Joe Kubert

Joe Kubert passed away over the weekend?

I've probably told this story before, but my introduction to DC was from my dad's late '60s-early '70s comics. While most of the superhero fare didn't do much for me (other than the Atom), I loved the all the war comics. Most of his Sgt. Rock's (Our Army at War, technically) were actually written bu Kubert and drawn by Russ Heath, but he had a few of the 80 pagers with reprints of earlier stories Kubert had drawn, and that rough edge he gave Rock has always stuck with me. Plus there were some of the early Unknown Soldier stories, which also had the Enemy Ace backups, so a double dose of Kubert art.

One of the techniques he used I really liked was to have a full page splash, but framed with a couple of smaller circular panels, one in the upper left, the other in the lower right. So it pulls in close, maybe for a reaction shot, then back to show what they're reacting to, then zoom in one some other key detail. It seems really simple, but it works so well at giving you an really outstanding image - two GIs watching a horde of Japanese soldiers charging out of the jungle, or two biplanes flying towards each other as a group of others form a ring - and still keeps the story and the themes it wants to get across moving.