August Heritage Auction

[Peter G]

Don Heck really doesn't get enough credit. I hope in the future that fans reevaluate his work.

 

This page is so beautiful

 

http://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/don-heck-and-mike-esposito-as-mickey-demeo-tales-of-suspense-66-story-page-11-iron-man-or/p/7139-11002.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

 

 

 

 

[delekkerste]

I don't know how some of the guys throw around these "the A list is what it is" posts and then say it's not circular reasoning.

 

Weighing multiple variables instead of just a single variable doesn't make an argument circular.

 

What we are saying is that there are multiple variables that must be weighed as to whether an artist is on the A list. Quality of art, popularity of art, critical reception of the art, historical importance of the art, breadth and depth of the output, influence on the medium and other artists, validation in the marketplace. Not that an A-lister needs to check off every box, but there needs to be a preponderance of the above to merit inclusion, whereas you and Adam seem to be hung up solely on the artist's technical skill.

 

In any case, I'm as to how you can rank Kane on the A-list, but not Romita. Don't get me wrong, Kane did some great work, but, surely, Romita must be on any list that Kane is on too.

 

 

If I may. Romita ASM pages are A list art. But he is not an A list artist.

 

I think Bluechip said it best. It's about who is most popular, most sought after, most valuable, whatever the reason. If the fanbase and marketplace had validated Rob Liefeld's body of work over time as a whole like it did Todd McFarlane's, he would be considered an A-lister regardless of what you think his technical deficiencies are. But, I think we can agree that his work (as a whole) didn't stand the test of time either among the fans, critics and marketplace to the extent that would have been required to merit inclusion.

[Bronty]

^ reread what I said.. Didn't put Kane on the list because I don't believe in the term in the first place. Just put kane ahead of romita on my personal rankings

[Peter G]

I do think nostalgia skews some of this analysis for now

 

We will need to come back in 50-100 years and see what has withstood the test of time

[buyatari]

What we are saying is that there are multiple variables that must be weighed as to whether an artist is on the A list. Quality of art, popularity of art, critical reception of the art, historical importance of the art, breadth and depth of the output, influence on the medium and other artists, validation in the marketplace. Not that an A-lister needs to check off every box, but there needs to be a preponderance of the above to merit inclusion, whereas you and Adam seem to be hung up solely on the artist's technical skill.

 

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

If I may. Romita ASM pages are A list art. But he is not an A list artist.

 

^this. The A lister here is early silver age Spider-Man.

 

I think Bluechip said it best. It's about who is most popular, most sought after, most valuable, whatever the reason. If the fanbase and marketplace had validated Rob Liefeld's body of work over time as a whole like it did Todd McFarlane's, he would be considered an A-lister regardless of what you think his technical deficiencies are. But, I think we can agree that his work (as a whole) didn't stand the test of time either among the fans, critics and marketplace to the extent that would have been required to merit inclusion.

 

McFarlane is a clear A-lister who also worked on ASM. There is a HUGE jump in pricing during his ASM run, The artwork from the issues immediately before #298 and those after he left don't sell for nearly as much.

 

All this being said I've enjoyed hearing your arguments. The 60's-70's Marvel age was before my time and I feel I really should take a second look at both the material and the artists mentioned in this thread.

[Peter G]

What we are saying is that there are multiple variables that must be weighed as to whether an artist is on the A list. Quality of art, popularity of art, critical reception of the art, historical importance of the art, breadth and depth of the output, influence on the medium and other artists, validation in the marketplace. Not that an A-lister needs to check off every box, but there needs to be a preponderance of the above to merit inclusion, whereas you and Adam seem to be hung up solely on the artist's technical skill.

 

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

If I may. Romita ASM pages are A list art. But he is not an A list artist.

 

^this. The A lister here is early silver age Spider-Man.

