The most hated man in 1970's comics - Frank Robbins

I think it would be fair to say that for many 1970’s comic book fans Frank Robbins was a polarizing figure. When his first work at Marvel appeared on fanboy favourite titles like Captain America, he was mercilessly criticised in the fan press and in many of the letter’s pages in which his work appeared. To be fair his style was a shock to those “fanboys” used to the undoubted talents of the likes of Jack Kirby, John Buscema, and Neal Adams. Although I was never initially a hater of Franks work, I would have to admit that it took me a few years to fully appreciate his style and storytelling technique. Today, more than 50 years after first seeing his work I remain a convert to his quirky action-packed style.

Frank Robbins was a successful and highly regarded newspaper artist on strips like Jonny Hazard before he moved over to mainstream comics in 1968 as a writer at DC. However it wasn’t until 1971 when Robbins started to produce artwork at DC, presumably as he wanted to illustrate his then new co-creation (with Neal Adams) Man-Bat who debuted in Detective Comics # 400(June 1970) illustrated by Adams. It wouldn’t be until #416 when Robbins would eventually illustrate his own stories in “Man-Bat Madness”, this issue was also my first introduction to Frank Robbins art and my first thoughts were that this art must have been how the writer wrote and laid out his stories for the “real” artists to follow, and they published this in error. How wrong I was, but in my defence, I was only 10 years old. Robbins finished his tenure on Detective comics with #435 where he illustrated a Jason Bard tale.

Above: Jason Bard tale from Detective Comics #435

Above: Splash page from Detective Comics #429

Above: Page from Detective Comics #426

Frank briefly drew DC's version of The Shadow (cover to #7 above) making the character (imho) his own, not an easy feat considering he took over the art chores on the title from the excellent Mike Kaluta before moving to Marvel Comics around 1974 where he drew the adventures of characters like Captain America, The Invaders, the Man From Atlantis, The Human Fly, Morbius The Living Vampire, Dracula, Ghost Rider and the Legion of Monsters. At Marvel he was paired with inkers like Frank Springer and Frank Giacoia who seemed to understand his style, but others like Vince Coletta and D Bruce Berry did nothing for Frank Robbins reputation.

Above: Page from Luke Cage/ Power-Man #34

Above: Robbins drew a very different Captain America and the Falcon between #182 and 192 - above page from #182. (above page from the Epic collection)

Above: Splash page from Man from Atlantis #3 - If you are a fan of Franks work this 7 issue series contains some of his best art.

Above: Marvel Premier # 28 - The Legion of Monsters - another comic that contained some of Franks best work .

Above: Ghost Rider page from #18 - At heading the splash page from Ghost Rider #12.

Above: Two pages from Tomb of Dracula #2 - Robbins drew a couple of nice tales for Marvels black and white magazines.

Franks final work for comics was an excellent one-off issue of Daredevil (#155 - above) before he retired from comic books and headed to Mexico with his wife to paint. Frank passed away in 1994 at the age of 77.