Ivan Reis vs Jerome Opena! Who's got more POP!?

[harashkupo]

I love threads that actually highlight the good artists. I'm dissappointed with the fact that nobody brought up consistency. While Opena's work is great, Reis has been doing his thing almost non-stop since 2004! His work in Action Comics 814 - 825(looks incredible) goes straight to Rann/Thanagar War, to Green Lantern, to Blacest Night, then Brightest Day, over on to Aquaman and now JL. Plus a whole lot of other stuff in betwwen with barely any gaps.

My favorites artists who I consider to be among the top tier: Ben Oliver, Clay Mann, Clayton Crain, and Oliver Coipel. I'll follow these guys to any book(even AVX) but more often than not they put out a few comics and won't be seen till the next year. Reis does double the ammount at least every year. In my mind that makes Reis the winner.

[Movieartman]

I love threads that actually highlight the good artists. I'm dissappointed with the fact that nobody brought up consistency. While Opena's work is great, Reis has been doing his thing almost non-stop since 2004! His work in Action Comics 814 - 825(looks incredible) goes straight to Rann/Thanagar War, to Green Lantern, to Blacest Night, then Brightest Day, over on to Aquaman and now JL. Plus a whole lot of other stuff in betwwen with barely any gaps.

My favorites artists who I consider to be among the top tier: Ben Oliver, Clay Mann, Clayton Crain, and Oliver Coipel. I'll follow these guys to any book(even AVX) but more often than not they put out a few comics and won't be seen till the next year. Reis does double the ammount at least every year. In my mind that makes Reis the winner.

Exactly, oh and Damn His work in The Rann Thanagar war was fantastic

agreed on crain and coipel, but clay mann, i really have Never found any value in most of his work cools cools tho

Third panel down. WHat the hell is wrong with that guy's face?! It looks like it is being stretched out! Also, Cap's face is hilarous. It looks like his top jaw is farther out than his bottom and he doesn't look like he has eyes outside of some slits. With the coloring of his skin, I'm wondering if Brock from Pokemon is in that outfit.

they are on MARS, everything around them is Red, it would make there skin color look deeper than normal

[FIFTY-TWO (52)]

I love threads that actually highlight the good artists. I'm dissappointed with the fact that nobody brought up consistency. While Opena's work is great, Reis has been doing his thing almost non-stop since 2004! His work in Action Comics 814 - 825(looks incredible) goes straight to Rann/Thanagar War, to Green Lantern, to Blacest Night, then Brightest Day, over on to Aquaman and now JL. Plus a whole lot of other stuff in betwwen with barely any gaps.

My favorites artists who I consider to be among the top tier: Ben Oliver, Clay Mann, Clayton Crain, and Oliver Coipel. I'll follow these guys to any book(even AVX) but more often than not they put out a few comics and won't be seen till the next year. Reis does double the ammount at least every year. In my mind that makes Reis the winner.

This.
The man's work is not only beautiful but consistent and, barring any unforeseen event, he's likely to get more than 3 issues of JL (probably 7) done before he needs a break.
On top of that he does promotional work for DC and covers for Earth 2.

[Hulk_Is]

I love this conversation. It just reminds of how many good (no - great!) artists DC Comics has.

Hell, if I just based my comic book purchases off of artwork alone, then I'd be a DC comics fan for life!

[harashkupo]

Exactly, oh and Damn His work in The Rann Thanagar war was fantastic

agreed on crain and coipel, but clay mann, i really have Never found any value in most of his work cools cools tho

Boo this man, I say. Nah, not really. To be honest, his last issue of Gambit was a little weak but if you check out X-Men Legacy 245 I'm pretty sure you'll get an eye full of awesome and then beg forgiveness for not loving all that is Clay Mann. Or you know...just enjoy the comic. Either or

[harashkupo]

I love this conversation. It just reminds of how many good (no - great!) artists DC Comics has.

Hell, if I just based my comic book purchases off of artwork alone, then I'd be a DC comics fan for life!

Sadly your not far off. DC has alot of good artists for multiple titles and Valiant Comics seem to be stealing some good artists from marvel. Honestly Opena and Immonen are doing alot of heavy lifting even though they have Casselli on a small book and barely use Sara Pichelli who killed it on the Spider-Men mini. Plus Medina and Barberi on Ultimate X. That's a small list for such a big company.

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

Sadly your not far off. DC has alot of good artists for multiple titles and Valiant Comics seem to be stealing some good artists from marvel. Honestly Opena and Immonen are doing alot of heavy lifting even though they have Casselli on a small book and barely use Sara Pichelli who killed it on the Spider-Men mini. Plus Medina and Barberi on Ultimate X. That's a small list for such a big company.

