I was pleased this morning to come across a post on Facebook by my friend Paul Levitz. It began like this…
So apparently there's one more inductee to the Eisner HOF, omitted from the first announcement. Mike Royer came to the world's attention when he took over inking Jack Kirby's awesome Fourth World after an unsatisfactory run by Vince Colletta. The shift was dramatic as the cosmic story being brought to life: Mike made every detail leap to life, and added a deeper dimension to the work.
Mike, who I've known since before Kirby moved from Marvel to DC, is about as professional an artist as has ever worked in comics. You can all judge the quality of his work for yourself — I think you'll find it as excellent as I always have — but you should also know this: I doubt there has been an artist in the history of this industry who could top Mike when it comes to sheer reliability. I've worked with him many times and if he says the job will be delivered at 2 PM on Tuesday, it's there at 2 PM on Tuesday.
It may even be there earlier. And nothing in it will looked rushed or short-cut or knocked out at 3 AM. He may have stayed up until 3 AM to get it done on time but that will not be reflected in the finished work. If you've ever been a comic book editor, you treasure contributors like that and wish you had more of them.
And what I said about reliability and producing fine work was also true of another artist I worked with a lot, a man named Dan Spiegle. Dan has not been inducted into the Hall of Fame nor even nominated. I think he was a better artist than an awful lot of folks who are in the Hall of Fame and I hope that omission is rectified soon.