Buscema is best known for his run on the series The Avengers and The Silver Surfer, and for over 200 stories featuring the sword-and-sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian.

In addition, he pencilled at least one issue of nearly every major Marvel title, including long runs on two of the company's top magazines, Fantastic Four and Thor.

[4] Born in Brooklyn, New York City, from Sicilian parents who emigrated from Pozzallo, Ragusa,[5] John Buscema showed an interest in drawing at an early age, copying comic strips such as Popeye.

[7] He showed an interest in commercial illustration of the period, by such artists as N. C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Dean Cornwell, Coby Whitmore, Albert Dorne, and Robert Fawcett.

The Timely "bullpen", as the staff was called, included such fellow staffers as established veterans Syd Shores, Carl Burgos, Mike Sekowsky, George Klein, and Marty Nodell.

Fellow newcomer Gene Colan, hired roughly two months earlier,[12] recalled that "... John never seemed very happy in comics ... there always seemed to be something else he really wanted to do.

[14] He contributed to the "real-life" dramatic series True Adventures and Man Comics (the premiere issue of which sported one of Buscema's earliest recorded comic book covers), as well as to Cowboy Romances, Two-Gun Western (for which he drew at least one story of the continuing character the Apache Kid), Lorna the Jungle Queen, and Strange Tales.

1956); and the Charlton Comics series Ramar of the Jungle and Nature Boy — the latter, Buscema's first superhero work, with a character created by himself and Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.

[18] He began a freelance position for the New York City advertising firm the Chaite Agency, which employed such commercial artists as Bob Peak and Frank McCarthy.

[18] Buscema spent approximately eight years in the commercial-art field, freelancing for the Chaite Agency[Note 1] and the studio Triad, doing a variety of assignments: layouts, storyboards, illustrations, paperback book covers, etc.

In order to adapt to the Marvel Comics style of superhero adventure, Buscema "synthesized the essence of [Jack] Kirby's supercharged action figures, harrowing perspectives, monolithic structures, mega-force explosions, and mythological planetscapes into a formula that he instantly integrated into his own superbly crafted vision," wrote comics artist and historian Jim Steranko.

[27] That series about a philosophical alien roaming the world trying to understand both the divinity and the savagery of humanity was a personal favorite of Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee,[28] who scripted.

[14] The creative team of Roy Thomas and John Buscema introduced new characters such as Arkon in The Avengers #75 (April 1970),[32] Red Wolf in #80 (Sept. 1970),[33] and the Squadron Supreme in #85 (Feb.

Other magazine work ran the gamut from horror (Dracula Lives!, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie) to humor (Crazy, Pizzaz).

[14] Buscema left the Thor title for a time to launch the Marvel version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs character Tarzan in 1977.

[41] Other licensed projects include a 72-page The Wizard of Oz movie adaptation in an oversized "Treasury Edition" format with DeZuniga inking.

[14][42][43] For Power Records, which produced children's book-and-record sets, Buscema drew Star Trek and Conan the Barbarian comics.

[44] He contributed some superhero drawings for Pro, the NFL official magazine (1970), and penciled some chapters of the first issue of Marvel Comics Super Special featuring the rock group Kiss (1977).

[14] In 1978, small-press publisher Sal Quartuccio released The Art of John Buscema,[45] a retrospective that included an interview, previously unpublished sketches and drawings, and a cover that was also sold as a poster.

Buscema capped off the decade penciling writer Doug Moench's three-issue Weirdworld epic-fantasy tale "Warriors of the Shadow Realm" in Marvel Super Special #11–13 (June–Oct.

Buscema later said that teaching the class was "very gratifying" but that having to make the 60-mile drive after a day's work was too exhausting, and ultimately forced him to give it up.

After drawing the first issue of The Savage She-Hulk (Feb. 1980),[50] Buscema abandoned regular superhero work in order to spearhead art duties on all three Conan titles.

[14] He continued to tackle other high-profile projects such as a Silver Surfer story for Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980), a King Arthur story in Marvel Preview #22 (Summer 1980), the St. Francis of Assisi biography Francis, Brother of the Universe (1980), the second Superman and Spider-Man team-up (1981),[51][52] and an adaptation of the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[14] After nearly five years away from superheroes, except for the first two issues of the X-Men-related, four-issue miniseries Magik (Dec. 1983 – March 1984), Buscema returned to familiar ground as regular penciller on The Avengers from #255–300 (May 1985 – Feb. 1989).

Additionally, he fit in the three-issue film adaptation Labyrinth (Nov. 1986 – Jan. 1987) and the four-issue miniseries Mephisto (April–July 1987), starring a character he created with Stan Lee in The Silver Surfer.

[14] Bill Sienkiewicz, who inked the last five issues of that run, recalled Buscema's pencil work as "the sturdiest foundation an inker or an embellisher could possibly hope to build on, and their beauty was not in their attention to fastidiously rendered minutiae, but instead were marvels of deceptive simplicity.

"[54] Buscema began his sixth decade in the field by joining Roy Thomas for a return to The Savage Sword of Conan with #191 (Nov. 1991) for a 20-issue run.