Chic Stone

Chic Stone (born January 4, 1923, New York City, United States; died 2000)was an American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's Silver Age inkers, including on a landmark run of The Fantastic Four.

Early life and career

Raised on East 23rd Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan, Chic Stone studied at the High School of Industrial Arts (now the High School of Art and Design), and the Works Projects Administration School, the latter under cartoonist Chuck Thorndyke. He broke into comics in 1939, at age 16, apprenticing with the comic-book packager Eisner & Iger. In the 1940s, he worked on the original Captain Marvel for Fawcett Comics, and Boy Comics for Lev Gleason Publications. For Timely Comics, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics, he contributed to Blonde Phantom Comics, "Eustis Hayseed" in Joker Comics; and "Jeep Jones" in All Select Comics and Kid Komics.

Silver Age Stone

Stone largely left comics during the 1950s to become an art director for magazines including True Experience and The American Salesman, and to publish a magazine, Boy Illustrated, which folded after two issues. He did commercial art for the Grey Advertising Agency (now Grey Global) and TV commercial storyboards for Filmack Studios. Stone, at this time living in Hollywood, California, then became art director of Modern Teen and Dig Magazine. He returned to comic books during the 1960s Silver Age, initially with the small American Comics Group (AGC) on titles including Adventures into the Unknown (for which he'd pencil from 1962-1967).

Shortly thereafter, Stone, with his precise, medium-heavy brush line, helped both to ground and to lighten Kirby's explosive, flamboyant pencils on The Fantastic Four (issues #28-38, Annual #2), giving the comic a lighter, slightly more modern look after the bold yet coarse, blocky inks of predecessor George Roussos. Stone also notably inked Kirby on issues of The X-Men and The Mighty Thor, and the two artists collaborated on covers across the spectrum of Marvel's comics at the time.

Later in the decade, Stone also freelanced for DC Comics, penciling an occasional Batman story — including the lead tale in the anniversary issue Batman #200 (March 1968) — and also ghosting occasionally for artists Bob Kane, Geroge Papp (inking his Superboy pencils) and Sal Trapani. Stone, additionally, pencilled numerous stories for Tower Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Dynamo and NoMAN.

Marginalia around this time includes a run of the character Nemesis in AGC's Forbidden Worlds and Unknown Worlds; Dell Comics' Flying Saucers and a TV tie-in comic, Garrison's Gorillas; "Grandpa Munster 'Digs' The Drag-U-La!", an AMT model car kit ad in DC's The Atom #24 (April-May 1966) and likely elsewhere; and early-1970s work for Skywald Publications' black-and-white horror magazines Psycho and Nightmare.

Later career

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Stone began a long association with Archie Comics, including its "Red Circle" and "Archie Adventure Series" superhero lines. This lesser-known work includes a story written by future Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco in Archie's Super Hero Special #2 (Aug. 1979), and Stone's inking fellow Silver Age veteran Dick Ayers on a Black Hood story in Blue Ribbon Comics #11 (Aug. 1984). Stone also worked on the regular Archie teen-humor line.

Stone was inking for Marvel as late as The Mighty Thor #321 (July 1982). In the early 1990s, he drew commissioned art in Silver Age Kirby-Stone style for sales through dealers.

Quotes

James Cassara: [1] "...Stone has set consistent standards for excellence and dependability. In the 1960s, having already worked in the industry for nearly two decades, Stone gained prominence as an early architect of The Marvel House Of Ideas."

Fred Hembeck: [2] "...to this day, my favorite Kirby inker remains Chic Stone! ... [B]eyond the bold and expressive line Stone's varied brushwork brought to Jack's power-packed pencils, the sheer fact that, by year's end ,he was inking the King on Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, and the Thor and Captain America features in their respective home titles gave the entire line a warm and homey sense of visual cohesiveness that it's never quite managed to achieve since."

Jimmy Palmiotti: [3] "I first started working on comics when I was in the eleventh grade at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. At that time, I was taking illustration and cartooning as a major, and a friend told me about a guy that needed background help. I called the guy, Chic Stone, and made an appointment to meet him at his Queens home. When I got there, he handed me an Invaders page for Marvel that Frank Robbins had roughed out. He told me he would give me ten bucks to finish drawing a train yard and some other backgrounds on the page and told me to bring it back the next day.

"That afternoon I went to the Coney Island train yard and sat on the platform above and drew all the trains sitting in the yard. This panel had the Human Torch flying above it. I did what I thought was a great job and proudly brought it back into Chic's smokey Queens apartment the next day. Well, he took one long hard look at it, said it was no good and that it looked like a photo, and gave me five bucks. He told me to go home. You got to remember, this was the most exciting thing to happen to me ever and I got shot down in about ten seconds. I left ... pissed and upset. ... [However, h]e was a nice guy that gave me a shot, more than most would, and he didn't like what I did, so I did not get the job. That's it. I did not know him well, but he was nice about it in my five minutes of dealing with him. He was talented and I was a kid, wanting so hard to break in. That's how it goes sometimes."

Audio

• Audio of Merry Marvel Marching Society record, including voice of Chic Stone

References

• Lambiek Comiclopedia: Chic Stone Note: Birth date differs from that given by Stone himself below.
• Jack Kirby Collector #14: Excerpts from the Chic Stone Interview
• Tower Comics Checklist
• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
• The Grand Comic-Book Database
• Superboy in the Fifties and Sixties
• Who Drew Superman in the '60s?
• POV Online: Smart Comix
• Ace Comics and the Art of Steve Ditko