Comic Book Artists You Used to LIKE

[Cei-U!]

Hey, somebody had to suggest it.

So, flip side. What artist used to float your boat but doesn't hold up anymore?

With me, it's the legendary Neal Adams. His work on Deadman and Spectre and other early DC jobs was a revelation, his work on Batman and X-Men a revolution. As I got older I became disenchanted with his art. At first I thought the impact of his style had been diluted by all the clones running around the Big Two in the late '70s. Gradually I realized it was Adams' storytelling I found wanting. Adams habitually puts composition and effect ahead of clarity and narrative flow. He is the godfather of all those poster artists of today who design pages for their individual resale value instead of serving the story.

Not that I hate his art now. It's still gorgeous. But he's no longer on my personal list of giants of the field.

Cei-U!
I summon the heresy!

[Lone Ranger]

Good thread Kurt - should be interesting.

I'll likely think of a few, but the first that pops to mind is:

John Byrne

Man, did I ever used to love his artwork! I was a young kid, really digging his work on X-Men and various other Marvel books to which he'd lend his talents, like Avengers #181. His work really jumped out at me, and he is probably one of the first artists who's work I could ID.

Of course, over the years John Byrne fell in love with himself. He has opined on just about every topic under the sun and comes across like the industry's biggest asshole (not very Canadian behaviour). It has gotten to the point where my impression of the artwork has been influence by the fact that he is such a jerk

I know see see flaws where I once did not (too much posing and showmanship, unecessary splash pages) in his earlier work. His more recent stuff is flawed on in own accord.

[Mike Kuypers]

Keith Giffen. Loved his early work, esp. on the Legion's "Great Darkness Saga." But then he tried out other styles, none of which I've found appealing.

[DDM]

John Byrne

After West Coast Avengers, John Byrne's storytelling capacity & art went downhill. On the art side, he started taking too many obvious short cuts. As a writer, he would use a few formulas that he is comfortable with in his scripts. Basically, I believe John Byrne should take a couple of years off from comic books completely; the man appears to be bored with the genre. Perhaps he can come back to the comic book business rejuvinated & inspired to create really good, fun stories like he once wrote in Marvel's Fantastic Four.

[scratchie]

Ha ha ha. Another vote for John Byrne. His recent work in Action Comics had me actively disliking the title, and it was the first DC title I dropped once Infinite Crisis picked up. I then read his OMAC miniseries (90s? Late 80s?) and was pretty underwhelmed by the whole thing. Some of his early work is brilliant, but most of what I love about those old 70s Byrne issues is as much Terry Austin's work as Byrne's.

[Reptisaurus!]

So, er, guys..

What was the appeal of John Byrne's work in the first place?

I certainly don't hate his stuff, but I never saw anything in his art that elevated it beyond, say, Sal Buscema level competence.

[MWGallaher]

There was a time that I'd buy anything with Frank Miller's name on it. I haven't been able to work up any enthusiasm for him for years now, with the decline beginning with his Martha Washington minis. I enjoyed some of the Sin Cities, but not enough to keep getting them, and I never gave a second thought to skipping All-Star Batman & Robin.
Alan Moore's another I no longer feel obligated to get everything from. I usually enjoy what I do read of his, but I've been comfortable passing on more and more of his ABC issues and the stranger stuff from smaller publishers.
I don't really enjoy looking at the 70s inking of Dick Giordano any more, either. Every time I study them, they seem less and less adequate; harsh, unnatural, and flat.
I get tired looking at Tom Palmer's inks on anything now. I still think he was a really good artist, but I can't take their overpowering qualities for long reads. Essential TOD is consumed in 1-issue increments.

[scratchie]

So, er, guys..

What was the appeal of John Byrne's work in the first place?

I certainly don't hate his stuff, but I never saw anything in his art that elevated it beyond, say, Sal Buscema level competence.
You are so out of the Comic Book Club!

[Roquefort Raider]

I haven't seen enough of his current art to be sure, but Michael Golden's pages in Daredevil a little while ago no longer made me drool like practically everything else he did in the 80s used to.

They were good pages, yes, but without my drooling drool it wasn't quite the same experience.

[Roquefort Raider]

So, er, guys..

What was the appeal of John Byrne's work in the first place?

