Comic Book Art Review
Nico Minoru is the mystic leader of the Runaways occasionally known as Sister Grimm. When she bleeds, her "Staff of One" appears and she is able to cast virtually any spell (although she can apparently only use a spell once). I'm constantly surprised that I catch everyone with Runaways morts, since it is one of the best series on the shelf today. Unfortunately, since Joss Whedon has taken over (whom I love), the series has become at best a quarterly title. I have the entirety of the series if you want to read it. By the time you finish it, the next issue may be out.
Greg Land- Probably best known for his ability to draw really beautiful women, he has that sort of detailed artwork that makes every picture pop off the page. Find his work in the current Ultimate Power series.
Least Favorites:
Howard Chaykin- I don't know if it is because everything I've read by him is tinged with his liberal political leanings, but I just can't get myself to enjoy anything with his name attached to it. His work also seems blocky, and every character he draws appears to be bloated.
Skottie Young- It has something to do with body proportion and detail, or the lack thereof.
Others:I'm not sure I could put either of these as favorites, but when I'm in the right mood I really enjoy these two.
Mike Allred- His Solo book was one of the best I've ever read. His work is distinctive and very visually appealing.
Keith Giffen- Again, it is very stylized, but not really in a negative way. What he does with perspective makes for a different reading experience.
So, who are your favorite artists and why?
posted by Phylemon at 4:02 PM
7 Comments:
For me, Alex Ross is number one. The first time I saw his work was Kingdom Come #1. Totally blew me away. He has a way of making the characters seem realistic and larger than life at the same time. I was bummed there was non an Alex Ross calendar put out for 2007 and I had to go back to Chickfila Cows. (which is good, don't get me wrong) See Kingdom Come and Justice.
My next favorite is probably Ed McGuinness. Not so much with the realism here, but there is a real sense of larger than life with the characters. And his art is feature on the DC Heroclix Hypertime boxes and the DC Heroclix website. See Superman/Batman's first story arc.
To go totally old school, how about Curt Swan? Granted everything was much simpler back then, but tell me that isn't quality stuff. It was clear what was happening, it was very consistent.
Least favorite
Tom Nguyen. This guys perfectly illustrates your label of "Distractingly bad." If the story is good, you can live with him as in JLA's Martian Burning story arc. But when the story is weak, it is nearly impossible to keep yourself from vommiting all over the book while you're reading it. See JLA 91-93 (where they combined forces of good take on a magic space monkey!). Actually don't see those issues, whatever you do. And he gave Wonder Woman man hands.
I also agree that Lenil Yu is bad bad bad. That's why the New Avengers are hiding all the time, they are really embarrased by how they look. It takes 3 readings to figure out what is going on. No character bears any resemblance to previous artists portrayals. I'm pretty sure this guy is a Skrull.
7:50 AM
By the way, great topic idea. Keep it up.
7:51 AM
Hey Illuminati 5 comes out today. I'm totally pumped about that.
7:13 AM
Faves... some I don't know the name of, but I agree with Paul about George Perez. He is one of the few comics artists I have seen that have the ability to draw multiple people in backgrounds and STILL the reader can distinguish who's who (get it?) because of his commitment to detail and unique qualities of characters.
But this is my time to rant about Michael Turner. As an artist, I find his range to be limited. All his women look exactly like the chick from Fathom, regardless of who they actually are. His drawings of men are a little more differentiated but not much. I really despise how much cover work is his. It makes me not want to read the comic before I open it up - even knowing that the story artist is NOT Michael Turner.
Yeah, I picked on the guy who survived cancer. He's a big boy and probably will never read it anyway. But I'm sure he's a great person....
4:17 PM
As promised I have looked through my comic books and chosen some favorites. I really like realistic, but I also like the more exaggerated cartoon-ish style.... Here's a few that I've noticed recently -- sorry just last names.
Let's start with the one I can't stand -- Yu -- He's doing the New Avengers. It's mostly something about the eyes. He rims them with red, so they all look strung out on drugs. Also the lines aren't clean; that stikes me as lazy. Things get confusing, people look like things they aren't supposed to look like. Can't stand his work.
On to those I really like. Young has been doing New Xmen, and while I know it's a style Paul doesn't enjoy, I really like it. Yes, he exagerates body types and such, but it's done so well. :-) His cover a while back that was a play on a Rockwell was one of my all time favorite covers.
Silvestri showed up in the first Messiah Complex book -- he's more realistic. Something about his style really fits with the story line. Young's style wouldn't work here. Silvestri seems more serious.
Ramos and Choi have been the most recent artists for adjectiveless X-Men. Ramos was again a more cartoonish artist, exagerated body types and all... not realistic (although, can you really be super realistic drawing a character like Cannonball??). I loved him, but I was pleasantly surprised by Choi. Very realistic, so much so that when we first saw Emma Frost in the last issue, it took my breath away (can I say that without sounding like a lesbian???) -- it was just pretty. Here's my redeeming comment on the last part: his rendering of Gambit made me vividly recall why if I could date a comic book character, it would be Gambit... so pretty and soooo bad. ;-)
So there Paul, happy? :-)
8:30 PM
HA! Just read the last of what Keeper said about Yu. Genius.
8:31 PM
Yay, Joanna contributed. I'm not a fan of Ramos, but he is better than Young. I'm glad that this topic worked out.
10:14 AM
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