 

I think Bluechip said it best. It's about who is most popular, most sought after, most valuable, whatever the reason. If the fanbase and marketplace had validated Rob Liefeld's body of work over time as a whole like it did Todd McFarlane's, he would be considered an A-lister regardless of what you think his technical deficiencies are. But, I think we can agree that his work (as a whole) didn't stand the test of time either among the fans, critics and marketplace to the extent that would have been required to merit inclusion.

 

McFarlane is a clear A-lister who also worked on ASM. There is a HUGE jump in pricing during his ASM run, The artwork from the issues immediately before #298 and those after he left don't sell for nearly as much.

 

All this being said I've enjoyed hearing your arguments. The 60's-70's Marvel age was before my time and I feel I really should take a second look at both the material and the artists mentioned in this thread.

 

Are you saying McFarlane is an Alist artist but ROmita is not ?

 

[delekkerste]

^ reread what I said.. Didn't put Kane on the list because I don't believe in the term in the first place. Just put kane ahead of romita on my personal rankings

 

Fine, change it to "I don't see how you can rank Kane ahead of Romita", then.

 

Everything else I said obviously still applies.

[Matches_Malone]

What we are saying is that there are multiple variables that must be weighed as to whether an artist is on the A list. Quality of art, popularity of art, critical reception of the art, historical importance of the art, breadth and depth of the output, influence on the medium and other artists, validation in the marketplace. Not that an A-lister needs to check off every box, but there needs to be a preponderance of the above to merit inclusion, whereas you and Adam seem to be hung up solely on the artist's technical skill.

 

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

If I may. Romita ASM pages are A list art. But he is not an A list artist.

 

^this. The A lister here is early silver age Spider-Man.

 

I think Bluechip said it best. It's about who is most popular, most sought after, most valuable, whatever the reason. If the fanbase and marketplace had validated Rob Liefeld's body of work over time as a whole like it did Todd McFarlane's, he would be considered an A-lister regardless of what you think his technical deficiencies are. But, I think we can agree that his work (as a whole) didn't stand the test of time either among the fans, critics and marketplace to the extent that would have been required to merit inclusion.

 

McFarlane is a clear A-lister who also worked on ASM. There is a HUGE jump in pricing during his ASM run, The artwork from the issues immediately before #298 and those after he left don't sell for nearly as much.

 

All this being said I've enjoyed hearing your arguments. The 60's-70's Marvel age was before my time and I feel I really should take a second look at both the material and the artists mentioned in this thread.

 

Are you saying McFarlane is an Alist artist but ROmita is not ?

 

 

They are both A lister, but McFarlane is certainly ahead of Romita in the A lister category.

[TMNT]

You know, it seems pretty obvious to me that the issue here is not so much WHO is on the A list...but WHAT the A list actually is. If a consensus could be made that meeting certain XYZ points define A-list status, then surely it should be easy to look back and say who makes the cut.

 

Though thinking about, defining the WHAT is probably just as much a rabbit hole as anything...

[delekkerste]

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

There are many high-priced Romita sales outside of his Spidey run - the Defenders #10 cover and the Cap #171 cover that both just sold come immediately to mind. Neither of those is a 6-figure piece, but Romita's non-ASM work is consistently more valuable, apples-to-apples, than all but a couple of his peers - generally speaking, Romita's work is worth more than both Buscemas, Kane & Colan (and many would name one or more of those to the A-list). This is very evident when you look at covers that Romita inked, which can boost the price of, say, a Ron Wilson or Gil Kane cover substantially vs. where they would sell if inked by someone else, even a top-drawer inker (obviously I'm not talking about outliers like GSXM #1 or Tomb of Dracula #10).

 

What do you think of John Byrne? Just another Ringo who lucked into one of the most successful gigs of all time? It's not like his non-X-Men material sells for 6-figure XM prices either (again, outliers excepted). . He's solidly on my A-list.

 

 

McFarlane is a clear A-lister who also worked on ASM. There is a HUGE jump in pricing during his ASM run, The artwork from the issues immediately before #298 and those after he left don't sell for nearly as much.

