FANTASTIC FOUR #22 and #23

Another couple of bits of my childhood arrives in my collection. This time it's very nice copies of FANTASTIC FOUR #22 and #23. Written and penciled by Jack Kirby, they have inks by George Roussos who, for some reason, also worked under the pseudonym of George Bell. Roussos/Bell was a fine inker and had a wonderful reputation in the comics industry. But when I was a kid he was not my favorite inker, especially on Kirby's pencils. But he was a good comic artist whose work among Kirby inkers is highly regarded.

When you look at the comics from this period at Marvel, you can easily see that it was the artists who were actually writing the books (and not the editor who was taking credit for writing). For instance, some artist/writers were very good storytellers. Kirby and Ditko of course were the best, and their stories, while sometimes very silly, were typically far more coherent and imaginative than those of the lower tier artist/writers. If you read a story from Dick Ayers, it was going to be much more child-like and simple than something from the imagination of Kirby. Just compare stories created at the same time by the two artists to see the huge difference in writing abilities. Lee didn't seem to know what to do when he was tinkering with the dialog in an Ayers yarn, but easily understood what he should do when modifying the captions and word balloons for a Kirby adventure.

My very nice condition copy of FF #23

My equally nice copy of #22.

Typical back cover ad on a Marvel book from this period.