"Image" Artist Era

[The Cheat]

I'm going to go back and get the entire collection in trade.

I just wish there were hardcovers/omnibuses available, I've been wanting to get into Savage Dragon for a while.

[dupont2005]

Over the years I've come to really respect and admire Erik Larsen.

Same here. His comics aren't my cup of tea, but he's been going at Savage Dragon for a long time. Not many creators write and illustrate that many issues of their own creation.

[Venomous Mask]

Todd McFarlane is one of the the best comic book artist of monsters that I ever seen. I would have been a massive Spawn fan if not for the fact that heaven/hell storylines usually bore me.

[Jolly Mon]

Some general thoughts:

I get a palpable sense of "I'm having fun with this" from Leifeld's stuff, which makes it more attractive to me than something perfectly rendered and sterile. Based purely on their figure drawing, I'd rather look at Leifeld's stuff than George Perez's, ferinstance.

I disagree with pretty much all of this segment. It's well and good if the artist is having fun with it, but I'm only really interested in if I'm having fun with it. I won't fall into the "bad" or "good" trap, but let's just say I consider Leifeld's figures to be a grotesque parody of anything human. And that pulls me completely out of the comic, where all I can concentrate on is how much I dislike the artwork.

Also, though a figure doesn't have to "perfectly rendered", I do prefer it to be in the general ballpark, which by no means makes it "sterile". Preferring to look at Leifeld's figure drawings over Perez's is incomprehensible to me, but is obviously up to you.

[berk]

I was trying to think why Marvel's characters became so jacked up in late 80s early 90s - all i can think of though is massive popularity of WWF, rise of swarzenegger and stallone et al, and the common use of steroids. Often those guys would be bigger than actual super heroes when the hero was supposed to be the uber-man and so you drift into a cycle of making everything bigger and bigger.

I think that's close, but I'd trace it back to the rising acceptance of body-building around that time, to which the body-image of pro-wrestling is obviously related. I seriously think the trend has done a lot of damage to the superhero aesthetic: the accepted image of physical strength and power is now and has been for some time based on the body-builder physique, which of course comics takes and exaggerates. There are several problems with this:

for one thing, that physique is itself already and by definition a deliberate exaggeration of the visual markers of physical strength, so in comics we often get an exaggeration so extreme it passes into the realm of caricature or parody.

For another, body-building as an activity is all about static posing, which obviously does not work well in an action-based genre like superhero comics.

And for yet another, though related to the last, there's something inherently superficial about the body-building physique that makes it visually unconvincing in the end. Imagine any athletic activity: do you feel, even at an irrational, imaginative level, that it would be better performed by a champion body-builder than by a champion of the actual activity? No, of course not.

So I'd like to see superhero artists go back to basing their characters on atheletes. Exaggeration and emphasis would still be available as techniques to enhance the visual impact of their images, but they'd be emphasizing and exaggerating different things than they do now. And I'd like to see them trying harder to capture a sense of motion and dynamism than most of them do now. They have a huge advantage in resources over the artists who worked before the internet came along; they should be studying videos and stills of Olympic gymnasts, divers, beach volleyball (seriously - all they do is dive through the air to save a point), pro boxers and MMA fighters, etc, etc.

I disagree with pretty much all of this segment. It's well and good if the artist is having fun with it, but I'm only really interested in if I'm having fun with it. I won't fall into the "bad" or "good" trap, but let's just say I consider Leifeld's figures to be a grotesque parody of anything human. And that pulls me completely out of the comic, where all I can concentrate on is how much I dislike the artwork.

Also, though a figure doesn't have to "perfectly rendered", I do prefer it to be in the general ballpark, which by no means makes it "sterile". Preferring to look at Leifeld's figure drawings over Perez's is incomprehensible to me, but is obviously up to you.

Yeah, have to agree with this. Besides, Perez seems to me to have a lot of fun himself, as reflected in the exuberance of detail he likes to add to his panels.

[Reptisaurus!]

Todd McFarlane is one of the the best comic book artist of monsters that I ever seen. I would have been a massive Spawn fan if not for the fact that heaven/hell storylines usually bore me.

