Comic Books

I claim the 90's had some of the best artists ever, but you have to take taste into consideration. There were many artists whose work I really disliked - Chris B., John Romita Jr., Mark Texeira, etc.

I disliked allot of them as well, but the sheer amount of new talent was crazy. You were guaranteed to like at least 10 of them ALLOT

If history show us anything we are due for another explosion, but I think comics may not make it another decade in there current form.
Especially if they still keep catering everything to the old farts.

With tablets and webcomics, we SHOULD be in a new golden age. but yeah, people with the money have their heads up their asses trying to keep brick and mortar alive.

Column_sl said:

If history show us anything we are due for another explosion, but I think comics may not make it another decade in there current form.
Especially if they still keep catering everything to the old farts.

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Jack Kirby was 44 when he drew Fantastic Four and became the most influential artist of the silver age after working in the business for 25 years at that point. Can't knock the old farts too badly. It's not exactly easy to break into comics when there isn't an upstart company hiring tons of new talent like in the 90's either.

Think about somebody like Joe Mad, great original art with style and dynamism.


But he's actually a horrible comic artist, he's always late. For somebody new to come into comics, the companies have to take a risk that he might not be able to make the deadlines. And for that to be an acceptable risk, he has to be stupendously awesome.

Somewhat unrelated, but I recalled Evanier's little anecdote about Alfredo Alcala when he came to america. 40 pages a week of penciling and inking and they looked like this:


Jesus he was underutilized.

Can't knock the old farts too badly.

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The old farts are the consumer not the artists.... Marvel ,and DC cater to a 30+ crowd when they should be going for a much younger generation.
And it isn't the age they start that matters it's that there is new blood in the comic industry to evolve past the old blood.

I'm pretty sure allmost all artists are well into there 30's before they start getting recognized, very few are superstars at 18.

But he's actually a horrible comic artist, he's always late.

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That doesn't make you a horrible comic book artist, that makes you an artist that is unable to do monthly's.
Not every artist can accomplish that, has nothing to do with there current skill level.

Is Travis Charest a horrible artists because it takes him 3 years to accomplish anything? absolutely not
Is Arthur Adams because he only does Annuals?
Is Adam Hughes because he can only do covers?

Some artists will always be Cover, and special projects. Not every artist needs to be a monthly guy to validate themselves.
One last note on Joe, he has met every deadline since Ultimate's, this is while working on two award winning games. Thats 3 arcs of stories, and he is still working on Marvel books right now.

A horrible comic artist is one that is unable to tell a clear story. Chris Bachalo is the perfect example of this. Beautiful design, and art. The most godawful unreadable comic books probly in the industry.

Somewhat unrelated, but I recalled Evanier's little anecdote about Alfredo Alcala when he came to america. 40 pages a week of penciling and inking and they looked like this:

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Alfredo Alcala was a great artist there is no doubt, but he never found his voice. He always imitated people that were better then him. Franklin Booth, Frazetta, Buscema etc
Constantly changing his style to adhere to what the company needed.

Joe Mad imitated Michael Golden, and grew past him. That is the biggest difference. It's always Quality not Quantity. If you look at Joes work now compared to what he did on the X men his state of growth has skyrocketed.

Same thing with Travis Charest, started out as Jim Lee's protege ,and grew far past his influence.

Guys like Alex raymond ,Alex Toth, Frazzeta, Jack Kirby, and Michael Golden are the true legends.

You're right, but I'm not to sure a comic company is going to fall over themselves to hire a new somebody who can only work fast enough to do covers. Unless, again, they are just awesome.

Alcala wasn't really given an opportunity to find his voice though, a little different than never finding it, as he was stuck inking for most of his career. His inking was tremendous though.

The dynamic has simply shifted to writers being the big names. The artists are there still, they just rarely get the marketing around them.
Sean Murphy, Rocafort, Dustin Nguyen, Stjepan Sejic, Amanda Conner, etc. all would be much bigger names 20 years ago.

Bachalo's doing quite good nowadays honestly. yeah. back in the days of steampunk it was nearly unreadable.
Uncanny xmen is fucking gorgeous most of the time. ( a few misses here and there, some same face occasionally) (not even remotely my favorite page/panel. just an ok one that came up on google.)


Campbell is a guy I "LOVED" back in the day. Dude is directly responsible for me reading comics, and working in them. But.. He kindof apexed shortly after/during dangergirl though. he also had a hard time with deadlines. He recent work though, is almost a caricature of himself. Except when hes sketchbooking.
http://th01.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/...ll-d6mol38.jpg
does stuff like this in his sketch books.... then does the most boring derivative cheesecake with the same girl over and over in his covers, and like.



I'll see what I can do to make that list of artists when I dont have so much deadlines.


p.s. JLA 3k is looking amazing.

just read GotG 08 and i have to agree with everyone....how the fuck such atrocious artist managed to get picked up for it ? seriously, random photoshop kid from internet could make much better works

you could not even recognize one character

Van Sciver is another late 90s guy. Started with his own book Cyber Frog. He's always been a fav of mine too.

grumblethorn_sl said:

Ethan Van Sciver is relatively new and fucking rocks. suck a dick column.

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You're an idiot...

John ROmita Jr. has always been one of my favourite artists,with a unique style. And the rare times Joe Mad actually draws something it looks fucking amazing, he is just as bad as Mark Millar when it comes to deadlines though. Just look at Battle Chasers.

