Austin, Joe Sinnot, Bob Layton.

I can spot Klaus Janson and Tom Palmer, but they’re a little too sketchy for my tastes.

Bill Sienkiewicz is cool ’cause it’s Bill Sienkiewicz.

And yeah, Klaus Janson’s inks are easy to spot, in a good way.

Kyle Baker and Jackson Guice are also fairly easy to spot, Steve Leialoha, Klaus Janson, Joe Sinnott are a few other names that spring to mind.

A guy I think was a tremendous inker, who you very rarely see mentioned these days, was George Klein – some of his stuff over John Buscema on the Avengers in the 60s was gorgeous to behold.

For this reason I’m surprised that you say you can recognize Ditko’s inking style – how often has Ditko inked anyone other than Ditko? (There’s his work over Kirby on Marvel’s monster mags and some early Hulks, I suppose. What else?)

Well, I’ve been reading a lot of Kirby in my inker ID quest.

I’ve decided I can probably tell inkers who (A) I’m REALLY familiar with their pencilled work, and (B) Mostly ink themselves. It WAS an early Essential Hulk volume, BTW. I got it out of the library and the credits page was missing, but I knew it was Ditko.

The method is that once you start to think you have some ability to recognize the styles of several inkers, try guessing who the inker is before you look at any signature or credits.

Back to Kirby – I’ve been doing this, and I can definitely tell the difference between Joe Sinnott and
Vince Colletta, although I don’t think I can distinguish them from anyone else – Sinnott provides more definition, and seems to fix some of Kirby’s mistakes.

Actually, of all the Marvel Kirby inkers, Chic Stone seems the most distinctive to me.

pencilers today work much more tightly than folks like John Buscema did in the “old days,” and modern inkers tend to follow the penciler’s line more slavishly, imposing less of their own style.

Hmm. It does seem easier with older material. (And I kinda knew that “penciller” was more demanding now-a-days.) I figure there are some folks I’m just not gonna be able to recognize, ever, and there’ll be more of them the later I get.

Well, Mike de Carlo comes to mind. For a very long time, what I assumed was just Aparo, was DeCarlo’s inks over him.

Whereas I’ve always looked at DeCarlo inking Aparo and known it was him– DeCarlo has a very distinct line and he has a peculiar way of rendering eyes and mouths (very noticeable on Perez in New Teen Titans). Admittedly, this is less noticeable with inking Aparo, but I still noticed it (and the difference in line weights)

It’s funny, a lot of the inkers I named in the comment above it’s about noticing a peculiar habit they have– kind of like what one commenter said about knowing Terry Austin after seeing his pencilling.

Thanks Glen. I learn a lot from posts like this.

Richard Isanove isn’t an inker, he colours Jae Lee’s art directly from the pencil stage. He also does that on most of the Ultimate covers.

The first inker I ever recognized was Jim Mooney. There’s something about the way he inks a character’s eyes that just shouts “Mooney”!

Their eyes look like bums?

Is he still working?”

Andrew,

Yes, he is.

When Panosian debuted back in the nineties, his work was a little…lacking, to be generous. However, the guy has obviously worked really hard on refining his craft, because he’s a tremendous illustrator now. I stumbled across his blog last year andwas shocked by how much he’s improved. Here he is at: urbnbarbarian.blogspot.com