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Post by Nowhere Man on Aug 13, 2014 4:08:58 GMT -5
I find that as I get older, I've started appreciating a myriad of styles and talents. When I got into comics in the mid-80's, if it wasn't in the style of John Byrne or George Perez, I usually hated it. I didn't like Kirby when I first saw his work, but he's now easily one of my favorite artists. That said, I've also found that I don't like certain artists as much as I did in my younger days, or at the very least, can now clearly see their flaws.
I'm no longer fooled by the flash and superficiality that you see in most art nowadays; now I pay more attention to storytelling, originality and technique.
One classic artist that I'm lukewarm to is Marshall Rogers. His Batman work could be brilliant, but his anatomy in certain panels puzzled me with how bad it looked. There seemed to be an odd inconsistency to his artwork, often form panel to panel.
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Post by The Captain on Aug 13, 2014 6:02:42 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 second this. I liked his early work at Marvel on Iron Man and Amazing Spider-Man, but the stuff he's put out in the past decade definitely is not my cup of tea. My first thought when I saw this topic was Chris Bachalo. There are a lot of people who love him, but from the first moment I saw his work on Generation X, I could not get into it. It works with certain characters or types of books (I think he would do a great Dr. Strange book, and his style would work on a book like Fables), but to put him on more mainstream properties like Uncanny X-Men just makes me scratch my head. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 13, 2014 8:11:39 GMT -5
Kirby isn't an artist that I'm a fan of. I think I feel the same way about Kirby as Reptilasaurus thinks of Perez... I appreciate his craftsmanship and story telling, but it's not really my cup of tea. It looks blocky and dated to me in a way other older stuff does not. Perez, incidently, is one of my favorites, but I LOVE those big crazy group shots. Byrne I don't really like or dislike, I do find him pretty inconsistent, though. Ramos I agree with the other comments... when he gets too carried away with his 'style' it gets bad, but he can be good at times... I liked Crimson (though perhaps I'd like it less now.. it was pretty 90s, if I recall. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 13, 2014 9:20:43 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.... Is the polar opposite of saaaay Bud Root? |
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 13, 2014 9:51:20 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. My first thought when I saw this topic was Chris Bachalo. There are a lot of people who love him, but from the first moment I saw his work on Generation X, I could not get into it. It works with certain characters or types of books (I think he would do a great Dr. Strange book, and his style would work on a book like Fables), but to put him on more mainstream properties like Uncanny X-Men just makes me scratch my head. At a certain point, I think Bachalo stopped thinking at all about the flow of his storytelling and decided he was going to focus on innovative page design instead. (If I had to pinpoint when this change occured, I'd say it was between the AoA: Generation Next mini and the restart of Generation X in its wake.) Previous to that, he had done some incredible work on Shade, the Changing Man and the two Death minis, but I think he became convinced of his own genius and began to intentionally looking at each page as an individual piece of art rather than part of a larger narrative. It lead to some very interesting individual pages, but very disjointed and often hard to follow stories. I never had trouble with his figure work, which isn't really to my taste, but does have a certain charm.
He is an exceptional (and very underrated) cover artist, though. Some of his covers for Hunter: The Age of Magic are among my favorite covers, generally blending multi-media methods and different stylistic techniques.
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Post by Randle-El on Aug 13, 2014 11:02:18 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 second this. I liked his early work at Marvel on Iron Man and Amazing Spider-Man, but the stuff he's put out in the past decade definitely is not my cup of tea. My first thought when I saw this topic was Chris Bachalo. There are a lot of people who love him, but from the first moment I saw his work on Generation X, I could not get into it. It works with certain characters or types of books (I think he would do a great Dr. Strange book, and his style would work on a book like Fables), but to put him on more mainstream properties like Uncanny X-Men just makes me scratch my head. Bachalo's work in Generation X actually went through a lot of changes, from what I can remember, and none of it looked like the stuff he does nowadays. I think in Gen. X he was just starting to transition into more of a manga/anime look, which he doesn't even employ anymore. I enjoyed Generation X, but there were some things about the art work and page design that wasn't my cup of tea -- like all the computer-generated X symbols that they would use to fill in all the white space between panels. Funny thing about Bachalo, I initially didn't like his current style when I came across it in Wolverine and the X-Men. But after a while, I got used to it and started to appreciate it. Sure, it's quirky, but it was a good fit for the tone of that book. I think that's they key thing for me -- I'm willing to give most artists a chance if they can do work on a book that fits their quirks. Right now, Javier Pulido's work on She-Hulk seems to be pretty polarizing, but I think it fits the book perfectly. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2014 18:54:04 GMT -5
Is the polar opposite of saaaay Bud Root? Budd Root femme...  Jack Kirby femme.    |
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Post by dupersuper on Aug 13, 2014 22:03:49 GMT -5
Oh man, George Perez is one of my favorite artists.  Mine to. |
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Post by dupersuper on Aug 13, 2014 22:07:36 GMT -5
Try to imagine him drawing noir, and how terrible that would be. I don't know...  |
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Post by Pharozonk on Aug 13, 2014 22:14:36 GMT -5
Yikes! OMAC is terrifying!
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 13, 2014 23:21:42 GMT -5
Yikes! OMAC is terrifying! Kirby's OMAC is one of those things you really need to read at least once in your lifetime. It is whacked out stuff. I kinda wish DC would release a Kirby OMAC "Mad Libs" style book where you could make your own dialogue because the words don't really do the pictures justice. The visuals are that crazy in places. |
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Post by comicscube on Aug 14, 2014 3:35:17 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. After seeing the first few pages of Sachs and Violens and the first few pages of Who Is Donna Troy, I'd love to see Perez try his hand on actual noir. Looking at his Crossgen Chronicles stuff, more straight-up fantasy stuff too. But I think Perez the artist isn't the same as Perez the brand. Perez the brand gets hired to draw big giant group shots, and he draws them better than everyone else in the history of humanity. That old adage Garcia-Lopez said about how everyone in a group shot should be in the middle of doing something, Perez is the one who adheres to it the most. But that's his brand -- it became the thing he was known for and it perpetuated. He can do a bunch of other stuff when he's motivated (he's on the record as his work being really really unsatisfactory and slow when he's not), but that's not why people buy his work, and ultimately, not what people write for him. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Aug 14, 2014 7:37:06 GMT -5
The thing about John Byrne is that his current commissions, at least the ones that have tons of detail, are as good or better than anything he's ever done. I've said it before, but I think certain older creators work as if they're living in a bygone era. It wouldn't surprise me if Byrne works the same schedule with something like Trio as he did when he was penciling and inking Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight at the same time. I haven't seen the level of detail in something like the following in a Byrne interior since the late 80's or early 90's:  |
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Post by hondobrode on Aug 14, 2014 9:42:06 GMT -5
Yes, you're exactly right. It's the level of detail we no longer see. I'm perfectly assured he is capable, but that's what's kind of sad, is that we don't see it anymore. His current stuff just feels like he's phoning it in.
To be fair, a lot of Byrne's appeal is lining him up with the right inker. Of course, the best was his partner on X-Men, Terry Austin. Not sure I've ever seen Scott Williams' inks over Byrne's pencils, but I think that would be a hot ticket.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Aug 14, 2014 11:20:10 GMT -5
As much as I love the Byrne/Austin era on X-Men, I think I like his pencils with Karl Kesel's inks even more.
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