I had been down in Glasgow for only a few hours at the weekend when I read a Facebook update that said Carmine Infantino had passed away. As the publisher of DC comics during my childhood, he was one of the principle architects of my imagination, aside from being a unique pencilling stylist.
It was Infantino's "New Look" Batman and Robin whom I first discovered on the covers of American comics in the mid-to-late Sixties. Even though the contents ( attributed by Bob Kane but the work of "ghosts" like Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella) were often wooden and simplistic, the covers were bold, stylised and witty.
In addition to ushering in the most popular and enduring iteration of Batgirl ( and why was she never in the JLA?), Infantino also designed the eccentric memebers of Flash's Rogues Gallery: the Trickster, Capt. Booomerang, Weather Wizard etc. - some of the most memorable and popular villains in comics outside of the Gotham City residents.
But for me, Infantino's major contribution was the talent he invited to DC: Kirby, Joe Simon, and CC Beck. Without Infantino, there would be no New Gods or Darkseid at DC; no Edgar Rice Burroughs, I suspect and no gorgeous reprints of Premiani's Doom Patrol, or indeed the plethora of Golden Age reprints, Tabloid Editions and 100-page Super-Spectaculars.
It was DC's reprint line that introduced me to the jet-pack John Carter, Adam Strange and the elegant, surreal Mystery in Space. These were strips I raved about to the English sci-fi fans I met at Longleat 30 years ago. Reprints also served as an introduction to the Golden Age Flash- like Black Canary, a feature singularly associated with Carmine.
In the late Seventies, Infantino worked at Marvel on quirky and low-profile titles like Marv Wolfman's DC-derivative teen hero Nova and Spider-Woman, where he gave the sultry heroine her signature flowing hair. He was more suited, however, to sci-fi strips like Star-Lord and the long-running Star Wars saga rather than the moody Californian milieu of the Dark Angel's book.
Returning to DC, he re-invigorated the Flash and brought to life fan creations for the charming and "interactive" Dial H for Hero. Some of his last DC work was Paul Kupperberg's rather lacklustre revival of Supergirl. Here we see her in her Olivia-Newton John costume, not long before she was erased by the first Crisis.
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I think that, in the age of Byrne, etc., one of the reasons artists like Carmine and the ones you named didn't get the respect due to them, was because their talents had diminished somewhat by then. I saw a Carmine-drawn Batman tale in one of the Julie Schwartz tribute issues two or three years back and, 'though I hate saying so, it was truly awful. Fortunately, 'though, he'll be remembered for the work he produced at the peak of his powers.
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