I certainly don't hate his stuff, but I never saw anything in his art that elevated it beyond, say, Sal Buscema level competence.


Well, John Byrne in his prime drew neat machines; he was a great designer of spaceships, uniforms and buildings; the characters he drew looked pretty good, whether they be a Dark Phoenix in a tight-fitting red costume or a hairy-backed Wolverine; he also had a great attention for details that made his art a joy to study. (Compare a control room drawn by Byrne to one drawn by Gene Colan, for example. You can see immediately why one was suited for a shiny and clinky book like The Avengers and the other for a moody and organic book like Tomb of Dracula).

Byrne's early art also had a kind of enthusiastic spontaneity that gave the impression that he was a fan of the books he drew. I know that he himself has said that that's bulls#it, and that many books for which he was praised for his enthusiasm he actually felt were pretty boring. Be that as it may, that's what I felt about the Byrne books prior to his departure from the FF.

[JulianPerez]

My votes are for John Byrne, Fabian Niceza, and Doug Moenich.

Fabian Niceza is another writer that, the moment he took over X-FORCE, he just decided he was going to stop being great the way he had been on NEW WARRIORS and the New Universe title PSI FORCE, arguably his greatest work.

Doug Moenich never did anything as awesome as his incredible MASTER OF KUNG FU.

Compare that to, say, Bill Mantlo, who went from success on IRON MAN to success on INCREDIBLE HULK to success on MICRONAUTS.

So, er, guys..

What was the appeal of John Byrne's work in the first place?

I certainly don't hate his stuff, but I never saw anything in his art that elevated it beyond, say, Sal Buscema level competence.

My sentiments exactly. The only art that John Byrne ever did that I ever remotely liked was AAAAAAAALLLLL the way back in IRON FIST. Johnny tends to draw his women alike, and his men as needle necked and identical, with the only distinguishing characteristic being the hair. Chris Sprouse has this exact same problem, but at least Chris Sprouse's men looked good.

And don't get me started on Byrne when he decided to start writing. They're only NOW fixing what Byrne did wrong in MAN OF STEEL.

[T GUy]

I summon a genuine comics fan! Gradually I realized it was Adams' storytelling I found wanting. Adams habitually puts composition and effect ahead of clarity and narrative flow.

I have found Adams' art a turn-off for several years now. I gradually came to realise a few years ago that I was never coming across a single story drawn by him that did not have at last one amateurish storytelling error in it of the sort that, for example, Sal Buscema or the Nicholas/Alascia team, to pick more-or-less at random two examples of artists held in far lower regard than Adams, would never make. Was Adams doing this as a bet or something? Oh, and I once saw some Adams expert fan wave a 'exceptionally good example of Adams's work' around and that had one of these errors in it!

[telerites]

Without a doubt John Byrne. I consumed his X-Men but that may have more a comment on Terry Austin's superb inks. I liked his run on Marvel Team-Up for the most part and I thought his 5 or so issues of Captain America (with Joe Rubenstein inks) were tremendous but when he started his second run on FF (#233) I lost all interest.

[DDM]

Without a doubt John Byrne. I consumed his X-Men but that may have more a comment on Terry Austin's superb inks. I liked his run on Marvel Team-Up for the most part and I thought his 5 or so issues of Captain America (with Joe Rubenstein inks) were tremendous but when he started his second run on FF (#233) I lost all interest.

John Byrne inking style is less detai oriented, but his inks did not ruin my enjoyment of his Fantastic Four stories. Jerry Ordway & Terry Austin's inks compliment Byrne's pencils very well.

I still look for 70's-80's Byrne comics. I stay away from his 90's to current stuff, although I did buy all X-Men: The Hidden Years. The man knows his comic book history.

[telerites]

John Byrne inking style is less detai oriented, but his inks did not ruin my enjoyment of his Fantastic Four stories. Jerry Ordway & Terry Austin's inks compliment Byrne's pencils very well.

I still look for 70's-80's Byrne comics. I stay away from his 90's to current stuff, although I did buy all X-Men: The Hidden Years. The man knows his comic book history.

I do agree the FF stories were very good. I do have one thing to say about Byrne - I met him at a convention some 25 years ago and he was a very likable man. I had him sign some books for me including Giant Size Dracula #5 (first published Marvel artwork).

