Superman Through the Ages! Forum

You like the style of Kurt Schaffenberger? Curt Swan IS the Superman artist, What about Kurt? Too much "comedy"?                    (http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/3562/schaffenbergerlm3.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)                                                                            (http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2222/5b843ik8.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)         (http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5735/12964076ux2.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)     (http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/3900/uglysupesrb0.jpg) (http://imageshack.us) (http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/8594/loislane00803kw0.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

I almost like KS better --he certainly has more of a personal style than CS,  Very idiosyncratic but professional and "Madison Avenue" at the same time.  Love those femmes of his!

There's a fine biography from TwoMorrows Publishing -- "HERO GETS GIRL!  the Life and Art of Kurt Schaffenberger", by Mark Voger.  I have a copy, and highly recommend it.  His depiction of Lois Lane is definitely the "classic" version, and he was also famed for his work with the Marvel family (both during the Fawcett years and the later DC "Shazam!" series).  And then there was "The New Adventures of Superboy" series, too.

I also admired his Supergirl, but was slightly disappointed when I read his biography.  Apparently Kurt wasn't enthusiactic about her at all -- "It was an assignment" was his basic comment.  Looking through the index of his work, I suspect the rather poor quality of Supergirl's "Action Comics" and "Adventure Comics" stories during the late '60s / early '70s might have been a factor.  Or perhaps Kurt somewhat resented Supergirl since she was DC's ripoff of Mary Marvel?

One of my favorite Super Artists ever!

His style is so clean and pure and fun!

It looks even better in B&W!

(http://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/schaffenberger_kurt/schaffenberger_3.jpg)

(http://heroesink.com/images/superboy_swan_schaff.jpg)

(http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/HER5182005/2519.jpg)

(http://www.griffioen-grafiek.nl/originelenusa/SchaffenbergerJimmyOlsen.jpg)

That Superboy/plane one was him inking over the other Curt :)

I've heard it said that while Curt Swan is the definitive Superman artist; Kurt Schaffenberger is the definitive Lois Lane artist.

I tend to agree.

We've talked about this before.  I vaguely recall a discussion about a cover that was inked by both of them - Kurt on Lois and Lana; Curt on Superman.

Kurt's women were amazing, and rendered without effort or a lot of lines.

I think that's the one where Lois and Lana have super powers and are flying/fighting. Lana is also by Curt.
Another bizarre cover had Superman revealing his identity to L& L>  The girls were by Kurt and Kent/S-man were by Wayne Boring!
There are qa few interiors

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.

For  me the Schaffenberger's Clark Kent remember a bit Rock Hudson and Cary Grant.            (http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/5504/6e1sblvp0.jpg) (http://imageshack.us) (http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8983/6eai7.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

What people may not know that just like they infamously had Curt Swan draw Superman's face on Jack Kirby's run in Jimmy Olsen, Kurt Schaffenberger actually drew Lois Lane's head on nearly every 1960's story by Curt Swan!

Al Plastinos did the Superman faces in Forever People 1.

Was that Swan? I thought it was Murphy Anderson.

It was Murph.

could be...