 

That is true, and McFarlane is a clear A-lister. But, look at Romita - it's not like the Kane covers (except for the keys/semi-keys like #97-98, 101) interspersed during his run sell for as much as the Romita covers, and the Andru, Pollard, JRJR, Frenz, etc. covers are all a step down in value as well (key issue outliers excepted). Even with McFarlane, I bet if you took the top X number of Romita ASM covers (X being the # of Spidey covers that Todd did). that they'd be worth more than Todd's output. Heck, there are probably a fair # of Romita interiors that are worth more than the average and lower-end Todd covers.

[buyatari]

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

There are many high-priced Romita sales outside of his Spidey run - the Defenders #10 cover and the Cap #171 cover that both just sold come immediately to mind. Neither of those is a 6-figure piece, but Romita's non-ASM work is consistently more valuable, apples-to-apples, than all but a couple of his peers - generally speaking, Romita's work is worth more than both Buscemas, Kane & Colan (and many would name one or more of those to the A-list). This is very evident when you look at covers that Romita inked, which can boost the price of, say, a Ron Wilson or Gil Kane cover substantially vs. where they would sell if inked by someone else, even a top-drawer inker (obviously I'm not talking about outliers like GSXM #1 or Tomb of Dracula #10).

 

What do you think of John Byrne? Just another Ringo who lucked into one of the most successful gigs of all time? It's not like his non-X-Men material sells for 6-figure XM prices either (again, outliers excepted). . He's solidly on my A-list.

 

 

McFarlane is a clear A-lister who also worked on ASM. There is a HUGE jump in pricing during his ASM run, The artwork from the issues immediately before #298 and those after he left don't sell for nearly as much.

 

That is true, and McFarlane is a clear A-lister. But, look at Romita - it's not like the Kane covers (except for the keys/semi-keys like #97-98, 101) interspersed during his run sell for as much as the Romita covers, and the Andru, Pollard, JRJR, Frenz, etc. covers are all a step down in value as well (key issue outliers excepted). Even with McFarlane, I bet if you took the top X number of Romita ASM covers (X being the # of Spidey covers that Todd did). that they'd be worth more than Todd's output. Heck, there are probably a fair # of Romita interiors that are worth more than the average and lower-end Todd covers.

 

You have to compare apples to apples well as best as you can. If Romita illustrated say ASM 296 (without looking up who was in that issue) and the artwork sold for nearly as much as 298 then I'd have to agree. Silver age Spider-Man clearly carries a premium. When you compare Romita to Andru,Pollard,JRJR,Frenz,Kane etc created the same year or so with characters/content being equal how much of a jump are we talking about here? Certainly not the same jump we see with Mcfarlane vs his peers.

 

[Bronty]

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

There are many high-priced Romita sales outside of his Spidey run - the Defenders #10 cover and the Cap #171 cover that both just sold come immediately to mind. Neither of those is a 6-figure piece, but Romita's non-ASM work is consistently more valuable, apples-to-apples, than all but a couple of his peers - generally speaking, Romita's work is worth more than both Buscemas, Kane & Colan (and many would name one or more of those to the A-list). This is very evident when you look at covers that Romita inked, which can boost the price of, say, a Ron Wilson or Gil Kane cover substantially vs. where they would sell if inked by someone else, even a top-drawer inker (obviously I'm not talking about outliers like GSXM #1 or Tomb of Dracula #10).

 

What do you think of John Byrne? Just another Ringo who lucked into one of the most successful gigs of all time? It's not like his non-X-Men material sells for 6-figure XM prices either (again, outliers excepted). . He's solidly on my A-list

 

For ten years he was pretty much THE guy... to Adams point I don't think alpha flight would have lasted ten issues if it had been anyone else. He revitalized FF in an enormous way as well. Everything he touched, for a time, turned to gold.

[buyatari]

It is not so much his technical skill but the lack of ability to turn anything he touches into gold. Are there Romita non-Spiderman pieces that sell for 6 figures? I don't follow this as closely as you do but I wasn't aware of many high priced sales outside of his ASM run.