[Reptisaurus!]

Well, John Byrne in his prime drew neat machines; he was a great designer of spaceships, uniforms and buildings; the characters he drew looked pretty good, whether they be a Dark Phoenix in a tight-fitting red costume or a hairy-backed Wolverine; he also had a great attention for details that made his art a joy to study.


Cool. Thanks for the reply.

Although it DOES occur to me that Don Heck drew really cool machines and beautiful women as well. And he's not held in nearly as high a regard.

Byrne's early art also had a kind of enthusiastic spontaneity that gave the impression that he was a fan of the books he drew. I know that he himself has said that that's bulls#it, and that many books for which he was praised for his enthusiasm he actually felt were pretty boring. Be that as it may, that's what I felt about the Byrne books prior to his departure from the FF.

Ok. I can see that.

I'm just SUCH a sucker for novelty, and there's nothing really... um... unique about Byrne's stuff, which always turned me off. Although he drew a great Super-Skrull in Marvel team-up.

I generally liked his writing, though, most especially the Fantastic Four negatie zone storyline.

(And, like Julian, EXcepting his Superman run. Yech. )Ptooey.)

[clayholio]

I'll throw in another vote for John Byrne. I loved his Fantastic Four run, and I even liked Next Men, but after that I haven't had much desire to read his stuff. I think Danger Unlimited was the straw that broke the camel's back, I found it frustrating that given the option of doing whatever the heck he wanted to do (at the time he was doing creator-owned stuff in the Legend/Dark Horse line) he did another Fantastic Four knock-off.

Two others that I've soured a bit on over the years are Mike Allred and Barry Windsor-Smith. BWS is undoubtedly a tremendous artist, but I haven't really liked anything he's done since the early 90's. With Allred, I just don't get the same sense of fun that I used out of his work. But I'm not sure if that's because it's not there any more, or if it's a matter of my tastes having changed over the years. Either way, I don't look forward to a new book by him in the way I used to.

[Simon Garth]

I'd throw in a vote for Adams as well... except that I've never liked his art, and I've never been able to see why people liked it so much.

To me, every character he draws looks slimy (not in the sense of dodgy, criminal, etc, but actually physically slippery / covered in a layer of grease), and I find it very hard to read the stories because of that.

[hondobrode]

Since we are talking artists, not writers, I won't mention Chris Claremont...

Yes, I agree, Michael Golden is not nearly as appealing as the good old days of Batman and Micronauts, though his compositions and layouts are still really good. Whatever happened to that unique kind of liquidy spotty black he used to use in the early days ?

Giffen's style has changed but I still like him, though I confess to liking his early Kirby influenced style, esp inked by Klaus Janson, the best.

Jim Lee doesn't ring my bell nearly like it used to. I don't know if it's the inkers of what. It just doesn't seem as lush.

I'm sure more will come to mind later.

[Cherokee Jack]

Paul Gulacy.

I'm a long time fan, even buying the limited edition of his hardcover book, but I can't stand his stuff lately. My dislike seemed to coincide with Jimmy Palmiotti becoming his inker, so I'm not sure if its his art, or the inks.

[Rob Imes]

Well, I'm one of those people who still loves John Byrne's art. I buy practically anything that he writes/draws. (I dropped the recent Action Comics stint because I wasn't crazy about the writing or inking, done by others.) I find it amusing that many people, even in this thread, have a particular period where they say Byrne went downhill, and yet it's always a different period. For example, in this thread, Byrne's supposed decline occured around the time he started writing FF, when he left FF, or when he did West-Coast Avengers. That span of time covers a lot of years -- in fact, it's known as the decade of the 1980s!

Neal Adams drew a few pages in the recent Young Avengers Special #1. I was pleased and surprised to see Neal Adams doing new artwork for a Marvel comic after all this time, and for a lower-profile Marvel comic at that -- although one which still allowed him to draw The Avengers in his panels. But I was not that happy with the art. It looked sketchier than I remember Adams being. Sketchier perhaps being a nicer way of saying it, rather than sloppier. It made me wish that he'd sit down and do some art for a comicbook again, to kind of reclaim his place with a new generation in the way that George Perez did when he returned to Avengers in the late 1990s.

