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Quotes
From Peers
"But
the thing I remember about going up to Prize was, there was a
fellow there, a very fine artist named Mort Meskin. Mort Meskin
was one of the sweetest gentlemen I've ever met in the business.
He and I got along famously. Every time I'd see him, we'd sit
and talk. I was just a kid, between eighteen and twenty-four,
twenty-five. I had, and still have, a Sheena Sunday page he did
for Eisner and Iger back in 1938, and I asked if he'd sign it
for me. He did, and I'm very proud of it. He was a damn good artist."
-Al Williamson from The Jack Kirby Collector
"Mort's
work was more graceful [than Jack Kirby's]. Jack's was exaggerated
action and dramatic-one leg would be about ten feet away from
the other. Mort was a gymnast so it had an influence on his Johnny
Quick and Vigilante. Mort was graceful, but Jack was dynamic."
-George Roussos from The Jack Kirby Collector
"When
[Mort Meskin] went to DC, he was doing stuff like Johnny Quick
and the Vigilante...[sic] that's where I got the opportunity to
ink him. And I was so young, and so innocent...[sic]and so naive,
that getting to work on his beautiful stuff didn't scare me .
(Laughs) That's how innocent and dumb I was."
"He
was a wonderful artist and storyteller. He applied great technique
to storytelling, dramatization, and page composition. His techniques
of attacking a story are things that I use now...[sic] and techniques
I tell to anybody who's interested in getting into the business.
I don't know why he never achieved the accolades that I think
he deserved."
-Joe Kubert from Comic Book Marketplace
"One
of the fastest , one of the best."
"He was was the fastest guy in the place.
He'd do 2, 3 pages a day there and other guys were struggling
at half a page; couldn't stop him."
-Joe Simon in the Jack Kirby Collector
"When
[DC Comics] hired Mort Meskin to do Vigilante, he had come over
from MLJ and he was hired because some of the writers from MLJ
recommended him and the first thing he did for them was Vigilante
and it turned out to be a smash. He was a brilliant artist then,
who hit like a ton of dynamite."
-Gil Kane in the Comics Journal
"Mort
was the only one of us that studied art...[sic]at the Pratt Institute.
So I learned a lot from Mort in terms of anatomy. We weren't trying
to be super realistic, as I mentioned, but we did work hard to
get the style right. Mort's best advice to me (if I was stuck
with something) was: "Work it out." (Laughter). So I would redraw
the figure enough times until I figured out how it would work
properly."
-Jerry Robinson in Comic Book Marketplace
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