Who's your favorite comic artist?

[Glass]

Figured this ought to be good for some conversation.

I like Jack Kirby's work, always have and always will; Jim Lee, although he's got a propensity for way to many ridiculous pouches at times, was a favorite growing up, along with Joe Quesada(I'm a Valiant/Image kid). Tim Sale and Mike Mignola, too(love Mignola's Hellboy artwork, and Gotham by Gaslight).

[Northcott]

Alan Davis, Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Mike Golden, and Paul Smith were probably my biggest influences when I was a kid. At any given time, I wanted to draw like one (or more) of the people on that list. They continue to be some of my biggest inspirations.

John Byrne and George Perez deserve honourable mention. In his prime, Byrne was solid. Never remarkable, mind, but a very solid storyteller with a remarkable technical proficiency. He got sloppy as he got older. Perez, on the other hand, only improved with age. His work was always distinctively his, but he tightened everything up. The level of detail he can manage continues to boggle my mind.



Kirby and Eisner are big influences in technique, and I loved Kirby's Captain America comics when I was a kid -- damn, but his panels were bursting with energy! But oddly enough, in spite of that, he wasn't one of my big influences on a personal level. Both have come to influence how I view page layouts, though. I tend to view my work through a lens of either Kirby's solid 6 page beat, or Eisner's more esoteric flow.

Alex Ross has, of course, pushed the boundaries of the artform, and that impressed the Hell out of me.

[Lisa Nadazdy]

Some of my favorites, aside from the greats like Kirby and Perez-

Tim Truman- the man is practically a rock star, IMO. I've grooved on his art since his early days, when he was selling stuff to RPG companies, and made his big breaks on stuff like Grimjack and other First Comics titles, right on to his Jonah Hex stuff later on. he can also write a good story, too, making him one of the rare individuals in comics with more than one talent.

Adam Warren- I love his riff on the Dirty Pair, and other anime-esque stuff. He's one of the few American artists that can do the anime style well. I especially liked his Gen-13 Bootleg stuff. Grunge: the Movie was amazingly funny.

Ron Lim- he's a bit of a poster-boy for what standard comic book art should look like, but I loved what he did for comics like Badger. When he's on his game, he's on his game.

[Glass]

Alan Davis, Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Mike Golden, and Paul Smith were probably my biggest influences when I was a kid. At any given time, I wanted to draw like one (or more) of the people on that list. They continue to be some of my biggest inspirations.

John Byrne and George Perez deserve honourable mention. In his prime, Byrne was solid. Never remarkable, mind, but a very solid storyteller with a remarkable technical proficiency. He got sloppy as he got older. Perez, on the other hand, only improved with age. His work was always distinctively his, but he tightened everything up. The level of detail he can manage continues to boggle my mind.



Kirby and Eisner are big influences in technique, and I loved Kirby's Captain America comics when I was a kid -- damn, but his panels were bursting with energy! But oddly enough, in spite of that, he wasn't one of my big influences on a personal level. Both have come to influence how I view page layouts, though. I tend to view my work through a lens of either Kirby's solid 6 page beat, or Eisner's more esoteric flow.

Alex Ross has, of course, pushed the boundaries of the artform, and that impressed the Hell out of me.
See, I was never huge on Ross's art. It's nice-looking, I suppose, but he makes everybody look kind of heavy and stiff. I prefer when he paints over someone else's pencils(like in Justice).

Perez, can't believe I forgot George Perez. I love his old Teen Titans work from the 80's.

[Northcott]

Re: Lim
I liked him at times, but his tendancy to fall into blatant T&A stuff never really impressed me. So many end up going for that "appeal to the lowest common denominator" mindset that it automatically turns me off of an artist's work, unless they manage to turn pin-up into art itself... Adam Hughes springs to mind for that.

Truman:
Rocks. Forgot to mention him.

Warren:
Great stuff! Can't knock the quality of his work. Some of his stuff is insanely detailed.

Ross:
Mileage varies. :) His superheroes look kind of heavy -- but that's what muscular people tend to look like compared to the average person. If I've a problem with him, it's that everybody's built the same, which is more a reflection on the lack of variety in his models.

My great respect for him comes in the way that he pushed the boundaries of the industry. Even now, the big 2 are reluctant as Hell to indulge in fully-painted comics... but they'll do it for Ross. He's opened the door to new ideas.