I haven't seen much of Michael Golden's art in a long while, but I remember that what I saw of his work in the 1990s lacked that unique look he had in the 1980s. His art now looks more generic-looking. More big panels, less amazingly detailed. I think he started drawing this way after a few months on The 'Nam.

Here's a name that I don't think has been mentioned yet: Herb Trimpe. I enjoyed his Kirbyesque drawing style, especially on The Hulk in the 1970s. He was one of "THE" Hulk artists. But in the early 1990s, when everyone was trying to draw like the Image artists, Trimpe abandoned his Kirbyesque style and tried to draw like Rob Liefeld instead. Unfortunately, he did an even worse Liefeld than Liefeld himself does. He was the artist on a series called "Fantastic Four Unlimited" with Roy Thomas doing the scripts. Imagine it: Roy (Stan-wannabe) and Herb (Kirby-wannabe) on FF. Now throw all those images in your mind of a neo-Lee/Kirby FF out the window, because the result (thanks to Trimpe's Liefled imitation) looked nothing like that. It's sad, too, because I think I would have enjoyed what he would have done if he'd stuck with his previous, Kirby-influenced style.

[Paradox]

Rob Imes summons another sad story:

But in the early 1990s, when everyone was trying to draw like the Image artists, Trimpe abandoned his Kirbyesque style and tried to draw like Rob Liefeld instead. Unfortunately, he did an even worse Liefeld than Liefeld himself does.

You are aware that that wasn't his choice at all, aren't you? He was forced into that to try and keep his job, and sadly it didn't work. And then that "pink slip" arrives by Fed Ex (what? Was Marvel in the '90s taking business ethics courses from Vince McMahon??). Herb really got the short end of the stick.

[Dial Tone]

I still like Byrne. Not quite as much as I used to back in his prime, but that applies to MANY artists who I still consider great.

Ron Frenz is an artist who I used to love a lot. After he started aping Jack Kirby when he was on Thor, his stuff never fully recovered. I now consider him "decent".
Ron Lim is another who's style evolved the wrong way.

Kieron Dwyer is another.

I really liked David Ross when he first came out.

All of these guys are still decent, but not as good as they were, and where some artists like Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri evolved to another level, those guys just never did.

[Ron Zoso]

Add another vote for John Byrne. He was my favorite artist up until his run on Superman. My total lack of interest in the Superman character may have had a lot to do with this, but it was at this time I started to notice a sameness to his work. Same faces, same exspessions, etc. His work just seemed to go stale for me.
I occasionally stop by his forum to see what he and his ByrneBots are ranting about now, and to look at some of his pencil scans he'll post. Every once in awhile he does some nice stuff, he recently posted a splash to the Demon book that was just jaw dropping.

Another one was Pat Broderick. I was blown away the first time I seen his work on a Captain Marvel story, and continued loving his work up through his Micronauts run. Then he started inking himself on the Sun Runners comic from Pacific Comics... UGH! Without the help of Bruce Patterson or Danny Bulandi on inks, his work looked stiff and cluttered.

[DDM]

Add another vote for John Byrne. He was my favorite artist up until his run on Superman. My total lack of interest in the Superman character may have had a lot to do with this, but it was at this time I started to notice a sameness to his work. Same faces, same exspessions, etc. His work just seemed to go stale for me.
I occasionally stop by his forum to see what he and his ByrneBots are ranting about now, and to look at some of his pencil scans he'll post. Every once in awhile he does some nice stuff, he recently posted a splash to the Demon book that was just jaw dropping.

Another one was Pat Broderick. I was blown away the first time I seen his work on a Captain Marvel story, and continued loving his work up through his Micronauts run. Then he started inking himself on the Sun Runners comic from Pacific Comics... UGH! Without the help of Bruce Patterson or Danny Bulandi on inks, his work looked stiff and cluttered.


Byrne has a limited range in drawing faces. Read the letter from Fantastic Four #243 when a fan is distressed Frankie Raye resembles the late Jean Grey (Phoenix). The editor explains Byrne has always had this limitation. Heck, check out Uncanny X-Men #135 when the cop resembles Sebastian Shaw & Shaw is in the same panel!