Greg Capullo made Spawn look awesome, i still think he is underrrated as an artist.

Talking about shit Artists and not mentioning Sal Buscema? get the fuck out of here.

I have a comic tattoo. Thor sitting on a throne with helmets of enemies on spikes behind it on my upper arm. Comic book style but a little more viking then surfer dude.

Sceleris_sl said:

John ROmita Jr. has always been one of my favourite artists,with a unique style. And the rare times Joe Mad actually draws something it looks fucking amazing, he is just as bad as Mark Millar when it comes to deadlines though. Just look at Battle Chasers.

Greg Capullo made Spawn look awesome, i still think he is underrrated as an artist.

Talking about shit Artists and not mentioning Sal Buscema? get the fuck out of here.

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Greg Capullo is hardly an under rated artist... Why would you even think that is beyond me. Guys been on high profile projects his whole career.


Sal Buscema, a shit artist? are you fucking retarded. Sal was a workhorse for marvel, and I Still love Rom to this day. Every artist in comics respects that guy, who cares if you like his style ,or not.
Those brothers were the backbone for marvel for the longest time. Sal could do everything, Ink, color, Letter, and pencil.

Fucking Europeans... collective intelligence of a goldfish.





Joe Mad has been making deadlines since Ultimates.
3 storyline arcs in the can, and he is currently working on Inhumans.

Yeah right, and when did Joe Mad finish battle chasers exactly? The guy is brilliant, don't get me wrong, i love his artwork. It's among the best of the best. But his sceduling and priorities haven't always been stellar. He did half a story on battle chasers, wich to this day i am still waiting for him to finish the story. He did what, 3 issues of ultimates 3? Then he dropped off the radar to do a few video games, and came back to do a run on Avenging spiderman. He got ontroduced as the guy who starts this whole new run on spiderman, and just vanished after 3 issues, apparently he was going to do Savage Wolverine. Right now savage wolverine has fucking awful artwork in the lines of the latest GoTG

Sal Buscema's run on spiderman was godawful, his inker didn't help either.

You are so clueless.

First, Joe was never given the Avenging Spiderman spot. He did the first three issue arc of it.
It is a self contained story.

In fact Marvel gave him the project for him to work on, and decided later they would just make a new spider man title. A comic they could have self contained stories in that didn't effect there other books.
That had nothing to do with Joe, he finished his assignment on time.

He did this all while working on Darksiders 2...

The Savage Wolverine 3 issue arc by him which was his return to comics is already over, also on time.
He is working on Inhuman right now.

lastly Ultimates was a 5 issue arc.

If you are going to stick labels on people at least be fucking accurate in what they are producing for the last decade.

http://www.kwanchang.com/ArtistGalle...=548&Details=0

Yeah i stuck a label on him, and the rest of the comic book world with me. But you manage to skip over me praising him as well. Here's the thing though, and i am amazed you manage to keep skipping over that one part about Battle Chasers... When exactly did he finish it? Ultimates 3 was a monthly comic, issue 2 came out in january, issue 3 in february and 4 in june. Yeah he has pinpoint accuracy when it comes to deadlines. It's not a big secret about him, heck Battle chasers had 2 or 3 issues a YEAR until he shelved it halfway through a story.

I love every bit of artwork that guy made, i own every comic he has drawn, i own some of his panels, but just because he managed to make a deadline in the past 6 comics doesn't make me forget waiting for months in the past. And if the comic is good it's worth the wait, at least he doesn't drop the ball like Millar did after making us wait half a year for the conclusion of old man logan and ultimate hulk vs. wolverine.

All in all, i am anxious to see his spin on the inhumans, Mad can really liven up a story with his vibrant and intricate artwork.

I own a ton of comics from the late 80's and all across the 90's. What do you guys think of Mark Bagley? I liked his run on Amazing Spiderman.

I haven't skipped over anything, if you notice in my first post.

Joe Mad has been making deadlines since Ultimates.
3 storyline arcs in the can, and he is currently working on Inhumans.

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Also Ultimates was not a monthly book that was supposed to go on past the 5 issues, it was a special project mini series, and Joe has no part in when Marvel decides when they want to ship comics.
Special Projects are almost all finished before they even ship out the first issue...

BTW the real reason that some of the issues came out late was sited by marvel as production line problems reproducing the colors on the book, and had to be retooled completely.
Thats why you saw a Black and White version come out later, and a completely redone colored version.


I clearly said he has been making deadlines since Ultimates. BC came out 13 years ago.... It was his own project, and he apparently didn't enjoy it towards the end.
Maybe the fanbase still think hes late, but not his employers who know the real deal.

I love every bit of artwork that guy made, i own every comic he has drawn, i own some of his panels, but just because he managed to make a deadline in the past 6 comics doesn't make me forget waiting for months in the past.

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You obviously don't own all his comics if I had to tell you his 3 issue wolverine project has been finished for awhile now, and didn't even know that Ultimates was 5 issues....
And if you want to be technical its 11 issues of projects finished on time.

Thats every project he has worked on for the last decade.

Europeans, dumb as shit.

Mark Bagley is good. One of the reasons I liked The New Warriors. Never knew what happened to him after he left Spiderman. Was about the time I exited comics.