The Incredible Herb Trimpe: Remembering a Marvel Legend
Last week on Twitter, I came across a thread of people mocking 90s comics art, specifically from Marvel’s Fantastic Four Unlimited’s first issue from 1993. I was no stranger to this art style, having grown up during the excesses of the early 90s and the so-called Dark Age of comics. However, it also stood out to me for a few reasons. Let’s look at the page together.
Yep, it’s T’Challa and Reed Richards, the Black Panther and Mister Fantastic, standing together and coming out of a jungle background. It’s from the middle of an extended story, with the two old friends teaming up to take out a bunch of invaders of Wakanda. Yes, Reed is hilariously inflated, and T’Challa looks like he’s going to sprain something from straining all his muscles at once. But it’s also a splash page. These are supposed to be large and dynamic looking. What about the rest of the comic?
Fantastic Four Unlimited 1: Echoes! March 1992. Written by Roy Thomas. Pencils by Herb Trimpe. Inked by Mike DeCarlo. Colored by Neil Yomtov. Lettered by Clem Robins.
I’m not gonna lie, Ben Grimm looks utterly amazing here. The rest of the team looks good as well, although they are a little strained. And if we look at the artist credit, this pencil art belongs to one Herb Trimpe. If you’re not a fan of the Incredible Hulk from the 1970s, it’s entirely possible you just said “wait, who?” And that’s ok, but it should be different. We’re going to take a look back at Herb Trimpe’s career in comic books, and see how we got here. Because, boy, is it one hell of a ride.
A shot of Herb Trimpe from Marvel’s FOOM! Magazine (short for Friends of ol’ Marvel) circa 1974. Shots of Herb from this era are harder to find, as he often worked from home and did not draw himself into the comics.
Herb Trimpe first joined Marvel Comics in 1966. Literally weeks before joining the company, he had served in Vietnam from 1962 to 1966 as part of the United States Air Force. His unit would supply aviation weather support to the army, as well as transport. However, he learned that one of his classmates from New York’s School of Visual Arts had landed a spot at Marvel Comics in their production department.
Herb Trimpe was no rookie to comics, even then. Before enlisting, he had spent some time alongside his SVA teacher Tom Gill, working as a background inker at Dell Comics working on their western and licensed books. Since Dell Comics didn’t credit most of their creators, all we can do is verify based on the memories of those who worked on the books. So, this makes Dell Comics’ Four Color issue 1213 his first job, as an inker.
I’m not gonna lie, this one was hard as hell to hunt down. Yes, it’s pirated. However, it’s one of those old comics where it’s based off a licensed work: 1961’s movie Mysterious Island. As such, most of the public domain archives out there aren’t really allowed to touch it, lest they get sued by the studio who currently owns the rights. Since it’s also over 50 years old, it’s less likely that anyone will reprint it, either. The art is standard fare for the day, and Trimpe’s passion hasn’t risen to the surface yet. Or at least it can’t be seen over the pencils of Tom Gill. But it’s a start.
Once with Marvel, Herb Trimpe would make his modern entry into comics with Kid Colt, Outlaw issues 134/135 from 1967. He would also work with writer Gary Friedrich to make a World War I themed hero in the Phantom Eagle.
Marvel Super-Heroes 16: The Phantom Eagle. September 1968. Written by Gary Friedrich. Art by Herb Trimpe. Lettered by I Watanabe.
The art here is dynamic, bombastic, and fantastic for aerial combat. Co-workers of Trimpe in later years would remark the man was always happy with military vehicles and airplanes. Especially airplanes. The passion here is incredibly obvious, and it’s a real stand-out against other comics of the day. Special mention has to go to the colorist, who has made Trimpe’s pencils and inks sing. However, they are sadly not credited, as was the common practice back in the day.
However, what Herb Trimpe is really remembered for is The Incredible Hulk. Starting as a finisher with issue 106, Herb Trimpe would draw the comic for seven years straight. He would also work on the covers of multiple annuals and specials, all done under the Marvel Method of comic creation. For those unfamiliar, the Marvel Method has the comic writer and artist working together as co-plotters. The writer comes up with a rough outline, perhaps some new characters and concepts, and the writer comes up with the pages from there. While the workload shared would often vary between teams, and can seem insane today, Herb Trimpe has gone on record in a 2014 interview with Back Issue! that he really enjoyed this method of comic creation.
And Herb Trimpe’s Hulk was nothing short of spectacular.