I really liked his Spider-Man stuff... I think he was the first artist to really bring back the Ditko creepiness that was left over from the monster years. Everyone from Romita Sr. through McFarlane downplayed the horror elements of the title.

And I think I'm with you on the heaven/hell thing, as well. I've read about 1,386 more Dante's Inferno retreads in my life than I really need to.

[LEADER DESSLOK]

Man, they sure make giants a lot shorter than they used to ...

Oh? And I suppose AVX represents the artistic genius of our age...gimma a break. I can read THE MAXX for the upteenth time and still find wonderful things I missed in previous readings. I take it you've never read it? Hence, I reiterate my opposition to blanket statements...

[Slam_Bradley]

Oh? And I suppose AVX represents the artistic genius of our age...gimma a break. I can read THE MAXX for the upteenth time and still find wonderful things I missed in previous readings. I take it you've never read it? Hence, I reiterate my opposition to blanket statements...

Your first sentence cannot be extrapolated from anything that Dan has ever said. Ever.

[dupont2005]

Oh? And I suppose AVX represents the artistic genius of our age...gimma a break. I can read THE MAXX for the upteenth time and still find wonderful things I missed in previous readings. I take it you've never read it? Hence, I reiterate my opposition to blanket statements...

J Scott Campbell didn't write The Maxx

[LEADER DESSLOK]

I think its harsh to lay all of the ills of the past 20 years at the feet of Lee, Liefeld and MacFarlane. Isnt your great American dream to be able to make it big on your own, to use your god given talents to better your own life?

I also seem to recall these forums decrying Marvel and DC for the shoddy way they have treated the likes of Jack Kirby, Joe Simon and Jerry Schuster, or Bob Kane etc not to mention the hundreds who have ridden their coattails(cloaktails) over the decades. Yet a group of creators assert their right to create what they want, people throw money at them for it, and we crucify them for it... How fucked up is that? (excuse my language).

Im not here to defend some below par work from certain creators, art is purely subjective to my mind, but to point out that they all put crap into the market. Look at "The Crossing" storyline in the Avengers titles, the early Mike Deodato art being the HIGHLIGHT believe it or not.
For me, I like MacFarlanes style, as aped for so long by Capullo(better than his own original style), his Spawn work being vastly superior to his wooden work on Infinity Inc, and so it should, you cant compare a his starting work with his more established pro work.
I never liked Lee on X-Men or the Image stuff, but find his work for DC over the past 10 years or so vastly more appealing.
Larsen hasnt changed much, and neither has my opinion, no longer hate his art, just dont like it either. Has always looked rushed to me.
Liefeld...not for me...even the new is as bad as the old...BUT...some do like him, so to each their own.
Never a fan of Keith.
Liked Keown, never read Pitt, but thought he always drew the Hulks head too small.
Used to like Portacio, absolutely ambivalent now.

Hasnt Todd pointed out (fairly recently too) that he felt unfairly criticised for his writing on Spider-Man and early Spawn. He had got to the stage after 5 or so years of being a decent artist, but everyone expected him to be a world class writer with his first book. Yet we all STILL sit here and dog on them about what they did 20 years ago. I think good on them for taking the bull by the horns and riding that fucker for all hes worth. God Dan, doesnt that appeal to your punk sensibilities...you know...screw the system...

Todd especially proved his point when he wrote under an alias. Also, here in the States I've noticed how everyone wants to see great changes and progress then when somebody actually tries to get something going, there are always those who either "Hide their heads in the sand" or offer nothing but criticism and outcries of "He or she is ruining 'The System'"; it's the same in politics, film or sadly--comics. I'll take a Steve Jobs or a Todd McFarlane over a hundred "stick-in-the-muds" ANY DAY!

[LEADER DESSLOK]

J Scott Campbell didn't write The Maxx

Huh? I never said he did. I listed him among great storytellers. I thought we were all agreed as to the nature or definition of storytelling--meaning being able to "tell" a story visually without the actual dialogue. In GEN13 he demonstrated great comedic "timing" and decent body language even with a style that appeared to be influenced by Jim Lee who I feel is a little weak in that area.

Your first sentence cannot be extrapolated from anything that Dan has ever said. Ever.

