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Mount Rushmore of Comic Book Artists, who you got?
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62 posts in this topic

On 8/11/2021 at 5:24 PM, Mmehdy said:

top 3

1- Jack King Kirby....great in 1941 with Cap 1, great in 1961 with FF1 and hits the peak in 1966's  FF51 "this man this monster"...and still is great for another 50 issues

2-Robert Crumb-godfather of the underground comic book movement...could do the most controversial comic books ever made in  1970, that is right 1970....or "68...incredible impact of comic books on the cultural evolution of free thought and you have to live this to understand this. A genius, just check out on Ha website a story from the 1970's  Tales of the Future.....

3-Tough call here, on overall impact is my major factor ....Steve Ditko...great great early  Charlton work with Captain atom and SFD, Classic and I mean classic SF Amazing fantasy horror and SF stories for marvel, ASM 1-38 and Ann's 1,2 and ST ANN2 .....cannot be duplicated for the time and went on to do a lot more material which need to be relooked at both in terms of art and story meaning...

Close but no cigar

Fletcher Hanks ...Genius on a level above...held back by his lack of work 1939-1941..."The complete works of Fletcher Hanks" is a must own for any GA comic book collector as well and SF comic book collector, his true life story, his true fight for real justice in comic books when it comes to a villian's end , what could of been with 10 years of his material ....wow, great stuff, super stuff.

Alex Raymond....there were a few years along with Windsor MCcay that no body could do it better, probably nobody has...limited by the comic strip format and freedom.

Wally Wood- his WS and WF and Thunder Agents were up there, he cut his life too short, but the life that lasts half as long shines twice as bright

Frank Frazetta ..the greatest artist of the 20th century hands down, but not really comic book artist, more of a painter, I agree the greatest comic book cover besides Action 1 is WSF 29 and those Buck Rogers covers, but he elevated his game when he went into Conan...

 

You forgot to mention the greatest comic book artist of the 20th Century. Neal Adams.

Adams’ cover to Tomahawk 116 is along with Frazetta’s WSF 29, the greatest comic book cover of the last half of the 20th Century:

E133C7E5-79D9-4D49-ABB6-072FF426910F.thumb.webp.af1fe89bc3a57ed593de9eb4dbac77cb.webp

At 80 years old, Neal continues to demonstrate his unrivaled greatness. 

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On 8/11/2021 at 4:44 PM, bronze johnny said:

You forgot to mention the greatest comic book artist of the 20th Century. Neal Adams.

Adams’ cover to Tomahawk 116 is along with Frazetta’s WSF 29, the greatest comic book cover of the last half of the 20th Century:

E133C7E5-79D9-4D49-ABB6-072FF426910F.thumb.webp.af1fe89bc3a57ed593de9eb4dbac77cb.webp

At 80 years old, Neal continues to demonstrate his unrivaled greatness. 

He is up there, I have always found, like Jack Kirby in the early 70's that Neal is very fan friendly and his work amazingly consistent, I have two signed editions of Deadman and GL/GA which I have read and reread many times. But the top three and should even include George Herriman for art/content creation, really stand out. Neal is a true comic book master.

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On 8/12/2021 at 2:06 PM, Mmehdy said:

He is up there, I have always found, like Jack Kirby in the early 70's that Neal is very fan friendly and his work amazingly consistent, I have two signed editions of Deadman and GL/GA which I have read and reread many times. But the top three and should even include George Herriman for art/content creation, really stand out. Neal is a true comic book master.

I would add that Neal’s realism had a greater impact on comic book art from the time he hit his stride in the late 1960s until the early 1970s than any other artist in the history of comic books. The comic book art we have seen since is more attributable to Neal than those who preceded him - including the Golden Age Masters. Kirby was the comic book’s greatest visionary - artist while Adams was the medium’s master of art realism. 

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There was a big push to add Trump's face to Mt. Rushmore, which would have made five presidents, so in the spirit of that venture I'll name five artists and go with Lou Fine, Alex Schomburg, Matt Baker, Graham Ingles, and Dan Zolnerowich. L. B. Cole would be the runner up.

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On 2/17/2022 at 6:02 PM, Funnybooks said:
On 2/17/2022 at 5:12 PM, MrBedrock said:

 

tarzansunday.jpg

exquisite example!!!!!!!!!!

inks are so lush (worship)

It is hard to describe how crisp and bold his inking is.

