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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 19, 2016 17:49:10 GMT -5
Well, that might be true. I really started getting into '50s comics when I was 34. 2007 WAS a good year! I don't know, I think it's just nostalgia on your part  : comic book artists such as Frazetta, Alex Toth or Graham Ingels are a rare thing, but so are Mark Schultz, Adam Hugues or Ashley Woods. And artists such as Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Kaluta or even Fraztta actually hit their peak in the 70ies, so it just all very subjective. There will be supremely talented comic book artists in each generations, hopefully all building on the groundbreaks of their predecessors. When you watch JH Williams III's Sandman, Kevin Nowlan's various inking styles, Windsor McKay's Little Nemo, Travis Charest's late Wildcats or Toth's EC war stories, they all constitute artistic peaks on their own. Wouldn't it be sad if we cnsidered that Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was the peak of painting? Yeah, I don't consider the current crop of artists less talented per se... It's more a function of the industry than anything. The problems (A) A lot less variety in the mainstream - there's much less demand for great humor artists, or great romance artists, or great charicaturists... There's a huge demand for Kirby style epic action artists, and noir artists, and people with an interesting take on superheroes. But, overall, because of the genre constrictions the talent pool has a lot less depth, and (B) Storytelling has gone to crap. I'd almost say pre 1990 comic artists had to be able to not just draw pretty pictures, but be able to integrate their art into an effective, compact narrative. The guys you showed are fine artists and I like many of 'em, but they're just drawing. They're not Krigstein...  Or Toth...  And they certainly don't have the pure panel-to-panel cartooning chops of Barks - notice how the characters relationship to their environment and to each other is cleanly and effortlessly spelled out here. There just aren't many cartoonists who can draw that efficiently any more.  And, sure, we got plenty of people who can drawn vampires or steroid-ridden muscle men, but how many of todays cartoonists can draw a cute l'il bunny. (And make it sort of terrifying!)  |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Feb 19, 2016 18:22:48 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't consider the current crop of artists less talented per se... It's more a function of the industry than anything. The problems (A) A lot less variety in the mainstream - there's much less demand for great humor artists, or great romance artists, or great charicaturists... There's a huge demand for Kirby style epic action artists, and noir artists, and people with an interesting take on superheroes. But, overall, because of the genre constrictions the talent pool has a lot less depth, and (B) Storytelling has gone to crap. I'd almost say pre 1990 comic artists had to be able to not just draw pretty pictures, but be able to integrate their art into an effective, compact narrative. The guys you showed are fine artists and I like many of 'em, but they're just drawing. They're not Krigstein... (C) Or Toth... (D) And they certainly don't have the pure panel-to-panel cartooning chops of Barks - notice how the characters relationship to their environment and to each other is cleanly and effortlessly spelled out here. There just aren't many cartoonists who can draw that efficiently any more. (E) And, sure, we got plenty of people who can drawn vampires or steroid-ridden muscle men, but how many of todays cartoonists can draw a cute l'il bunny. (And make it sort of terrifying!) (A) But that's quite unfair since there really wasn't a mainstream in the 50ies in the same sense there is now. For humor I give you Kyle Baker, Frank Cho or Doug Mahnke (his Mask is one of the very best dark humor comics ever!), for Romance artists, I give you Tula Lotay, Amy Reeder, Jamie Mckelvie. For great charicaturists, I'm not sur what you are refering to from the 50ies exclusive to the US comics world, Basil Wolverton? (B) I find that today's storytelling techniques are more advanced and effective then ever : Paul Pope, most of the artists that have drawn Spiderman in recent years, Yannick Paquette, Sean Phillips, Steve Epting, and again, just check JH Williams III's Sandman  (C) I give you Mignola, Kevin Nowlan, Eduardo Risso... (D) I give you Jeff Smith, Jim Woodring, Stephen DeStefano... (E) I give you Al Columbia  Dave Cooper  or Bill Wray, who can do it all :        |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 19, 2016 18:33:00 GMT -5
There's some great artists there!
And some great storytellers!
But just compare how little information and narrative movement there is in that J.H. Williams page to... gosh, any post-war Eisner Spirit page. The story either muddles and meanders along, issue after issue to make room for the pretty drawings or the story is considered first and foremost and there's no room for Krigstein style experimentation.
