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Ken Aldred

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About Ken Aldred

  • Birthday 12/16/1963

Retained

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    It's been much too dry and intellectual, and could do with an infusion of random drivel. I'll get to work.

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  1. After my comments in the Ross / Kirby thread I can’t categorise Byrne as my GOAT, but for me he’s Hall of Fame or Mount Olympus level, certainly. Growing up as a kid in the late 70s, early 80s, he was one of my favourites from then on, I looked forward eagerly to his comics, and did so constantly through X-Men, Alpha Flight, Fantastic Four, Superman, Namor, OMAC and Next Men. A very consistent, reliable writer / artist, and for me, one of the most significant. After X-Men, without Austin’s inking, his art could seem more undetailed or simplified at times, but the pacing and storytelling was still top-notch. Perhaps his figures and layouts became more repetitive and formulaic later in his career, as I started to lose interest a bit after Next Men, but some work after that was still quite readable, such as Generations and his Angel mini-series set in World War 1. Yup. I’ll always look back on that initial two decades, in particular, with a lot of fondness. I suppose that’s a strategy I’m pursuing a great deal at present, a 60-year-old reading and revisiting the works of my childhood idols; Kirby, Miller, Byrne, and still finding some magic there, even from a more mature and jaded perspective.
  2. Posted about this before on the topic of Ronin, that at the time of its publication I was reading European material such as in Heavy Metal and not just mainstream American comics, and I felt Ronin had more in common with the former, and I didn’t mind it being so very different to Daredevil. Alternatively, later on I started reading manga, and it also (obviously) fit in well there too.
  3. I have quite a few Richard Corben underground slabs from 9.4 to 9.8's; Weirdom Illustrated, Fantagor, Up From The Deep, Grim Wit, Anomaly, Slow Death. One of my all-time favourite artists, but just something very different and interesting and, at the time I was building the collection up, quite reasonably priced.
  4. Quite an impressive skill set. I'm hopeless at working out how things look 3-dimensionally. That came out with my struggles with technical drawing at college.
  5. Nice. Without the usual painted style it's more energetic and engaging. Reminds me a little of Ordway or Ryan's take.
  6. Yup. Ross, amazingly talented artist. Kirby, One-Above-All.
  7. Yup. Human beings and not robots, and so one’s capabilities and motivations can change or erode significantly. As we saw with Miller as well. I’m a 60-year-old, and, as I said previously, currently looking back with fondness at his Bronze and Copper Age zenith.
  8. I lost interest when I read the Elektra Lives Again graphic novel, back in 1990. I found the artwork to be quite scratchy and ugly, and an indicator of what was to come from then on. More into his earlier Kane / Eisner / Krigstein influenced work. Never particularly liked his later chiaroscuro technique. Currently re-reading his Daredevil comics, which are still brilliant, peak examples of what’s achievable in the medium.
  9. Close, but no cigar. (Sorry, couldn’t resist it.)
  10. Sounds tasty. Never seen those over here in the U.K.
  11. ‘Generally unfavorable’ is a very diplomatic way of putting it.
  12. Nope. It’s very nice, but, for me, nowhere near the same level of energy or magnetism.
  13. I’ve always admired the energy pouring out of Kirby’s art, which really drew you into the story and made it a very engaging read. There’s much less of that dynamism in Ross’ art, which makes me feel I’m reading more at a distance. Very well executed, but a colder and a much more sterile experience for me. Also, no competition when it comes to Kirby’s almost relentless, manic ability to create characters. Of course, not everything works well, with a spectrum running from, say, Black Panther to Paranex, but, with that level of torrential outpouring, conceptual quality control issues aren’t too surprising. Ross is extremely prolific and driven in his own way as an illustrator, I particularly like some of the camera angles and figure work in his more recent Captain America covers, he’s clearly immensely talented at reinterpreting extant characters, which is safer ground than Kirby’s, and with page layout and graphic narrative progression, but, overall, Kirby’s on an entirely different level as as all-round, defining, creative force, and, for me, much more entertaining. And, that last factor is a very primal reason as to why I’m still reading comics after four decades. It doesn’t have to have fine art pretensions, and maybe a faction will eventually canonise Ross as a more modern equivalent to BWS, for example, but, I still can’t see the broader significance of Kirby’s being attributed to him in terms of a retrospective legacy.
  14. Do you have a petroglyph image featuring Devil Dinosaur?