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CBR Live! Archive

Stefano Gaudiano is Amazing

Today's Daredevil #111 features pencils by Clay Mann, who is extremely different than the regular Daredevil penciler, the amazing Michael Lark, and yet the book ends up not feeling that different than a regular Lark issue, all thanks to the outstanding inking work of Stefano Gaudiano.

Check out these sample pages (click on each image to enlarge) from Daredevil #109 (Lark pencils) and Daredevil #111 (Mann pencils)...

Yes, there's a difference, of course, but Gaudiano makes it almost negligible - what a talented inker he is!!

The issue, by the by, was quite good - Ed Brubaker does a great job in his return to solo writing of Daredevil.

  • Posted on September 24, 2008 @ 11:11 AM

9 Comments

Stefano Gaudiano is one of the best inkers in comics, period. Check out his work over Lee Weeks in the Winter Soldier One shot.

Could you post an example of what Clay Mann's art typically looks like, for comparison's sake?

I'm none too familiar with his previous work.

Just to play devil's advocate, can't one say that when an inker is too overpowering then he is actually doing a bad job as an inker since rather than simply enhancing and cleaning up the penciller and letting the penciller's style shine through, he is just dominating the style and turning every penciler into a version of himself. I remember an old Kirby inker, i think it was Dick Ayers, making that complaint about Joe Sinnott's inks over Kirby.

Here's a Mann page.

Aha! From the looks of it, Mann must be the guy whose work on the last few issues of HEROES FOR HIRE reminded me a bit of Pat Boyette. Which is pretty odd, since I'd have said Boyette's style was one of comics' most distinctive ever.

Thing is, it seems like the goal was to keep the consistency. Gaudiano and Hollingsworth both tend to pull some serious weight. de la Torre and Dean White also did a great job with consistency on Director of SHIELD.

Daredevil #111 was awesome!

thank you for the compliments; i'm blushing.
just to keep my ego in check: i also appreciate T.'s comment about overpowering ink styles. while on DD there's an editorial reason to keep the "official look" of the series, i've overstepped my bounds on other occasions when a penciler might have preferred a lighter touch.
i really loved John Romita Sr.'s inks over Gil Kane's pencils on Spider-Man in the early 70's, but heard directly from Gil Kane , about ten years later, that he was not pleased by how strongly Romita's style asserted itself on his art.
I'm also a big fan Gene Day's work over Mike Zeck (as well as Day's own pencils). considering those influences, pencilers ought to beware of my heavy hand. it's good to rein that in on occasion -

To me, good inking is usually about setting up a tone, which is what yours does. Also it can fix outright bad pencils as seen on the cover to New Mutants #87, where Todd McFarland inks Rob Liefield to the point where his art actually looks good.

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