I've always had mixed emotions when it comes to Jim Aparo's artwork. I'm not a huge fan of his style but at the same time I don't hate it.
But with that said to downplay his place as one of the great Batman artists of all time would be ridiculous. He's up there with the likes of Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams and Dick (giggle) Sprang.
Much like those artists, his style is instantly recognizable. I mean, this page from The Untold Legend of the Batman was penciled by John Byrne and it's barely recognizable as Byrne's artwork with Aparo's inks. And Byrne is another artist with an immediately recognizable style.
However, there are pages in this story like the moment when Batman reveals his true identity to Joe Chill where I look at it and say "Oh yeah! That's definitely a John Byrne face". Otherwise, Aparo's style and technique is so overwhelming in the inks that John Byrne's own style is almost unrecognizable.
I didn't even realize myself until a couple years back when a friend of mine Andy Fish pointed out John Byrne did the pencils. All these years I thought it was Jim Aparo's artwork alone. Go figure.
I think with Jim Aparo's art, it definitely comes down to who is inking his work. In story arc's like A Death in the Family and A Lonely Place of Dying with Mike DeClaro's inks, Jim Aparo's pencils shine. Not to mention many of the earlier stories Aparo did his own inks.
However, in the Knightfall story arc as well as his stint on later issues of the Green Arrow, his artwork falls flat. Some of that had to do with Aparo's own health. But a lot more had to do with weak inking.
As I have said many times before, a weak inker can make a great penciler look awful.
But besides all that, Jim Aparo is a legend. Despite the fact I may not entirely care for his style on a whole, he has earned a place with the greats.
And there's that part of me that has a soft spot for the old blue and gray Batman costume of the 1970's and 1980's.
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One of my favorite things about Aparo's Batman--and you can see an example of this in that awesome "Untold Legend" page you posted--is how massive and powerful he made Batman's hands look; seriously, the guy looks like he could crush cantaloupes with those mitts.
Oh, and that page is all Aparo, by the way. Byrne only drew the first issue of that story.
Ah, okay!! That makes sense. But still. Even in issue one Aparo's inks just overshadows Byrne own style.
Earlier Aparo is classic. If you look at his Batman early 70s the inking is rich with texture and there is a variation in the faces. By the 80s he started really cutting back the inks and all the faces looked exactly the same.
I got to meet and spend some time with Jim before he died, and he was a wonderfully generous man. I even have a page of his he gave me from his run on The Phantom at Charlton.
It was said that by the 90's, Aparo could draw Batman in essentially one motion, without his pencil leaving the page. Good for meeting deadlines, not so good for giving an inker much to work with.
I agree. I remember thinking that when I was reading one of the stories he did reprinted in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told about his ink. The other thing I liked (which I like about Neal Adam and Norm Breyfogle's art) was the scratchy quality to the inking as well.
Then you'd really like the Aparo/Sienkiewicz collaborations of the mid-90's.
What still makes me giggle is Denny O'Neil's comment on the back of A DEATH IN THE FAMILY about Jason Todd "It would be a really sleazy stunt to bring him back"...
...which they recently did ;-)
Don't forget Marvel Comics breaking their longstanding "Only Bucky stays dead!" rule at about the same time...
I had forgotten about that!! It HAS been a while since I've really paid attention to mainstream comics or kept up with a series.
I did break fast from that in the past year or so by getting the Grant Morrison Batman and Robin series. I stopped after Frank Quitely stopped doing the artwork.
And I picked up Neal Adams return to the world of Batman with Batman Odyssey. The artwork is all we love about classic Neal Adams.
Neal Adams writing on the other hand... errr.
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