The Top 100 Artists Of American Comic Books

[The Spirit]

The Top 100 (http://www.acomics.com/best.htm)I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with 1-3 some of the others I dunno.

[Ed Cunard]

That's a fairly good list for a "mainstream comics" cross-section--they even have Barks represented, and the E.C. Comics guys. However, the focus on hero and horror material leaves a lot of amazing talent from the 1900s to, say, the 1980s (as the site says, longevity is one criterion by which they are grading). I mean, no Los Bros. Hernandez?

I might put Eisner above Kirby, though.

[Ed Cunard]

Also, I like that they used black-and-white art, so you can really concentrate on the pencils and inks separate from color and such.

[The Spirit]

I might put Eisner above Kirby, though.
Ooooooohhh. That's a difficult one for me as well. Obviously.

I love Kirby and Eisner both so much.

[Ryan Day]

Seems a pretty reasonable list, even if it is a bit safe and traditional. (Is there anyone on the list whose career began after 1987?) I'm not sure why it's necessary to make it just about American creators, but whatever; once you've limited it to Americans, though, it seems particularly odd to exclude "underground" artists.

[Reptisaurus!]

That's a fairly good list for a "mainstream comics" cross-section--they even have Barks represented, and the E.C. Comics guys. However, the focus on hero and horror material leaves a lot of amazing talent from the 1900s to, say, the 1980s (as the site says, longevity is one criterion by which they are grading). I mean, no Los Bros. Hernandez?


Ditto.

It works as a list. Which means once you figure out the obvious and pre-existing biases of the list writers and figure out what the list actually is. (Top 100 Corporate comic artists, with a bias towards older artists) it's fairly informative.

Except Neal Adams is WAY the hell too high. (Above Kurtzman? Bwahahahahaha!) but other than that pretty good.


I might put Eisner above Kirby, though.

I might someday. Not while superheroes are still all the rage, though. While Eisner's certainly the "better" artist, Kirby's definitely the more important of the two.... for the moment, at least. (And has a much larger body of work.)

[mgs]

I really enjoy a lot of those artists, but the requirements and regulations about which artists were included and which were not, was pretty confusing and arbitrary.

[zeroEDGE]

Ahh I've seen this before, it's a really great ranking.

[Gingold]

Not a terrible list- the lack of indie and underground creators hurts the list a bit, as does the inclusion of Jim Lee and Alex Ross. It's cool to see Reed Crandall and Lou Fine ranked so high. I guess there was a no-vagina rule that disqualified Ramona Fradon.

[Reptisaurus!]

Not a terrible list- the lack of indie and underground creators hurts the list a bit, as does the inclusion of Jim Lee and Alex Ross. It's cool to see Reed Crandall and Lou Fine ranked so high. I guess there was a no-vagina rule that disqualified Ramona Fradon.

*Snicker* Ramona absolutely shoulda made it. Marie Severin, too.

I think Alex Ross is ranked about right. He's probably the most stylistically important superhero artist of the last ... however long.

Good thing about the list: If you ditch Adams for Crumb, the top fivee are just about right, in terms of influence.

[The Spirit]

Marie Severin, too.



I agree on Marie Severin. She's one of the greats.

[Gingold]

Oh, yeah. Marie Severin should've made the list too.

[shyguy]

I'd actually have ranked Jim Lee higher than he was. He's a huge part of why comics today look the way they do. I guess, though, that it'll take a couple more decades before we see what his impact really was.

I find Alex Ross' inclusion highly questionable, and think that putting him that high up on the list is outrageous. I'd maybe put him at #100 (and would definitely rank him below some artists who didn't wind up on the list, like Ramona Fandon, whose work on Metamorpho alone should have landed her on the list).

Arthur Adams was pretty high up (above Steve Rude? Really?) and Neal Adams seemed way too high up there. On the other hand, I think Frank Miller deserves to be a lot higher than he is.

I also think the exclusion of underground artists is just bizarre. How can you even discuss American comics without talking about R. Crumb? I'd also probably stick Chris Ware very, very low on the list just based on the strength of what he's done so far.

Interesting springboard for discussion, though.

[ubergeekette]

Also, I like that they used black-and-white art, so you can really concentrate on the pencils and inks separate from color and such.
To tell you the truth, I think comics are better in black and white. Before the late nineties, I can't count how many panels get runied by an colorist just putting a bloch of one color!!! I distinctly remember an 80s George Perez panel which I seen in B&W first and saying "WOW!", then I saw it in color and I sighed!!!!