I love his work, but I question it's value as 'pure' comic art... much in the way I question Bryan Hitch's. They do remarkable stuff, but it's so demanding of the viewer's attention that the story begins to take second place. Really good comic art, in my opinion, is part of the story -- pushes it along, makes it flow, and carries the reader toward the conclusion. The only time a reader should be tempted to stop and freeze upon a panel, transfixed by it, is when the story demands that the reader's attention be frozen there for greater impact. If that's happening during simple conversations or during a prolonged action sequence, where smoothness of motion is ideal, then the art is failing to do its job.

[Dacke]

Rob Liefeld. Nah, just kidding.

My main issue with comic art is that it should not "get in the way." There are some artists whose work just turn me off (such as Bill Sienkewicz), but I rarely go "Wow, this is well drawn."

One artist I do remember as having a style that's both distinctive and good is Alan Davis, who drew the early Excalibur comic (the one with Captain Britain, Megan, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Phoenix v2).

[TiQuinn]

There are a lot who's work I loved: Neal Adams, Russ Heath, Bernie Wrightson, George Perez, Mike Kaluta, Jim Steranko, Luis Dominguez, Jim Aparo.

One guy's at the top of the list, however: Joe Kubert. His work is absolutely awesome. Nobody depicts the horror, the grimness, and the dirtiness of war like Kubert. Even when he crossed over in horror or the superheroes, he still carried that realism and distinctive style over with him.

[Keeper of Secrets]

Would anyone blame me if I said I loved Jim Balent?

Sure, I love Kirby and Jim Lee but Kirby can't put out anything new and Lee seems to put little out these days.

Oh, I love Joe Mad! despite his lack of work.

Same with J Scott Campbell.

[Northcott]

Wrightson and Kubert! Can't believe I forgot those two. Kubert's panel progression is amazing.

[ColonelHardisson]

I like a lot of the guys mentioned (and a Kubert mention is awesome!), so I'll mention a few that haven't been mentioned yet.

Jae Lee - I first ran across his when he was doing Namor way back when in the early 90s. I remember being blown away, with Lee's work creating an interest for me in a comic and a character I'd never given two shits about. I also recall him getting slagged in the letters pages quite a bit, which mystified me.

Simon Bisley - Reminds me of Richard Corben a bit, in the lush, sensual style he uses in rendering the human form.

Rags Morales - his run on Valiant's Turok is brilliant.

[Schizm]

I havn't seen Alex Maleev mentioned yet.

I love his work.

[King Vyper]

Jack Kirby, George Perez, Scottie Young, Tony Moore, Tony Harris are couple off the top of my head.

Do any of you folks listen to Comic Podcasts?

[Northcott]

Rags Morales - his run on Valiant's Turok is brilliant.

You have got to check out his run on Hawkman. Seriously. Morales provides some of the tightest pencils of his career on the relaunch of that title (up until issue 20-something), and the stories are based around classic "Golden Age" stuff -- which is to say, a lot of pulp fiction ideas. They play around with the reincarnated pharoh shtick, delve into his past lives (including a western illustrated by Tim Truman), deal with lost civilizations, etc. It was fucking gorgeous for people who love two-fisted pulp action with a dash of super-heroic stuff.

The creative team after that fumbled the ball horribly. But for those initial issues it was an awesome project.

[Enk]

I've been going through my Savage Sword of Conan collection again, and it reminded me how much I like the combo of Val Semeiks and Ernie Chan. And Joe Jusko when dealing with paint.

[Keeper of Secrets]

I like a lot of the guys mentioned (and a Kubert mention is awesome!), so I'll mention a few that haven't been mentioned yet.

Jae Lee - I first ran across his when he was doing Namor way back when in the early 90s. I remember being blown away, with Lee's work creating an interest for me in a comic and a character I'd never given two shits about. I also recall him getting slagged in the letters pages quite a bit, which mystified me.

Simon Bisley - Reminds me of Richard Corben a bit, in the lush, sensual style he uses in rendering the human form.

Rags Morales - his run on Valiant's Turok is brilliant.

I met Rags at a comic convention in Pittsburgh this past April and he was one of the most genuine, nice guys I have met in the industry.

[shabois]

Jim Lee will always be my fave. I think I like Ross as a controversial figure more than his art but I agree he is ground breaking.

Old school I liked Kirby and Adams especially since I collect vintage X-Men comics.

I enjoy Cassidy and J Scott Campbell but Campbell does not care to work much!