I loved reading & collecting Marvel comics when I was a kid growing up in the late 1960’s and I was a big fan of the art of Jack Kirby, John Romita, Gene Colan and Neal Adams, but John Buscema

 was always my favorite comic book artist.

I was very fortunate in my life to meet John Buscema 5 times in person. The first time I did was in the summer of 1979 at a comic con in New York City.

I recall being a bit surprised to discover that John was my height; 5’ 11’’ and-a-half. I expected "Big" John Buscema to be 6’ 4’’ or something. A few months later in September of that same year, I met John for the second time when he came to my home town of Montreal, Canada, with his lovely wife Dolores for the first big comic con ever held in the city.

 I didn’t see John again until the summer of 1993, when he was the special guest at a comic con in Toronto, Canada.

Luckily for me, I had brought along a book for John to sign that was written entirely in French and full of interviews with the super star artists from the world of animation, comic books & newspaper strips. Naturally, John was one of the artists interviewed for the book.

Johnny B. looked really surprised when he saw it, telling me that the guys from France who interviewed him said they would send him a copy of the book  when it was published but John said they never did.

After hearing that story, I told John that I would trade  the French book for a pencil sketch. John agreed right away and I gave him the book. I spent the rest of the con having a great time talking to John about the comic book biz and drawing.

Two weeks later, I checked the mail and found a large package from John that had not only contained a cool full pencil drawing of the Punisher, along with the rough sketch he used, but also another 12 pages full of pencil and ink drawings that John had lying around, writing that he "Thought I might enjoy them!"

After the show in Toronto and our trade in 1993, I started corresponding with John. Mostly we exchanged Christmas cards every year and whenever I found a nice quote from another artist talking about John & his art, I would send it to him and John would usually reply back.

I didn’t see Johnny B. for another 7 years, until a show in White Plains, NY  in June of 2000. When I finally got around to introducing myself to John again, he turned to Dolores and said, "Babe, this is the guy from Canada!"

In November 2000 we put together an unofficial website on John. I started the site after I had been on the Internet for a few years and was disappointed to see that there was no websites on him. After it was around for about a month, I finally got the nerve up to write John and tell him about it. I included my e-mail address and I was surprised when a few days passed by and I got a short email from John saying,

"Nice layouts….good job!"

-- John B.

A short time later, I received a letter from John by snail-mail asking me if I wanted to work with him to obtain commissions requests through the website. After thinking about it for all of two seconds, I called John up the next day and just like that, we became the Official John Buscema Website!

It was a real honor and a lot of fun working with John. Apart from the birth of my son James T., it was one of the greatest things to ever happen to me in my life.  I named my son James T. , in honor of my 2 favorite TV heroes growing up; James T. Kirk & James T. West. 

The T. in his name  happens to stand for Thor, because Thor was always one of my favorite Marvel characters, plus the fact that John drew Thor for so many years. 

Being a huge fan of John’ s art ever since I was a kid, it was like a dream come true to be actually working with him. I was always a little nervous calling  John up, but he was a great guy and always put me at ease, even when I momentarily confused him by trying to describe some old Marvel cover he drew that he had long forgotten about.

We only worked together for a little over a year, but I'll never forget the experience and will always look back on that time fondly. I’ll always remember anxiously picking up the phone to call John and asking him the price for a recreation of what is arguably one of his most popular Marvel Comic covers ever, only to be alarmed hearing John groan loudly over the phone and hear that familiar voice of his with that great Brooklyn, NY accent practically spit out the words,

"Aw Crap!!! Not that G$@*%^m Silver Surfer # 4 again! I've done that cover so often, I can do it in my sleep! "

My appreciation for John and his amazing drawings only grew as I got older. And when I started meeting & working with him I was happy to discover that John was even more impressive  in person than  I had  imagined him to be.

Usually, John would just brush off most of my attempts at complimenting him for doing another terrific job on a fan’s commission, but  one time when I complimented him , John said to me;

"….What you expect? I’m the best man in the business!"

We both laughed after he said it, but John wasn’t bragging or trying to blow his own horn. John knew that he was good and he was quietly, if not secretly, proud of his place in the comic industry and the high esteem in which his fellow pros held for him and his artwork.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, John's drawing style never really went out of fashion, so even after his retirement from Marvel in 1996, editors were continually calling John up and offering him work. John told me that he knew of a lot of "top guys" his age who had trouble finding jobs, so John said he felt very lucky that he was still in such high demand.

Big John grew up in a rough section of  Brooklyn, NY called Red Hook. Growing up poor had a profound effect on John because he always took his responsibilities as a family man and provider very seriously and he was a hard worker all his life. John put in long hours at the drawing board and prided himself on the fact that he never missed a deadline in his career.

Despite John's  misgivings & regrets about his pencils being inked by others, John left behind a tremendous body of work for his fans to remember him by and for future comic book readers to discover.

But John Buscema’s legacy doesn’t stop at just the untold amount of comic books that he drew, it alsoincludes the hundreds and perhaps thousands of people who were influenced by John and his beautiful drawings to become artists themselves.

At the e-mail address we set up to receive condolence messages to John’s family   [johnbuscema2002@yahoo.com] a huge number of his fans talked about how much they loved John’s and Stan Lee’s book, "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" and mentioned what a large influence it was in their lives.

From graphic artists to fellow comic book pencillers, from an animator working for Pixar Studios, to the head of design for a major airplane manufacturer, it seems hundreds of John’s fans decided to go to school and make their living in the art field.

For a poor kid from South Brooklyn, NY and the proud son of a humble Italian barber, that’s not a bad legacy to leave behind.

It was a privilege to work with John and I will always be grateful to him for giving me the opportunity. I only wished that we could have worked for a lot more years together.

John Buscema was a very special person and like everybody else who knew & loved John  and his artwork, I will  miss him.

Take it easy,

Owen O’Leary ;)