ARTIST MATURATION

[matewan1990]

Carmine Infantino's work really matured after he left the drawing board behind for the board room. When he returned to comics, he had that really stylized angular look to his work, but he still maintained his storytelling sense and the dynamics that made his early, Flash work so popular. I thought Infantino's second run on the Flash was beautiful when inked by the right people and his Star Wars, Nova and Spider-Woman art was some of the best art at Marvel during the 1970s. Infantino's Flash went from the fluid-moving, thin Flash to a more muscular hero. His characters still had that great Infantino movement, but his style was vastly different.

• I think Steve Lightle's style also improved with age. His covers definitely got better.

• Dan DeCarlo's style evolved into the "Archie Comics" look and I think it improved with age.

• Ed Benes's stuff nowadays is head-and-shoulders above what he was doing TWO years ago.

• John Romita Jr.'s work was too heavily influenced by his dad's style early on.

• I loved Kirby's art in the 1980s and thought it was better than ever.

• Barry Windsor-Smith's art went from being Kirbyish to his own.

• The Kubert brothers went from being clones of their dad to great artists with their own styles.

• Ron Garney's style went from being a clone of whover Marvel wanted him to look like to his own, in-your-face style.

• And I definitely think Jae Lee and Travis Charest improved with age. Their older stuff is hard to look at.

Mike B.