 

There are many high-priced Romita sales outside of his Spidey run - the Defenders #10 cover and the Cap #171 cover that both just sold come immediately to mind. Neither of those is a 6-figure piece, but Romita's non-ASM work is consistently more valuable, apples-to-apples, than all but a couple of his peers - generally speaking, Romita's work is worth more than both Buscemas, Kane & Colan (and many would name one or more of those to the A-list). This is very evident when you look at covers that Romita inked, which can boost the price of, say, a Ron Wilson or Gil Kane cover substantially vs. where they would sell if inked by someone else, even a top-drawer inker (obviously I'm not talking about outliers like GSXM #1 or Tomb of Dracula #10).

 

What do you think of John Byrne? Just another Ringo who lucked into one of the most successful gigs of all time? It's not like his non-X-Men material sells for 6-figure XM prices either (again, outliers excepted). . He's solidly on my A-list

 

For ten years he was pretty much THE guy... to Adams point I don't think alpha flight would have lasted ten issues if it had been anyone else. He revitalized FF in an enormous way as well. Everything he touched, for a time, turned to gold.

 

Not to sidetrack a sidetrack but what happened to this guy after those ten prime years when he was THE GUY?

 

-edit- Not meaning the secondary market values of his work (which I admit I don't follow closely) but the artistic quality of his work which to me seemed to declined far more rapidly than you would have expected. Did he just stop caring or have an accident or suffer from a medical condition of some type?

[Bronty]

^ we've had that discussion a few times and while I don't think it's possible to know 100% my take is

 

A) I'd guess there was some burn out as he did a ton of stuff from the late 70s to late 80s

B) His style's appeal was more reliant on rendering than someone like Joe Kubert who always seemed more concerned with structure/form/light than someone like Byrne. If your appeal is dependent on rendering it's easier to lose that than to lose your understanding of structure. The big centre on your basketball team will always be tall. But if your speedy point guard loses a step, he's cooked.

[buyatari]

^ we've had that discussion a few times and while I don't think it's possible to know 100% my take is

 

A) I'd guess there was some burn out as he did a ton of stuff from the late 70s to late 80s

Ha! I had to read this twice. This is my first take on what you meant.

 

B) His style's appeal was more reliant on rendering than someone like Joe Kubert who always seemed more concerned with structure/form/light than someone like Byrne. If your appeal is dependent on rendering it's easier to lose that than to lose your understanding of structure. The big centre on your basketball team will always be tall. But if your speedy point guard loses a step, he's cooked.

 

Shame really. He put out some amazing material and as you said who else at that time could make a Canadian superhero team look good!

[Bronty]

^ we've had that discussion a few times and while I don't think it's possible to know 100% my take is

 

A) I'd guess there was some burn out as he did a ton of stuff from the late 70s to late 80s

Ha! I had to read this twice. This is my first take on what you meant.

 

B) His style's appeal was more reliant on rendering than someone like Joe Kubert who always seemed more concerned with structure/form/light than someone like Byrne. If your appeal is dependent on rendering it's easier to lose that than to lose your understanding of structure. The big centre on your basketball team will always be tall. But if your speedy point guard loses a step, he's cooked.

 

Shame really. He put out some amazing material and as you said who else at that time could make a Canadian superhero team look good!

 

at the sheen clip!

 

at the Canada quip

[romitaman]

I just read all 28 pages here.... with Bronty giving his opinion of john Romita being good ONLY because he drew ASM art while falling in love with a vast amount of muscular naked men paintings by Boris...

 

I say..to each is own.... if he loves Boris paintings in that way then he is his A LIST artist and so be it.

 

I will say however that certain people seem to forget what comics were created for back in the 1960's.

 

they were created TO TELL A STORY....... not to give the viewer that WOW FACTOR!!

 

I also want to say...jack Kirby is the greatest comic book artist ever...no ifs and or buts about it.

 

I have over 20 hours of audio and video with john Romita where he explains so many times how the artists are story tellers..they are NOT to be the main focus...they want the reader to feel their characters are REAL.