I'm sure Marvel pays well, but I get an impression that Marvel doesn't care about their artists. They're all expendable to them, and Marvel doesn't wanna be "done wrong" like they did when Image was formed. That's why they rotate their artists so often - Marvel doesn't want their artists to have too much power (an editor at another publisher said as much). I think the artists can sense this and choose to go elsewhere, where they feel valued for their work. Like Valiant! (I really do like Valiant, btw).

[krisis]

I've only read a few Reis comics from New52, but those that I've seen (and in the examples above) I've strongly disliked the colors. Everything is so shiny and metallic and over-gradiented. I find it hard to focus.** I want to see him colored a little more subtly. He's the modern equivalent of Alan Davis, in my opinion. Can anyone point me to a more subtle or cool-colored issue of Reis?

I find Opena's work on Uncanny X-Force to be unassailable and perfect for the tone of the book. For Avengers... not sure yet. While I find Dean White to be a genius of color, on Avengers so far all of Opena's penciled panels have far outshone their colored compatriots from White. I think he's doing a little too much dressing up of a fine set of pencils. However, I also think Opena tends to draw people a bit square and their faces a bit haggard. Also, I feel he sometimes presents very static splashes for readers to take in a scene, rather than more kinetic action.

So, on pure figure work and action, I guess I'd give it to Reis, though I enjoy completed Opena pages much more.

I don't think you can have this conversation without acknowledging the other artists who will be joining Opena on rotation on Avengers: Adam Kubert, Dustin Weaver and Mike Deodato. I'd say Marvel is bringing about as much firepower to their flagship as DC is to theirs.

** In general, I think Marvel has stronger colors than DC, Buccellato excepted. It did not surprise me in the least to hear Marvel has specific names for some of their predominately-used palettes.

[Sterling]

I've only read a few Reis comics from New52, but those that I've seen (and in the examples above) I've strongly disliked the colors. Everything is so shiny and metallic and over-gradiented. I find it hard to focus.** I want to see him colored a little more subtly. He's the modern equivalent of Alan Davis, in my opinion. Can anyone point me to a more subtle or cool-colored issue of Reis?

Do you know the colorist whom you don't like is? Is it Rod Reis?

[El Sombrero]

** In general, I think Marvel has stronger colors than DC, Buccellato excepted. It did not surprise me in the least to hear Marvel has specific names for some of their predominately-used palettes.

I really disagree with this. I love Laura Martin at Marvel, but they also have my least favorite colorist in the biz (Frank D'Armata), and I think in general DC's colors are better. Alex Sinclair is a freaking workhorse and does most of the big DC stuff and is a huge reason why it all looks so great.

[krisis]

I really disagree with this. I love Laura Martin at Marvel, but they also have my least favorite colorist in the biz (Frank D'Armata), and I think in general DC's colors are better. Alex Sinclair is a freaking workhorse and does most of the big DC stuff and is a huge reason why it all looks so great.

Doesn't look like I collect a ton of D'Armata, but I'll go give some of that a look to see if I can spot the difference.

It could just be that I am so used to that perfect Laura Martin palette Marvel uses on so many books that DC's colors just look odd to me.

[Sterling]

I really disagree with this. I love Laura Martin at Marvel, but they also have my least favorite colorist in the biz (Frank D'Armata), and I think in general DC's colors are better. Alex Sinclair is a freaking workhorse and does most of the big DC stuff and is a huge reason why it all looks so great.

Hmm, that's interesting, could you elaborate on why he's your least favorite?

[El Sombrero]

Hmm, that's interesting, could you elaborate on why he's your least favorite?

His Marvel work always has this metallic sheen that makes it look Photoshopped, it's so dull and ugly looking. It's one of those instances where I can see that the colorist is directly having a negative impact on the art (IMO).

[Roldan]

I really disagree with this. I love Laura Martin at Marvel, but they also have my least favorite colorist in the biz (Frank D'Armata), and I think in general DC's colors are better. Alex Sinclair is a freaking workhorse and does most of the big DC stuff and is a huge reason why it all looks so great.

Well they also have Dean White, Frank Martin, Matt Hollingsworth, Marte Garcia and a couple more i can't think of right now.

[El Sombrero]

I'd rather have Alex Sinclair, Dave Stewart, Tomeu Morey, Rod Reis, HiFi, FCO Plascencia, Brian Buccellato, Blond, etc...I really like the DC team of colorists.