I also think the exclusion of underground artists is just bizarre. How can you even discuss American comics without talking about R. Crumb? I'd also probably stick Chris Ware very, very low on the list just based on the strength of what he's done so far.

Its a travesty that Robert Crumb isn't even on the list!!! Every panel he draws has personality. I don't care what criteria there is (if there was one), you have to always give Crumb the exception!!! Hell I bet his sketchbook alone would make the top three!

I'm glad Kurtzman and Ditko made the top ten, and an artist I enjoyed was Michael Golden I was suprised he made the top 100. They did a great critique on John Byrne which I agree 100% wholeheartily. One artist that I think would make a top 100 list if he remains consistant is Darwyn Cooke, and JR jr will probably climb higher in the up coming years. Another artist I'm surpised didn't make it was Dave Gibbons. Neal Adams is insanely high!

[shyguy]

Another artist I'm surpised didn't make it was Dave Gibbons.

Gibbons was on the list, somewhere in the middle. I'd probably have ranked him higher, even if Watchmen was the only thing he'd ever done.

[Trey]

Not to take anything away from the other artists, but when a list has Jrjr and Jim Lee only at 52 and 51 its really ludicrous. And yes I'm strictly a superhero reader. Thats like leaving off Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson off the top 50 list of greatest basketball players.



Also, i'm pretty sure this list was compiled years ago, maybe early 2000's.

[Aaron Kashtan]

Not to take anything away from the other artists, but when a list has Jrjr and Jim Lee only at 52 and 51 its really ludicrous. And yes I'm strictly a superhero reader. Thats like leaving off Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson off the top 50 list of greatest basketball players.

Not at all. It's more like leaving LeBron James and Steve Nash off the list of the top 50 basketball players. There have been at least 50 basketball players who were better than LeBron James and Steve Nash, but people who only started watching basketball recently will have skewed perceptions, and will mistakenly believe that James and Nash were among the top 50 of all time. It's the same way with comics -- there are at least 50 cartoonists who are better than Jim Lee, but some of those 50 cartoonists will not be familiar to fans with limited historical knowledge.

[Johnny Triangles]

Okay, one can arguably call Jack Kirby the king of superhero comics (I'm not even so sure of that) but I really don't think he can top Eisner, sorry. Eisner could do it all, in pencil and ink, and could do all types of genres. Jack was great but basically did just action-adventure and the same hyper-exaggerated action poses over and over again. Very limited range of facial expressions and emotion. Eisner did such crazy things with page layouts, manipulating the borders of panels, shading, facial expressions...a real genius.

[Ryan Day]

I'm not a big Jim Lee fan any more, but I wonder: Has there been a more influential and successful artist over the past 20 years?

[dancj]

Jack was great but basically did just action-adventure and the same hyper-exaggerated action poses over and over again.
Maybe if you look at his later work. If you look at his whole career there's barely a genre he didn't do

[Agent Helix]

Honestly, when you get to deciding between Eisner and Kirby, it's like being asked which of your children is your favorite. Either way you choose, it's gonna hurt.

[Johnny Triangles]

Maybe if you look at his later work. If you look at his whole career there's barely a genre he didn't do


I know he did some romance, but overall I recall him doing action-adventure: Westerns, sci-fi, superheroes, gods, monsters...it was all basically action-adventure with a lot of the same bug-eyed faces and shock and awe poses with the outstretched palms.

Eisner could take something as mundane as kids on a stoop and make an riveting, innovative and gorgeous comic around it.

[Slam_Bradley]

I know he did some romance, but overall I recall him doing action-adventure: Westerns, sci-fi, superheroes, gods, monsters...it was all basically action-adventure with a lot of the same bug-eyed faces and shock and awe poses with the outstretched palms.

Eisner could take something as mundane as kids on a stoop and make an riveting, innovative and gorgeous comic around it.


Some romance? Simon & Kirby created the romance comic genre. They did it first and they did it best.

If you take what you've got lumped together are "action-adventure" it really doesn't leave a lot other than romance, horror, funny animals and slice-of-life. All of which Kirby did and did well.

I'm fine with you preferring Eisner to Kirby. But I think you're really minimizing Kirby's talent and influence.

[shyguy]

Eisner could take something as mundane as kids on a stoop and make an riveting, innovative and gorgeous comic around it.

Well, so could Kirby. It's not like his designs for the Newsboy Legion are the same as what he did for the New Gods.

Once you get down to Eisner and Kirby, you're really comparing Apples and Oranges. They're both so good at what they did in such different ways that they really defy comparison.

I'd probably go with Kirby as #1 as well, just due to the fact that his work has had more influence in a medium so dominated by the genre in which he was most influential.