Title with the best Artists 0

[Stefan_W]

Cardy's work in Aquaman has always been a favourite of mine. Jim Aparo took over at the (weak) end of the run so I guess it doesn't qualify wrt multiple artists in the title, but man was Cardy ever on fire in the early part of the run with all of those lovely yellows, blues, and oranges. I don't think I have loved a group of comics more purely for the art than in that run.

[jjonahjameson11]

On 7/26/2023 at 7:37 PM, Ken Aldred said:

Epic Illustrated

John Buscema, Jim Starlin, Arthur Suydam, Craig Russell, Paul Gulacy, Neal Adams, John Bolton, Richard Corben, BWS, Mike Kaluta, Jon J Muth, Kent Williams, Bernie Wrightson, John Byrne, Tim Conrad.

 

+ Dave Sim 😉

[Cat]

On 7/27/2023 at 1:47 AM, Slayah said:

Which I consider the downfall of Modern comics  This acceptance made crappy artists like Humberto Ramos popular. Ramos' Mexican Manga is particularly awful.

We take no blame for Ramos either. He's just... There. 

[Ken Aldred]

On 7/27/2023 at 1:58 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

+ Dave Sim 😉

Yup.  You're right.  Doing it from memory.

One option I'm not taking on that way is Heavy Metal magazine. 

Lots of great artists, but very, very patchy.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[D2]

No debate. 
 

Batman. 
 

Case closed. 

[Cat]

On 7/27/2023 at 12:39 AM, paqart said:

It's the popularity of Lee, Portacio, and McFarlane tha t cause me to ignore the 1990's completely as a collector. Those artists had their qualities but the artists of the late sixties/early seventies represent, to me, the best illustrators that ever worked in comics. There are plenty of good artists who came later, but I have a hard time seeing them as comparable to the earlier group. EC Comics had another good stable of artists, thanks to editor Harvey Kurtzman, who was an excellent artist himself. The typical popular 90's artist had much less detail than in earlier times but used more lines to describe the objects in their drawings. Few, Lee being an exception, understood anatomy or how to use reference, leading to wasp-waisted women and empty backgrounds.

If you're ignoring them due to their popularity you're doing yourself a disservice. Lee is Byrne improved. Hardly any, if any of the artists mentions used wasp-waists. 

[paqart]

On 7/26/2023 at 11:14 PM, Cat said:

If you're ignoring them due to their popularity you're doing yourself a disservice. Lee is Byrne improved. Hardly any, if any of the artists mentions used wasp-waists. 

I disagree about Lee. I think of his work as considerably worse than Byrne and not worth collecting. I have some of his comics to trade with other people, but avoid it otherwise. His drawings are too flashy for me. They focus on superficial qualities, less on storytelling. Byrne has always been one of the best storytellers in comics, though his illustrations were at times rushed. His work on Next Men, OMAC, Wonder Woman, and the other Dark Horse titles was exceptional. Lee is the best of his genre of comic book art, but I really don't care for it in the slightest.

Edited July 27, 2023 by paqart

[Cat]

On 7/27/2023 at 1:28 PM, paqart said:

I disagree about Lee. I think of his work as considerably worse than Byrne and not worth collecting. I have some of his comics to trade with other people, but avoid it otherwise. His drawings are too flashy for me. They focus on superficial qualities, less on storytelling. Byrne has always been one of the best storytellers in comics, though his illustrations were at times rushed. His work on Next Men, OMAC, Wonder Woman, and the other Dark Horse titles was exceptional. Lee is the best of his genre of comic book art, but I really don't care for it in the slightest.

Flip what you said, go for 'rushed' instead of flashy, and I agree. Byrne puts no care into his details, draws generic rubble as detail and hopes that will wow you (and he gets away with it from stupid fanboys), and quite often his proportions are off. 

Lee is Byrne advanced. Everything Byrne does but better, with care and control, and every line put down is deliberate. 

[godzilla43]

Xenozoic Tales. Mark Schultz.

[paqart]

On 7/27/2023 at 12:00 AM, Cat said:

Flip what you said, go for 'rushed' instead of flashy, and I agree. Byrne puts no care into his details, draws generic rubble as detail and hopes that will wow you (and he gets away with it from stupid fanboys), and quite often his proportions are off. 