I was commenting on the statement in question. As if the giants of the comic industry are all in the past and that Image never produced any, a notion I reject!

[dan bailey]

My own obviously very idiosyncratic definition of "giants" is that it's a label that can be earned only over time, & lots of time at that. Literally dozens of artists working today are among my all-time favorites; none of them is among the names you listed, but in this instance that doesn't matter, in that I don't consider any of them "giants."

In my personal lexicon, nobody gets to be a giant after a decade or even two; I wouldn't have called John Severin or Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko a giant circa 1960, for instance.

As for AVX, happily I'm completely unacquainted with those comics except for having a very facile knowledge of the intrinsic stupidity of the concept. I had to think for a couple of minutes (admittedly, I only just got out of bed) before figuring out what the initials stood for.

As for The Maxx, I've got a couple of early issues but never read 'em. Maybe they're brilliant, but the covers, pages etc. just seem too ... cluttered, maybe .. for my taste.

[Bad Wolf]

Sam Kieth draws the cutest women.

[LEADER DESSLOK]

My own obviously very idiosyncratic definition of "giants" is that it's a label that can be earned only over time, & lots of time at that. Literally dozens of artists working today are among my all-time favorites; none of them is among the names you listed, but in this instance that doesn't matter, in that I don't consider any of them "giants."

In my personal lexicon, nobody gets to be a giant after a decade or even two; I wouldn't have called John Severin or Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko a giant circa 1960, for instance.

As for AVX, happily I'm completely unacquainted with those comics except for having a very facile knowledge of the intrinsic stupidity of the concept. I had to think for a couple of minutes (admittedly, I only just got out of bed) before figuring out what the initials stood for.

As for The Maxx, I've got a couple of early issues but never read 'em. Maybe they're brilliant, but the covers, pages etc. just seem too ... cluttered, maybe .. for my taste.

Agreed, with an asterisk. By 1960 (if I had been around back then) I certainly would have classified Kirby as a storytelling "giant" based not only on the tremendous success of CAPTAIN AMERICA, THE FIRST ISSUE OF CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES, BOY COMMANDOS and YOUNG ROMANCE, which sold tons of comics but Kirby (and Simon) also introduced a style or approach that other comic book creators not only marveled at but were influenced by, if not through visual mimicry then certainly in how to layout and design a page; whereas before, many of them were content to imitate the "look" of Caniff and Raymond's work, even though neither of their panel-to-panel breakdowns offered assistance in using a page to convey a cinematic passage of time. Eisner did but I'd wager more comic book cartoonists were looking at the Simon and Kirby techniques.

To me, nowadays, too many artists are more interested in "showboating" and trying to dazzle the reader's eyes with acrobatic layouts--the downside of Neal Adams' influence, IMO-- but very few are engaged in the nuts and bolts of actual storytelling, where you can have a general sense of what's going on before reading a word. I won't go further because no less than Jim Shooter has commented on this on the blog he had and of course, it's in Eisner's book on "Sequential Art".

The people I mentioned seem to be more or less solid when it comes to storytelling skills and if you notice, Liefeld was not mentioned in that particular company. Not a bash, just a statement from someone who likes his work but who acknowledges his weaknesses. Even so, he personally may not have created anything noteworthy but his studio has--Alan Moore's SUPREME was a very entertaining tenure and it was just as successful an approach to "Superman" as Morrison's later (and similar) ALL-STAR SUPERMAN.

SIDE NOTE: I don't know about anybody else but I've always thought that Sam Kieth's work owed more to Charles Schultz, Will Eisner and Dr. Seuss (?!) than Jack Kirby! I believe Kieth himself acknowledged a debt to FRANK FRAZETTA and I can certainly see that in how he drew those "cute" and sultry, big hipped Maxx-women!

[dan bailey]

Yeah, I really wavered on Kirby. I was trying to put myself in the mindset of a comics aficionado from 1960, though, & in that context I'm not sure how striking an impression the work that you justifiably cite would've made on me. I'd probably have leaned more toward the Lou Fines & Mac Raboys & I suppose Matt Bakers at that juncture, not to mention various EC stalwarts, whereas by the time the Marvel Age was going full-steam, Kirby's long-running mastery of the form was undeniable.