Truman was on Starslayer from # 14 to # 25

I love the hell out of Jim Woodring. He does that amazing balancing act of presenting something where you can't necessarily make sense out of it... but you know that it makes sense if you just knew how to unlock it.

#9: Scott McCloud

HUGE, HUGE fan of "Zot" and one of the very first b&w "indie" books I supported every month from the comic shop.



just the exuberance and joy that Zot! exuded on every page. . won me over immediately.


but let's be honest. .he made my list for his series of Understanding Comics.

he defined (actually, re-defined) how I, and many others, looked at Comic Book storytelling.

a few Day 4 comments:

P. Craig Russell:
too bad he couldn't sustain the detail and general high quality of this preview in his full-length Ring adaptation, which on the whole was a disappointment to me. One of my very favourite artists when he's on his game, as he most certainly is in the Siegfried illustration posted by shaxper above.

Darwyn Cooke:
this may be shallow of me but I just don't find his artwork attractive. His characters look squat and pudgy and I can't drum up any interest in what they're doing.

J. Scott Campbell:
as with Cooke's, I find this art so unattractive I lose all interest in the the characters and their story. This looks to me just like Jim Lee and a zillion other current comics artists I couldn't name but avoid on sight.

Gilbert Hernandez:
one of my own picks, I'd just like to say here that I wish he'd bring back Petra (pictured above) and some of his other characters, e.g. Maria, instead of concentrating on Fritz all the time as he has been doing lately.

Art Spiegelman:
Haven't read anything. The highly-acclaimed Maus has never attracted me. I'm probably being totally unfair, but from the excerpts I've read, I don't see what it would add to our understanding of the Holocaust. The whole exercise feels dubious to me. The evil of the Nazis and the horror of the concentration camps seems so apparent that I think this theme has to be treated with great skill and subtlety to make the basis of a full-length work. WG Sebald's The Emigrants, is the best example I can think of from recent decades. Maybe I'll try something else of Speigelman's first and see if that can convince me to give Maus a try.

Joe Sacco:
I probably haven't given him enough of a try. Like I said in a npther thread about Lynn Johnston, I kind of admire him on principle but the work itself leaves me a bit cold. His art feels solid and workmanlike but a little dull to me.

Keith Knight:
first I've heard of him and I like the look of the samples here. I like cartoonists who can create an effective drawing out of a few deft strokes as Knight does in some of the panels above.

Hal Foster:
I'd say he was one of the very best artists ever to work in comics. His style may seem a little static to modern readers (including myself) brought up on the more dynamic action of superhero comics, but a little time effort should enable anyone to appreciate Foster's work, which hearkens back to the detailed illustrations of 19th-century cartoonists trained in fine arts rather than in the more insular world of comics. I haven't read enough Prince Valiant to comment on his wrting.

Alex Raymond:
was going to be on my list until I learned here that he didn't write Flash Gordon. Seminal comics artist, and a great influence on one of my later favourites, Al Williamson (who didn't write anything that I know of so was not eligible this year).

Jim Woodring:
Someone I've never gotten round to trying. I'll have to remedy that one of these days.

Scott McLoud:
His stuff doesn't appeal to me - even Understanding Comics I still haven't read, partly because the narrator looks to me like the kind of stereotypical self-effacing nerd I'm a little fed up with in general in pop culture.

I think it's true that if you are looking for a classic sense of beauty in your comic artwork Kirby is the wrong place to look. Kirby's art has always had leanings toward the grotesque and even the ugly. It has little sense of relaxation, being all muscular and ready to explode. I like your caveman allusion. There is an undeniable primal quality to Kirby's work, and yet it's energy is scarcely restrained. I don't know of any other comic artist with a greater sense of the potential, no less that the actual, in the pictures he draws. No way this much turmoil can be put down in any sort of pretty fashion.

I happen to love Cooke's art as well. It has fluidity and grace. Cooke is a master cartoonist. And I think he actually has a lot more in common with Kirby than might first be supposed. There is so much punch in Cooke's work. It's hyper expressive and has a true elan to it. I really love almost everything Darwyn puts out.

The thing is Cooke is also a huge Kirby fan. He just might be his favourite artist. I've had a few discussions with him about Kirby over the years (he lives in my town and sometimes i have found myself at the same events/places when comics are concerned), and the man cannot say enough great things about Kirby's super dynamic artwork.

They are both winners in my book.

The way I see it is when you look at Jacks output in his busy years, say Marvel in the 60s, he had an amazing ability to compose a page filled with energy and real people, with only a few lines. He may not have been as minimalist as Cooke, and for sure a lot of his books are detailed, but he could and often did, show it all with very little.