 

John Romita and john Buscema in my opinion were the most stylized artists of the mid 1960's at marvel..both artists worked first in advertising and understood how to draw people as REAL PEOPLE...not as these muscle bound steroid freaks we see today.

 

and by the way..John Romita was not "GIVEN" the ASM #39 job.... Stan first had Ayers and john Romita draw Daredevil...... and Stan loved john's huge first ever penciled daredevil drawing (which I own to this day) and john got the DD job for 9 issues after drawing a HULK and CAP book......

 

Stan Lee then had Spiderman cross over in to DD just 5 issues in, as the writing was on the walls that Steve Ditko was going to leave marvel..and john then became his replacement because he could do the job.

 

I talked with Don Heck a few times on the phone before he passed away in the 90's and he was a very sweet and kind sounding man to talk to...but that being said..in my humble opinion......any human being on earth who thinks don Heck is a better draftsman and artist than Romita or john Buscema needs his or her eyes examined.... just look at Don Heck's penciled work (over Romita's layouts) for ASM 57-64..... if you ant to compare 2 artists drawing the SAME CHARACTER...during the SAME ERA....and all pages were inked by the SAME INKER mike Esposito..... these pages look like night and day......the heck pages look like a coloring book with little or no detail or design and Spiderman's entire costume and mask are just way WAY off.....

 

but for me...having seen so many thousands of Romita art pieces and almost the same amount of john Buscema artwork.......these 2 men for me stand above everyone else in that era for what they did.

 

I think Gil Kane was a great draftsman but a terrible inker.... he is right there with Romita and JB but just a notch below.

 

Colan and heck are just below these guys for that era... but will say....the INKER IS KEY when you evaluate artists..... George Klein made Gene cola ns DD pages look absolutely frickin STUNNING, but if a guy like Ayers or Tartaglione or Colletta inked Colan they didn't look so good.

 

I never cared much for don heck's penciling and inked worked together...but when he had a good inker like Giacoia they looked good...

 

BUT I will say..i've seen ATLAS (pre hero marvel) don heck art from the late 1950's and it flowed so beautiful it was breath taking to see.

 

now guys like Wrightson, Steranko, and Neal Adams..and mike Kaluta and Barry smith...these guys were in an incredible class all their own with changing how comics were drawing in the late 60's and throughout the 70's.... they were the guys who said TO HELL WITH THE 6 and 9 panel pages...we are blowing it all up....and WE ARE THE MAIN FOCUS...NOT THE CHARACTER......and they did..and it was mind blowing and rocked the comic book world and the comic art world at the time..... and their prices show this now.

 

they were OUR late 60's early 70's genre of Andy Warhol..but these guys could actually DRAW!!!!!!!

 

but I don't see WHY what they did should diminish how the artists drew before then when Marvel story telling was the most important part of the comic book... Why do you think Marvel surpassed and blew away DC in sales in the mid 60's? it was THE STORY TELLING!!!

 

bottom line with Romita (and john Buscema) and whether Romita is a top tier artist or not.... if you want to know how much an artist cares about his work...look at their BACKGROUND images.... and not just the main image.

 

For me no one compares to john Romita because he cared about the ENTIRE PANEL....not just the main image.... his background characters and artwork on his ASM covers...no one i've ever seen can capture that 3-d ish real look and composition of his covers with backgrounds....

 

John Romita has told me countless times how he would yell at himself when he put a character in a wrong position and he would start erasing his pencils......and john Buscema would yell at him and say "JOHN...NO KID READING THE COMIC BOOK IS GONNA CARE THAT SPIDERMAN'S ARM IS IN THE WRONG POSITION IN 1 PANEL!"

 

but Romita told John Buscema..."BUT I WILL KNOW!" so he would change it.

 

does that make him an A LIST ARTIST??? who knows as its all subjective.......

 

all we ever get to see is the final product...we lucky art collectors......

and for me... THAT sure does makes john Romita an A LIST ARTIST!