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On 2/17/2022 at 7:23 PM, MrBedrock said:

It is hard to describe how crisp and bold his inking is.

love the brushwork with what appears to be India ink...look how fresh it appears coming off the board...

just as amazing as any Foster or Raymond strip

thanks for sharing :foryou:

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I think this is a pretty strong candidacy:

  • Will Eisner
  • Lou Fine
  • Jack Kirby
  • Carl Barks

Painful to leave so many other great talents off but I think these 4 defined the early days of great comic book art.  I find it interesting that Lou Fine got his break working for Will Eisner (along with Kirby) and Jack Kirby felt that Lou Fine was his favorite artist.  The volume and quality of work that those 3 put out is pretty impressive and hard to compete with.  And I just think there would be virtually no duck phenomena without Carl Barks.  He created a world that would be a staple for young kids all the way to today.

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On 2/17/2022 at 10:44 PM, Randall Dowling said:

I think this is a pretty strong candidacy:

  • Will Eisner
  • Lou Fine
  • Jack Kirby
  • Carl Barks

Painful to leave so many other great talents off but I think these 4 defined the early days of great comic book art.  I find it interesting that Lou Fine got his break working for Will Eisner (along with Kirby) and Jack Kirby felt that Lou Fine was his favorite artist.  The volume and quality of work that those 3 put out is pretty impressive and hard to compete with.  And I just think there would be virtually no duck phenomena without Carl Barks.  He created a world that would be a staple for young kids all the way to today.

A really defensible list.  Mine is only a little different:

  •  Will Eisner (do I really need to explain why?)
  •  Carl Barks (his art was so good that he was called the "good Duck artist" for drawing stories within the constraints of the Disney style because even so they stood head and shoulders above all others)
  •  Bill Everett (hugely important and long career in which he mastered both covers and interiors - something his contemporary Schomburg didn't really do - and evolved his always appealing style to fashion both some of the greatest early GA covers and some of the greatest PCH covers of the 1950s, without ever looking cartoony)
  •  Harvey Kurtzman (over Bernie Krigstein) (like Krigstein he revolutionized the way in which comic stories were told, and the art styles that could be used to tackle the most mature subjects).

Honorable mentions: Shuster (way underrated) and Baker (revolutionized mature romance art and storytelling).

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On 2/18/2022 at 11:32 AM, sfcityduck said:

A really defensible list.  Mine is only a little different:

  •  Will Eisner (do I really need to explain why?)
  •  Carl Barks (his art was so good that he was called the "good Duck artist" for drawing stories within the constraints of the Disney style because even so they stood head and shoulders above all others)
  •  Bill Everett (hugely important and long career in which he mastered both covers and interiors - something his contemporary Schomburg didn't really do - and evolved his always appealing style to fashion both some of the greatest early GA covers and some of the greatest PCH covers of the 1950s, without ever looking cartoony)
  •  Harvey Kurtzman (over Bernie Krigstein) (like Krigstein he revolutionized the way in which comic stories were told, and the art styles that could be used to tackle the most mature subjects).

Honorable mentions: Shuster (way underrated) and Baker (revolutionized mature romance art and storytelling).

I like this also (and very much agree with your honorable mentions).  It's really tough to leave people like Foster, Raymond, Hogarth, L.B. Cole, Schomburg, Bob Kane, Mac Raboy and others out and clearly choosing finalists is greatly dependent on what "importance" means.  Bill Everett is particularly big considering his work at Centaur, Timely, Atlas and Marvel over 4 decades.  Not many others that were there in the beginning and lasted into the 70s.

Similarly, I'm a huge fan of both Kurtzman and Krigstein- both put serious artistry into the work in a way that hadn't been done before.  But then, so did Wood and Frazetta.  Need a bigger Mount Rushmore!

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On 2/18/2022 at 10:21 AM, Randall Dowling said:

 It's really tough to leave people like Foster, Raymond,

For me, they are on the Mt. for comic strip artists:

  • Winsor McCay (do I really need to explain why?)
  • Hal Foster (better than Frazetta, Wood, and all his other imitators - which only a few could actually come close to doing)
  • Alex Raymond (better than Moldoff and all his many imitators in his first X-9/Flash/Jungle Jim style and then he changed up his style for Rip Kirby and influenced a whole new group of artists)
  • Charles Schulz (barely over Bill Watterson because he paved the way, 50 year run, and Watterson acknowledges his debt to Schulz)

Honorable Mention: Noel Sickles/Milt Caniff (only Toth and eventually Wildey in comic books came close to mastering the style Sickles & Caniff pioneered)

 

 

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