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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 12, 2014 16:32:53 GMT -5
Because we need a thread for me to complain about artists. These are not artists who I hate or who's stuff just bugs me for some reason. This is me accentuating the negative regarding artists I kind of like.
And because I didn't want to derail Scott Harris' Wonder Woman thread, let's start with George Perez: Sfumato was, like, the 16th century, right? Like the thing where painters discovered how to blur up the edges to more accurately capture the way the eye perceive the world - Drawing stuff how we see them not the way it is.
So I'm kind of turned off by the whole "give the backgrounds (and everything!) the exact same line-weight as the foregrounds" thing. Even Shakespeare would be all "Thou art on some old school shit, dogg. Thou needs to enter the Mannerist Period and leavest the past behind."
More importantly, from a 21st century standpoint, his style basically means that he can't use most of the filmic vocabulary of comics - So much of that stuff is based on changing contrast between background and foreground and when there's NO contrast between background and foreground you've lost about 80% of your tools for creating mood, and you can't do any of that cool Gene Colan movement stuff, and you cant' do any of that cool Gene Colan shadow stuff. And this might just be me, but all his human figures look weirdly plasticine. I'm not even saying he's a bad cartoonist - He's good at facial expressions and body language, but there's an eerie frozen-in-amber quality to his human figures that's really off-putting.
The guy obviously works his ass off on every page, and has an insanely great holistic page design sense - his pages aren't just a random assortment of panels, they work as a cohesive whole. And it's hard to figure out how to put 3,564 characters on one page and make them look cool! I can totally see why comic fans who are really into the minutea of fictional universes consider Perez their favorite artist, because he puts so much STUFF into his drawing. But his style is just so limited by it's 14th century-ness.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 17:46:02 GMT -5
Just last night I read a topic on here in the Comics Cube section about 80's stars and their current projects and I saw that Perez piece and cringed. I've never been a fan of the huge crowded splash page, pinup, or cover featuring every fictional character known to man.
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 12, 2014 18:05:40 GMT -5
Perez isn't one of my favorites, but I do admire his work. One of points of contention I'd make with Repti is that while he doesn't do the cool "filmic" effects within his panels, I do find that he uses his panel placement and size in an effective manner to convey a sense of motion in his better work. (Or at least he used to-- I haven't followed much of his work since his Avengers run with Busiek.) When he's at his best, he uses his page design to convey a kinetic feeling, but I think he has developed a tendency to draw those huge, detailed-packed splash pages and double-page spreads because he knows that's what fandom wants from him. Unfortunately, those pages give an impression that makes his work seems static.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 18:16:59 GMT -5
Because we need a thread for me to complain about artists. These are not artists who I hate or who's stuff just bugs me for some reason. This is me accentuating the negative regarding artists I kind of like. Under this category I'd place Humberto Ramos. He's not one of my better Spidey artists and yet sometimes his art is still kinda pleasant to watch. Well...enough for me to keep getting the book. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 18:33:25 GMT -5
Perez isn't one of my favorites, but I do admire his work. One of points of contention I'd make with Repti is that while he doesn't do the cool "filmic" effects within his panels, I do find that he uses his panel placement and size in an effective manner to convey a sense of motion in his better work. (Or at least he used to-- I haven't followed much of his work since his Avengers run with Busiek.) When he's at his best, he uses his page design to convey a kinetic feeling, but I think he has developed a tendency to draw those huge, detailed-packed splash pages and double-page spreads because he knows that's what fandom wants from him. Unfortunately, those pages give an impression that makes his work seems static. I'm not familiar with his sequential work, but I do like that he doesn't leave blank space. A pet peeve of mine in many comics is that a lot of panels is just a figure posing, two figures fighting. Floating in space, no background, no context. |
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Post by Action Ace on Aug 12, 2014 19:06:10 GMT -5
On the other hand, I think George Perez is the best interior artist in the history of comics.
My lukewarm pick is Jack Kirby, almost certainly because I got into comics in the mid 1970s and got a very bad first impression from his Captain America run. It wasn't until I saw his Fantastic Four work that I got what all the fuss was about. However, that Fantastic Four run is pretty much it for extended works by Jack Kirby that I love. On a list of 100 best comic book artists I know enough not to leave him off, but he wouldn't make my list for 100 favorite artists.