[buyatari]

I just read all 28 pages here.... with Bronty giving his opinion of john Romita being good ONLY because he drew ASM art while falling in love with a vast amount of muscular naked men paintings by Boris...

 

I say..to each is own.... if he loves Boris paintings in that way then he is his A LIST artist and so be it.

 

I will say however that certain people seem to forget what comics were created for back in the 1960's.

 

they were created TO TELL A STORY....... not to give the viewer that WOW FACTOR!!

 

I also want to say...jack Kirby is the greatest comic book artist ever...no ifs and or buts about it.

 

I have over 20 hours of audio and video with john Romita where he explains so many times how the artists are story tellers..they are NOT to be the main focus...they want the reader to feel their characters are REAL.

 

John Romita and john Buscema in my opinion were the most stylized artists of the mid 1960's at marvel..both artists worked first in advertising and understood how to draw people as REAL PEOPLE...not as these muscle bound steroid freaks we see today.

 

and by the way..John Romita was not "GIVEN" the ASM #39 job.... Stan first had Ayers and john Romita draw Daredevil...... and Stan loved john's huge first ever penciled daredevil drawing (which I own to this day) and john got the DD job for 9 issues after drawing a HULK and CAP book......

 

Stan Lee then had Spiderman cross over in to DD just 5 issues in, as the writing was on the walls that Steve Ditko was going to leave marvel..and john then became his replacement because he could do the job.

 

I talked with Don Heck a few times on the phone before he passed away in the 90's and he was a very sweet and kind sounding man to talk to...but that being said..in my humble opinion......any human being on earth who thinks don Heck is a better draftsman and artist than Romita or john Buscema needs his or her eyes examined.... just look at Don Heck's penciled work (over Romita's layouts) for ASM 57-64..... if you ant to compare 2 artists drawing the SAME CHARACTER...during the SAME ERA....and all pages were inked by the SAME INKER mike Esposito..... these pages look like night and day......the heck pages look like a coloring book with little or no detail or design and Spiderman's entire costume and mask are just way WAY off.....

 

but for me...having seen so many thousands of Romita art pieces and almost the same amount of john Buscema artwork.......these 2 men for me stand above everyone else in that era for what they did.

 

I think Gil Kane was a great draftsman but a terrible inker.... he is right there with Romita and JB but just a notch below.

 

Colan and heck are just below these guys for that era... but will say....the INKER IS KEY when you evaluate artists..... George Klein made Gene cola ns DD pages look absolutely frickin STUNNING, but if a guy like Ayers or Tartaglione or Colletta inked Colan they didn't look so good.

 

I never cared much for don heck's penciling and inked worked together...but when he had a good inker like Giacoia they looked good...

 

BUT I will say..i've seen ATLAS (pre hero marvel) don heck art from the late 1950's and it flowed so beautiful it was breath taking to see.

 

now guys like Wrightson, Steranko, and Neal Adams..and mike Kaluta and Barry smith...these guys were in an incredible class all their own with changing how comics were drawing in the late 60's and throughout the 70's.... they were the guys who said TO HELL WITH THE 6 and 9 panel pages...we are blowing it all up....and WE ARE THE MAIN FOCUS...NOT THE CHARACTER......and they did..and it was mind blowing and rocked the comic book world and the comic art world at the time..... and their prices show this now.

 

they were OUR late 60's early 70's genre of Andy Warhol..but these guys could actually DRAW!!!!!!!

 

but I don't see WHY what they did should diminish how the artists drew before then when Marvel story telling was the most important part of the comic book... Why do you think Marvel surpassed and blew away DC in sales in the mid 60's? it was THE STORY TELLING!!!

 

bottom line with Romita (and john Buscema) and whether Romita is a top tier artist or not.... if you want to know how much an artist cares about his work...look at their BACKGROUND images.... and not just the main image.