Although it's really hard to tell how good current artists are - their bread and butter is doing the same damn thing over and over again. You know that Kirby could do westerns, romance, funny animals, epic mythology, whatever the hell Omac was, memoir... Sure, there might be artists equally versatile now-a-days, but there's no way to tell because the market doesn't favor it.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Feb 19, 2016 18:56:46 GMT -5
That Williams III is a great exemple how he can do innovative storytelling techniques with static action! He also can do the opposite as he demonstrated plenty in Batwoman. But he sure is as experimental if not more than Krigstein (who indeed is a parangon of experimentation). You say it's hard to tell, but I'd say that back in the 50ies, it probably was mighty hard to catch the versatility of those artists, because of distribution, lack of credits and sometimes even "shame" of doing funny books. Nowadays, it's as easy to catch Bill Wray's versatility as with Stuart Imonen, Dave McKean, Kevin Nowlan, Simon Bisley, Bill Sienkiewicz or Kyle Baker. We might hold that nostalgic special place for those 50ies comics because they(ve become "classics". I sure know since the only comic displayed on my bedroom's walls is that one :  But all original art I have there is from modern artists, even if I have a couple of pages from the 50ies (I had a phase in 2000 when I got crazy on ebay and got great deals...)  |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 19, 2016 19:27:15 GMT -5
That Williams III is a great exemple how he can do innovative storytelling techniques with static action! He also can do the opposite as he demonstrated plenty in Batwoman. But he sure is as experimental if not more than Krigstein (who indeed is a parangon of experimentation). You say it's hard to tell, but I'd say that back in the 50ies, it probably was mighty hard to catch the versatility of those artists, because of distribution, lack of credits and sometimes even "shame" of doing funny books. Nowadays, it's as easy to catch Bill Wray's versatility as with Stuart Imonen, Dave McKean, Kevin Nowlan, Simon Bisley, Bill Sienkiewicz or Kyle Baker. We might hold that nostalgic special place for those 50ies comics because they(ve become "classics". I sure know since the only comic displayed on my bedroom's walls is that one : But at the same time they have to look like Stuart Imomen - Developing a recognizable style more important than taking any assignment that comes along, which means they don't really stretch their wings. And Immomen's done a lot of different genres for a modern artist! (Freakin' World War 2 Art Theft!) But he's still worked in maybe 25% as many genres and styles as Joe Maneely. - they don't understand it and can't judge or process it, so they ignore it when trying to think critically about art. And I think you're completely wrong about nostalgia. I definitely encountered every artist you mentioned long before Alex Toth, but I don't think they're as good. (Nobody is, in America. Ever.) I suspect that at this point in history, modern fans aren't taught to value storytelling or genre diversity, and looking at comic art in terms of information conveyed is a metric completely foreign to American mainstream comic fans of the last 15 years. But that will change as styles change. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 19, 2016 19:38:07 GMT -5
(A) Not just comics, either. I don't see any art form as a progression. It's all one generation learning new stuff but forgetting or not bothering to learn what the older generation could do.
(B) And I'll give you Paul Pope. Fine artist, fine storyteller. Poor guy; he's almost completely alone in the current comics scene.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Feb 19, 2016 20:01:07 GMT -5
I agree Toth might be the best american comic book artist ever, but he also has a specific set of strenghts. Sure 50ies artists might have needed to take whatever gig they got, but I fail to see why current artists having more control over their choices and focussing into developping one specific aspect of their styles makes them a lesser artist, it could be argued the opposite! It's till highly subjective. I'm not sure I understand this though "they don't understand it and can't judge or process it, so they ignore it when trying to think critically about art." Could you please clarify? About nostalgia, maybe so, but I'm stil on the fence as I still detect massive evolutions in current comic book art and arists techniques. The Change you suspect has I believe long been initiated, as such a site as Classiccomics shows and as big two superhero comics are not anymore the alpha and the omega of comicbook fandom, shrinkingly so. Since I entered the US comicbook world I've been exposed to the concepts of storytellong and taught to value it more than anything else, every current comics news site constantly refer to it and I find most current comics I'm reading (and I read a lot!) to be much stronger on storytelling then the average 80ies or 90ies comics. The fact that mainstream comics have writers from so many diverse horizons nowadays has helped a lot, as most eighties and 90ies mainstream comics were writen by fanboys. THis isn't the case anymore : almost no new writer entering the biz in the past ten years or so didn't have previous profesionnal creative work outisde of comics. And most new artist names appearing these days have plenty of work published outside the states prior to that, or in a different field. In terms of versatility, we should also have mentioned Kaare Andrews. But about the fact that they don't get to tackle as many genres, that doesn't indicate a lack of capacity but a lack of opportunity, one that they shouldn't be faulted for. Back in the fifties, having basic drawing skills was way more usual and crucial than nowadays in everyday life. The people who now are artists have chose it, they're not here by accident. Many of the 50ies comic book artists were there by accident, some were great, but many were also not relevant beyond their time. While Toth's art is ageless, as much as I like it, Wood's art is much more rooted in its time. I think that intemporality is a much higher standard than genre versatility, (enjoying this conversation  ) |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Feb 19, 2016 20:13:12 GMT -5
(A) Not just comics, either. I don't see any art form as a progression. It's all one generation learning new stuff but forgetting or not bothering to learn what the older generation could do. (B) And I'll give you Paul Pope. Fine artist, fine storyteller. Poor guy; he's almost completely alone in the current comics scene. (A) technology is a factor as well, and how artists embrace it. Also, the way Bachalo has assimilated the use of grey tones in a very personnal way is fairly unique, taking as much from 60ies comics as from Roy Lichtenstein! The way Brandon Peterson uses 3D modelling also is quite interesting. Then you have the bad apples such as Greg Land, but also guys like Francis Manapul or Esad Ribic who revolutionize the way color is used in monthly comic books, in a bold new way as striking as Steve Oliff in the late 80ies. If you just look at the average current Marvel comic, the production values, diversity in styles, subjective color schemes, lettering techniques, the average quality is just incredible! (Ribic on Thor, Martin on She Hulk, Alred on Silver Surfer, Bachalo on whatever he is on, Squirel Girl, Sorentino on old man Logan, Mike Del Mundo on Weirdworld, Aja on whatever he is on, cover art by graphiti artists, and so on and so on, and I really am a DC guy!) If I was in my early comic book years, I'd be in heaven right now, but i'm just too old to be that interested in corporatly owned books, unless the writer is amazing... (B) |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Feb 20, 2016 4:27:43 GMT -5
I feel like of today's crop Paolo Rivera best combines the sensibilities of the 50s and 60s, particularly the EC crowd, with modern trends and production techniques.
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I don't know, I think it's just nostalgia on your part 
: comic book artists such as Frazetta, Alex Toth or Graham Ingels are a rare thing, but so are Mark Schultz, Adam Hugues or Ashley Woods. And artists such as Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Kaluta or even Fraztta actually hit their peak in the 70ies, so it just all very subjective. There will be supremely talented comic book artists in each generations, hopefully all building on the groundbreaks of their predecessors.
)