The Incredible Hulk 140: The Brute That Shouted Love at the Heart of the Atom. June 1971. Written by Harlan Ellison and Roy Thomas. Art by both Herb Trimpe and Sam Grainger. Lettering by Artie Simek.
The Incredible Hulk 141: His Name is… Samson! July 1971. Written by Roy Thomas. Art by both Herb Trimpe and Sam Grainger. Lettering by Artie Simek.
I would have said incredible, but that was obvious. These books have a level of emotion and passion to them that makes it easy to connect with the Hulk. Yes, he’s a big beast of a guy who just wants to be left alone, but these comics also give a tenderness to the Hulk in the quiet moments. It also doesn’t hurt that the action is also just fantastic.
The Incredible Hulk 180: And The Wind Howls… Wendigo! October 1974. Written by Len Wein. Art by Herb Trimpe. Inks by Jack Abel. Colors by Glynis Wein. Lettering by Artie Smiek.
The Incredible Hulk 180: And The Wind Howls… Wendigo! October 1974. Written by Len Wein. Art by Herb Trimpe. Inks by Jack Abel. Colors by Glynis Wein. Lettering by Artie Smiek.
Oh. And look at that. While he didn’t design Marvel’s most famous mutant, Herb Trimpe is the man who first brought him to life on the page. You really can’t beat that.
His time on the Hulk would prove to Marvel Management that he was someone who should stick around. Trimpe would later describe his position as a “quota artist,” someone who would receive a check every other week, regardless of the comics themselves that he worked on. Extra pages beyond his quota could be run at freelancer rates, giving him extra cash, and even received the standard salary employee benefits Marvel offered at the time. In his career with Marvel Comics, Herb Trimpe drew just about every character who existed under the company’s umbrella. Captain America, Nick Fury, Ka-Zar, Spider-Man, Machine Man, Captain Britain, the Fantastic Four. The list goes on and on. He would even throw his lot in on Jim Shooter’s New Universe with Spitfire and the Troubleshooters issues 1, 2, and 5.
But where some of his real magic can be found is when Marvel editorial wasn’t looking as intently. After all, Herb Trimpe was the main artist on Marvel’s stint at Godzilla comics. And what he got to do was insane.
Godzilla 19: With Dugan on the Docks! February 1979. Written by Doug Moench. Pencils by Herb Trimpe. Inks by Dan Green. Colors by Ben Sean. Lettered by S. Lefferman.
Why yes. That is a human-sized Godzilla using a trenchcoat and fedora as a disguise.
Godzilla 21: The Doom Trip! April 1979. Written by Doug Moench. Pencils by Herb Trimpe. Inks by Dan Green. Colors by Ben Sean. Lettered by I Watanabe.
Why yes. That is Godzilla fighting alongside Jack Kirby creations Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy.
Godzilla 23: King Once More. June 1979. Written by Doug Moench. Pencils by Herb Trimpe. Inks by Dan Green. Colors by Ben Sean. Lettered by I Watanabe.
And yes. That is J. Jonah Jameson yelling at Godzilla, demanding pictures of Godzilla. It’s like this comic is a bunch of things I never knew I wanted in a comic, all published before I was born. It’s just unfortunate that these comics will likely never be republished again. Licensing issues are a nightmare these days, and the last time these were published was in the black and white Marvel Essentials format. Which now goes for hundreds of dollars on the secondary market.
Of course, credit also goes to Doug Moench for being the writer of those issues, without whom half of that craziness wouldn't be possible. With how the Marvel Method works, we probably will never know which part of the plot was Herb running wild, or how much was Herb following Moench’s plans. However, these stories are a serious gem that any Marvel fan needs to check out. Somehow.
As the decades rolled by, Herb Trimpe would keep getting work as an inker, a penciler, and sometimes even as a writer. Herb would find the most work in the GI Joe franchise alongside Larry Hama. In fact, while he would find the literal army of Joes overwhelming, the smaller team-based GI Joe: Special Missions would be right up his alley with a contained cast and a massive amount of sweet vehicles.
G.I. Joe Special Missions 1: That Sinking Feeling. October 1986. Written by Larry Hama. Art by Herb Trimpe. Colors by Bob Sharen. Letters by Phil Felix.
And then the comic world shifted, and the audience’s taste in art changed.
X-Force 1: A Force to Be Reckoned With! June 1991. Cover art by Rob Liefeld.
Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, and Todd McFarlane had arrived, and the comic wouldn’t be the same.