 

For me no one compares to john Romita because he cared about the ENTIRE PANEL....not just the main image.... his background characters and artwork on his ASM covers...no one i've ever seen can capture that 3-d ish real look and composition of his covers with backgrounds....

 

John Romita has told me countless times how he would yell at himself when he put a character in a wrong position and he would start erasing his pencils......and john Buscema would yell at him and say "JOHN...NO KID READING THE COMIC BOOK IS GONNA CARE THAT SPIDERMAN'S ARM IS IN THE WRONG POSITION IN 1 PANEL!"

 

but Romita told John Buscema..."BUT I WILL KNOW!" so he would change it.

 

does that make him an A LIST ARTIST??? who knows as its all subjective.......

 

all we ever get to see is the final product...we lucky art collectors......

and for me... THAT sure does makes john Romita an A LIST ARTIST!

 

I don't think anyone is trying to take anything away from Romita. He was exactly what Marvel was looking for at that time. The only downfall if you even want to call it a downfall is that from a marketplace standpoint the value of his artwork will rise and fall dramatically with the interest in the story he was telling. When he illustrates silver age Spider-man story with a key story line he has the potential to break records.

 

There are other artists with a different skill set. One of them illustrated a Frankenstein plate without Frankenstein on it and still break records. If you dissect the elements going in to what makes these two examples valuable you will have different results. A greater percentage is placed on the content in the first example and a greater percentage is placed on the artist in the second example. As far as I can tell A-list artists are those which bring the greatest value to a piece of original artwork outside of the context/character.

 

None of this makes one artist better or more important than the other.

 

[Peter G]

As far as I can tell A-list artists are those which bring the greatest value to a piece of original artwork outside of the context/character.

 

 

Your comment is such a snobby comment. Sorry, but after Burkey's detailed explanation about how REVOLUTIONARY Romita was for the time, ur main point about being an A-List artist revolves around the point that a "true" artist has a body of work outside of a main commercial character.

 

I think what makes Romita so important is that he is the first artist that captured the "paparazzi" shot. Look at a Romita cover, splash page or so many panel pages he drew. Romita knew that SENSATIONALISM sells. He is the forefather of the "glamour shot". The true romantic that brought comic storytelling and individual panel pages and also full on splash pages to the ironic (to me) sick state I find that we are at today. The man knew instinctively how to GLAMORIZE a piece of art.

 

And thats why Stan Lee kept promoting Romita, because Romita instinctively tapped into this vein of MASS APPEAL.

 

And I keep bringing it back to pop art because Romita is in synch with the commercialism of Warhol. Romita is the pioneer that started everything that came after him !

 

Wrightson Swampthing while technically brilliant doesn't hold a candle to the real George Washington of our hobby - Mr. John Romita.

[buyatari]

As far as I can tell A-list artists are those which bring the greatest value to a piece of original artwork outside of the context/character.

 

 

Your comment is such a snobby comment. Sorry, but after Burkey's detailed explanation about how REVOLUTIONARY Romita was for the time, ur main point about being an A-List artist revolves around the point that a "true" artist has a body of work outside of a main commercial character.

 

I think what makes Romita so important is that he is the first artist that captured the "paparazzi" shot. Look at a Romita cover, splash page or so many panel pages he drew. Romita knew that SENSATIONALISM sells. He is the forefather of the "glamour shot". The true romantic that brought comic storytelling and individual panel pages and also full on splash pages to the ironic (to me) sick state I find that we are at today. The man knew instinctively how to GLAMORIZE a piece of art.

 

And thats why Stan Lee kept promoting Romita, because Romita instinctively tapped into this vein of MASS APPEAL.

 

And I keep bringing it back to pop art because Romita is in synch with the commercialism of Warhol. Romita is the pioneer that started everything that came after him !

 

Wrightson Swampthing while technically brilliant doesn't hold a candle to the real George Washington of our hobby - Mr. John Romita.

 

It might be if we were talking about anything BUT secondary art market value. However that is the ONLY thing being debated.

 

I love the quotes on "true" artist btw. Show me my post where that direct quote is from.