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Post by Pharozonk on Aug 12, 2014 19:27:44 GMT -5
Oh man, George Perez is one of my favorite artists.  |
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 12, 2014 19:44:02 GMT -5
Because we need a thread for me to complain about artists. These are not artists who I hate or who's stuff just bugs me for some reason. This is me accentuating the negative regarding artists I kind of like. Under this category I'd place Humberto Ramos. He's not one of my better Spidey artists and yet sometimes his art is still kinda pleasant to watch. Well...enough for me to keep getting the book.Ramos is an interesting case in that I find his work wildly inconsistent. Once you get past his stylistic choices, he can be a solid storyteller, but sometimes those stylistic choices just overwhelm the page, especially in his figure work. When he reins himself in a bit, I actually appreciate what he does, even if it's in a style that I don't normally enjoy. When he cuts loose with those wild figures and overly busy panels, look out-- it's like all those complaints about second generation manga-style art in one place. I'd recommend a book he did with Paul Jenkins called Revelations. On the surface, it would seem that his style wouldn't be appropriate for a detective story that centers on faith, but it realy worked wonderfully.
The best Spidey artist of the past 20 years, in my opinion, was Mark Buckingham. Apologies to JRJr and Marcos Martin.
(Also, before anyone goes nuts, I'd easily take George Perez art over Humberto Ramos art any day of the week. I was criticizing George's work against his popularity. I absolutely consider him a master, but his work doesn't always speak to me. Ramos is not a master.)
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Aug 12, 2014 19:55:45 GMT -5
Hmmmmm
McFarlane I would say I am lukewarm on. I enjoyed his art he did on Batman, his SPidey stuff is okay, his Spawn stuff I love but his Hulk just never appealed to me (mind you, Hulk in general has never really appealed to me but...I digress)
Carmine Infantino is another artist who will always be considered a great but I have never warmed up to him. I can appreciate some of his work but there is a lot that just does not do it for me on Batman.
Frank Miller is a final artist who, again, always gets a lot of praise but I feel his artwork dropped like a rock. His writing has always been fairly strong. I loved his first work on PPTSS and then when he worked on DD, I think that was his prime. The Dark Knight was very good but also the beginning of his artist decline (or at least, from my personal opinion and enjoyment of the artwork). It was just getting real sloppy. Elektra's mini series continued to really bother me...some pages were strong in this series while others, the art made me cringe. Beyond that, I have not read much of his work but having looked at some of his art, I am not sure I want to.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 12, 2014 20:58:17 GMT -5
Oh man, Goerge Perez is one of my favorite artists. Maybe I should have been nicer. There really aren't many guys who are better in terms of pure design skills - That's a really damned impressive drawing and he's even better when he has panels to play with. I'm not talking about BAD artists here - It'll mostly be Perez type guys who are really good in some areas and really limited in others. Try to imagine him drawing noir, and how terrible that would be. |
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Post by hondobrode on Aug 12, 2014 21:08:57 GMT -5
Easily for me the first that comes to mind is John Byrne. The company man Byrne who delivered X-Men, Marvel Team-Up, Fantastic Four and Avengers  is not the same person currently putting out work for IDW   |
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Post by Randle-El on Aug 12, 2014 21:24:46 GMT -5
My vote would be for John Romita Jr. He has a very distinctive style, and a lot of people seem to like him, but I just can't get into his art. Something about the way he draws faces makes them look really odd to me, among other quirks.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 21:43:38 GMT -5
My vote would be for John Romita Jr. He has a very distinctive style, and a lot of people seem to like him, but I just can't get into his art. Something about the way he draws faces makes them look really odd to me, among other quirks. I feel the same way about Kirby...he does some impressive layouts, especially with machinery...but his female artwork is....ummm.... |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 22:50:04 GMT -5
Kirby isn't an artist that I'm a fan of.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2014 23:11:10 GMT -5
Kirby isn't an artist that I'm a fan of. How should I put it? I like his work in a 60s and 70s sort of way...esp Fantastic Four 48-50 but I'd be hard pressed to like current comics drawn in a similar way. Although, if there was a modern day variant cover credited to Kirby in the same way one of the Spidey 700 covers was credited to Ditko, I'd nab it. |
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