Comics themselves had begun moving to a more “mature” style of storytelling for a few years prior to the 1990s with the worlds of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Grant Morrison. Be it The Dark Knight Strikes Back, Watchmen, Miracleman, or even Animal Man, comics were telling stories that couldn’t just be quarantined to the funny books genre anymore. Some of these stories were mature takes that could be respected and read by adults the world over, while other stories were just taking themselves more seriously.
Then the artists took the implication of maturity and ran with it. Backwards and sideways, if you ask me.
X-Force 10: Answers (and Questions). May 1992. Plotted by Rob Liefeld. Scripted by Fabian Nicieza. Pencilled by Mark Pacella. Inked by Dan Panosian. Colored by Dana Moreshead. Lettered by Chris Eliopoulos.
Spider-Man 1: Torment, Part One. August 1990. Art and script by Todd McFarlane. Colored by Bob Sharen. Lettered by Rick Parker.
X-Men 1: Rubicon. October 1991. Plotted by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. Written by Chris Claremont. Penciled by Jim Lee. Inked by Scott Williams. Colored by Joe Rosas. Lettered by Tom Orzechowski.
The comics of today are a vastly different beast than the comics of 30 years ago. Today, comics focus heavily on realism, on looking like you might see a person down the street who looks identical to Peter Parker. Or how Iron Man looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr. Or that time Tommy Lee Jones looked like Norman Osborn.
Thunderbolts 110: Faith in Monsters, Part 1. March 2007. Written by Warren Ellis. Art by Mike Deodato Jr. Colored by Rain Beredo. Lettered by Richard Starkings and Albert Deschesne.
Admittedly, this is just from the Big Two of Comics. Books like Invincible are proud to have cartoonish representations of people instead of hyper-realistic. Books aimed at younger audiences also tend to stray more to the cartoonish, and it looks fantastic. But any major event comic from Marvel or DC is bound to have hyper-realistic art, as it is the trend of today. But back then, that was not what was popular.
The artists of 1991 would stretch cartooning to its limits, either with absurdist musculature, or with hyper-exaggerated expressions and too many teeth shoved into someone's jaw. Violence grew, with villains and heroes designed to push the Comics Code Authority to their very limits. Anatomy wasn’t really a feature so much as a suggestion, and comic fans devoured it hand over fist. New heroes would pop up to take advantage of this trend, often themselves hyper-muscled or ultra-sexy to meet the demands of the day and fans.
Malibu Comics’ Prime, for example, was an update of the old Captain Marvel format: that of a young kid being given the powers of an adult superhero.
Prime 1: Prime Time! June 1993. Written by Len Strazewski & Gerard Jones. Art by Norm Breyfogle. Color design by Paul Mounts. Lettered by Tim Eldred.
Results were mixed.
It also didn’t help that this was the era of the gimmick comic as speculators dove into local comic shops to buy and sell comics as if they were cryptocurrency. Those who are now losing speculation money over the recent crashes of NFTs and crypto can look fondly to their dad or uncle who bought 40 copies of X-Force #1 with the intent of selling them to pay for college.
Any day now. Gonna make me a mint. I swear. That card is gonna be worth it.
...only to realize that everyone else had done the same, resulting in them often selling on the secondary market for less than the cover price. Man, life really is one big cycle of dumb things continuing to happen, isn’t it? Can’t wait to see the trading card market speculation boom crash and burn.
Again.
Anyhow, Marvel was desperate to hook into this trend. Most of their big-name artists had left to create their own company. While it has evolved and grown since into a big name publisher in their own right, early Image Comics and their comics were all about the artist and their creations. Todd Mcfarlane’s Spawn. Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood. Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.S. Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon. These all spawned comics sales galore, action figures, television shows, and even video games. To make matters worse for Marvel, publisher Ron Perelman had basically driven the company to near-bankruptcy to chase after comic speculators and his own profits. So not only was Marvel desperate, but they weren’t willing to pay much for it.
That’s where we circle back to guys like Herb Trimpe. He was still a quota artist, receiving his paychecks. However, the comics he worked on started to sell less and less, as readers of the day saw the ‘same old’ comic art on the inside. The same applied to everyone else as well. Spider-Man still sold well, but he’s Spider-Man. X-Men took off like a rocket, which seemed impossible, but they began to be some of the best-selling comics in the world… partially thanks to gimmick covers convincing people to buy the same issue four or five times over. But the other classic books Marvel had run since the 1960s were starting to lose out to the books from Image and even DC, including The Avengers and The Fantastic Four.
