WAYNE BORING (1916-87)
all artwork copyright by DC Comics Inc.
Updated 1/01/05


The earliest identifiable Boring art, .  Superman 5, Summer 1940
One of the first Superman ghosts, Wayne would eventually develop into the definitive Superman artist of the 1950's, with artwork full of super-scientific machinery, and dynamic pencil work which showed Superman at his most dynamic and muscular. His early work is hard to make out amid the diverse hands which amended, inked, toned and ben-dayed it, but by 1943 his style was unmistakeable.  Boring began working with Shuster by mail  in 1938 on a number of features, including Spy and Slam Bradley.  In 1940 he moved to Cleveland and joined the shop.


A complete Wayne Boring page from Superman #5, "The Slot Machines of Slug Kelley". Summer 1940

Wayne was one of the earliest "ghosts" to work on the Superman comic strip and would eventually take it over completely. In 1942, he left Shuster's shop and began drawing the strip (and an occasional cover) directly for Detective Comics, Inc.


Wayne Boring and Donald Komisarow (?). Daily #453.


Here's a 1942 Sunday page, (#132) probably inked by Ed Dobrotka.


Superman 31 November 1944, by Wayne Boring and George Roussos
Although Boring rarely did the inside of a comic book in the forties, he did most of the covers from 1944 on up.  A few of these were inked by George Roussos.

When Stan Kaye (1916-67) took over the inks in 1943, Boring's style was established as THE Superman style for the next two decades.


Daily 1783, 1944. by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye.

Wayne left the daily comic strip in 1948 and returned to drawing comic book stories, most of which were inked by Stan Kaye.  (The comic strip was taken over by Win Mortimer.)  He became the definitive Superman artist of the 50's, noted for the brooding look he gave to Superman and Clark, the casualness he applied to flying sequences (in which Superman seemed to be walking through the air) and the spectacular science fiction cityscapes which he used to depict Krypton and other alien planets.

Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye, Superman 88,"The Terrible Trio" by William Woolfolk,  March, 1954

Here's a rare Superboy appearance drawn by Boring and Kaye from Sueprman 97 May, 1955
"Superboy's Last Day in Smallville" by Jerry Coleman

Besides being the King of Cosmic Action, Boring was also called upon to draw the most emotional of Superman stories.  No other Superman artist has ever come close to equalling Borings' women.

Wayne Boring/ Stan Kaye  "The Girl From Superman's Past", Superman 129 May 1959 by Bill Finger.

 
Wayne Boring Action 349, Page 12 April 1967
Boring returned to the comic strip in the early Sixties, without Kaye, and then did a handful of Superman comic book stories in 1966-7 before leaving DC and going to Marvel comics where he drew, of all things, Captain Marvel!
 
 
 

 

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