Lee is Byrne advanced. Everything Byrne does but better, with care and control, and every line put down is deliberate. 

We disagree. I will point out that I am looking at their work as storytelling more than as illustration. If the storytelling is solid, I couldn't care less about illustrative detail or flourishes. If it is there, that can add some spice, but if it isn't, not much is lost. Lee puts more effort into rendering form than what I would describe as "detail." Using a lot of lines to make Superman's thigh look like a solid hunk of blue steel is not "detail" in my book. Detail, is when you draw a lot of objects, even if simply. Besides, too much detail in a comic book page looks cluttered. In comics, almost all artists have careful and "deliberate" strokes. There are very few who don't. The reason is that the size of the paper forces artists to be careful, or they overstep panel boundaries.

[paqart]

On 7/27/2023 at 12:00 AM, Cat said:

Flip what you said, go for 'rushed' instead of flashy, and I agree. Byrne puts no care into his details, draws generic rubble as detail and hopes that will wow you (and he gets away with it from stupid fanboys), and quite often his proportions are off. 

Lee is Byrne advanced. Everything Byrne does but better, with care and control, and every line put down is deliberate. 

If the prices were the same, I'd trade Lee for Byrne original art all day long. Now that I think of it, I'd also trade JRJR inked by Janson for almost anything. Again, if prices were equal. The pencilling is the storytelling, the inking is the art. This was Wrightson's great strength, and Schultz, and Frazetta, they are all great inkers. I saw some JRJR inked by Janson last year that as far as I was concerned is Janson, not Romita Jr, because it is Janson that made the pages sing. In Byrne's case, when he worked for Dark Horse and on some of the DC titles he did, his inks were fantastic.

For original art, I buy the inker, not the penciller.

The people mentioned in this thread tend to be good inkers (except Neal Adams, Jim Lee, and a few others.) Kirby was a good inker, but we hardly ever see it because he spent most of his time as a penciler. Kurtzman, Johnny Craig, Williamson, Wrightson, Alex Nino, Mazzuchelli, Weeks, Barks, etc., are all exceptional inkers. Unfortunately for some guys who work primarily as inkers, their pencils aren't at the same level as their inks, like Janson. 

I had some Thor pages by Kirby with Everett inks. They were the best pages I owned. Coming close was a Walt Kelly Pogo strip that was gorgeous.

Edited July 27, 2023 by paqart

[Ken Aldred]

Interesting thread.

A boardie will make a suggestion and then it’ll trigger a thought in me about some other series that’s maybe just a degree of separation away.

Good game. 

[Cat]

On 7/27/2023 at 5:47 PM, paqart said:

If the prices were the same, I'd trade Lee for Byrne original art all day long. Now that I think of it, I'd also trade JRJR inked by Janson for almost anything. Again, if prices were equal. The pencilling is the storytelling, the inking is the art. This was Wrightson's great strength, and Schultz, and Frazetta, they are all great inkers. I saw some JRJR inked by Janson last year that as far as I was concerned is Janson, not Romita Jr, because it is Janson that made the pages sing. In Byrne's case, when he worked for Dark Horse and on some of the DC titles he did, his inks were fantastic.

For original art, I buy the inker, not the penciller.

The people mentioned in this thread tend to be good inkers (except Neal Adams, Jim Lee, and a few others.) Kirby was a good inker, but we hardly ever see it because he spent most of his time as a penciler. Kurtzman, Johnny Craig, Williamson, Wrightson, Alex Nino, Mazzuchelli, Weeks, Barks, etc., are all exceptional inkers. Unfortunately for some guys who work primarily as inkers, their pencils aren't at the same level as their inks, like Janson. 

I had some Thor pages by Kirby with Everett inks. They were the best pages I owned. Coming close was a Walt Kelly Pogo strip that was gorgeous.

Fair enough. Lee is definitely not an inker, as I am sure he'll admit. I'm not a big fan of Byrne's inks, I think they're half the problem with his pencils, the other half is his nature to rush everything out (which he's so proud of, no desire to take his time and fix his wonky proportions etc, just onto the next commission, page, whatever, even if he's got nothing else lined up). 

That Thor page sounds gorgeous.