The Avengers 392: The Past is With Us Always… November 1995. Story by Bob Harras and Terry Kavanagh. Pencils by M.C. Wyman. Inked by Tom Palmer. Colors by Frank Lopez and Malibu’s Computer Color. Lettered by Oakley / N.J.Q.
Force Works 19: Time out of Mind. January 1995. Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Pencils by Hector Olivera. Inks by Rey Garcia (Pages 1-7). Colors by Joe Rosas. Lettered by Jack Morelli.
So it became adapt or die.
In Herb Trimpe’s case, he did so with gusto and a willingness to try anything. According to interviews, he looked at the art from the new guys on the block, and was intrigued by what he saw. These new guys were popular, their comics sold well, and the art was really dynamic. It really couldn’t hurt to modify his own art style to see if he could also thrive in this new and weird world. Editors seemed to like it, as it got him more work in annuals and books that needed better sales, although some editors would push him away from more traditional brush-based inking as it didn't sell as well for some reason.
However, compared to Liefeld and his ilk, there was still a charm to Herb Trimpe’s comics. Yes, it sometimes came across as the meme of Steve Buscemi walking up and going “how’s it going, fellow kids?” in comic book form. But the energy and love of comics that bled from every page in the 1970s and 1980s was still there, just focused in a different way.
Fantastic Four Unlimited 7: The Shape of THINGS That Came. September 1994. Written by Roy Thomas. Pencils by Herb Trimpe. Inked by Carmen Imperato. Colored by Nel Yomtov. Lettering uncredited.
Fantastic Four Unlimited 9: The Gods Above - The Bugs Below! March 1995. Written by Roy Thomas. Art by Herb Trimpe. Colored by Nel Yomtov. Lettering by John Costanza.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep him employed at Marvel. Not because he couldn’t adapt to the marketplace, but because in December of 1995, Marvel Comics went bankrupt. While Trimpe was still pulling a check, he wasn’t getting much work. Herb Trimpe would keep a diary of his last days with Marvel, and would publish it with the New York Times in 2000. According to him, Fantastic Four Unlimited was the last book he was working on by March 1995, and it wasn’t even giving him the minimum four pages a week his contract demanded. However, he has no regrets from the style, or the work he did!
From an interview with Comic Book Resources in 2009, he would admit he feels that this was some of the best work he’d ever done.
FF Unlimited was my last series at Marvel, and contrary to what a lot of fans think, I think it was the best work I'd done--and, I had a whole lot of fun doing it. Very expressive. I think the newer influences in comic book art brought out a better me. Like I said, most of the fans of the earlier stuff would not agree.
It becomes honestly depressing as he admits in his journal that comics became more of a burden than a love in April, as he bemoans how he can’t keep up with these new “stars” (his emphasis). Someone upstairs must have loved him, though, as they did try to keep him for as long as possible. He notes that Unlimited was cancelled in November 1995, but it took another six months for him to be officially let go.
By mail.
While he did get severance pay, Herb Trimpe was a lifer at Marvel, and he’d been cut to the wind once the company hit their worst financial troubles… along with almost everyone else he’d worked with.
Don’t worry. Herb Trimpe was able to return to school at age 57 and earned a teaching degree. He spent several years as art teacher, and he kept journaling his trials and tribulations in that article over his early days as a teacher. Marvel would also continue to bring him back for the occasional freelance job, and Trimpe would also have a few passion projects in his later years. Herb seemed genuinely happy with his life during most of the interviews he provided in later years.
Herb Trimpe passed away at the age of 75 from a heart attack in 2015, and he left a legacy that hasn’t truly been focused on by Marvel. There’s the occasional Artist’s Edition by IDW that shows off his glorious work on The Incredible Hulk, or a collection of books by his fans. His name also does appear proudly on the Epic Collections and Essential Collections his work is contained within, but you don’t hear about how the latest Marvel movie is based on a Herb Trimpe comic. Or how Marvel would be nothing without the efforts of Herb Trimpe.
And while Marvel would still exist without him, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been as fun.
I’m sure that if Herb was still with us today, he’d probably get a great kick out of people mixing his work up with those comic stars he emulated for a brief time. But Herb Trimpe was so much more than that, and he deserves to be remembered for more than just the time Marvel was busy selling its creative soul to survive.
Thanks for the memories, Mister Trimpe. You were awesome.
