CBR's Top 50 Cartoonists - Discussion Thread

[Ryan K]

Voting has Ended!

The list will be unveiled on this thread:

CBR Top 50 Cartoonists - The List

But please discuss everything on this thread. Thanks to everybody who voted. I hope the list sparks some good discussion.

__________________________________________________ ___________________________________

The Original Post:

It’s been about a year since the CBR Top 50 Writer and Artist projects orchestrated by Brian Cronin. Seeing as I enjoyed those projects and I enjoy the general comic discussion that gets rolling on the Community forum, I thought it might be fun to do a very similar project (OK, I’m ripping off Cronin – but with his permission) only this time limit the voting to comic cartoonists (writer/artists), including comic strip creators, mangaka, editorial cartoonists, and of course comic book creators who have served as writer AND artist on at least some of their work.

I'm especially hoping that by limiting the voting to cartoonists, we can get some discussion on the classic and modern comic strip creators and more discussion on the classic and modern independent creators. I think it will be interesting to see how the list turns out by including comic strip creators and effectively eliminating a fairly large portion of the mainstream superhero creators. Hopefully that won't dissuade very many posters from voting. My ultimate goal is for everyone (myself included) to perhaps learn of and about a couple creators and comics they may not be familiar with and to discuss those they are.

Absolutely ANYONE can vote. 10,000 posts, 1 post, 0 posts. In a perfect world this will even get some of you lurkers to crawl out from the shadows. Please don't feel that you have to have an in depth understanding of the art of cartooning or that you have to have read many examples of the "greats". Vote for your preferences. Vote for what you know.

Who’s Eligible for the List

For the sake of this project we’re going to generically define cartoonist as a creator who writes AND illustrates their work in comics.

First, note the word comics. So disregard animators (unless of course said animator works as a cartoonist in comics as well and you’re voting for them based on that comic work; i.e. Osamu Tezuka, Cathy Malkasian, etc.).

Again, note the word comics. Comics being comic books, newspaper comic strips, manga, graphic novels, webcomics, etc. And despite Scott McCloud’s theory I’m gonna go ahead and include single panel comics such as Family Circus, The Far Side, etc (I’m using “etc.” a lot).

Obviously there are tons of creators over the years who have worked as either a writer or artist on some projects while doing both on other projects; Jack Kirby, R. Crumb, Frank Miller, etc. In these instances I ask only that you vote for said creators based only on your opinions of their work where they served as both. For example, don’t vote for Frank Cho based on his work on New Avengers or Mighty Avengers, but it is OK to vote for him based on his work on Liberty Meadows. Obviously I can’t really enforce that but try and work out why you’re voting for someone, we’re on the honor system here.

I’m sure I’ll get some people who will vote for people that as far as I know do not have any experience writing and illustrating their work. I’ll do a quick bit of research into those names I’m unfamiliar with, but if I can’t find anything expect an email if you vote for someone like Stan Lee or Alan Moore (they’ve never illustrated any of their work, right?). In fact it would be appreciated if you vote for someone you think is really obscure, just add a quick note, an example of their cartooning or something.

EDIT: Just a quick couple notes about questions I've gotten:

1. The cartoonists on your list do not necessarily have to have a "cartoony" style.
2. The cartoonists do not have to be American born or have been published in America. Everybody's welcome.
3. You don't have to vote for all newspaper strip cartoonists. I can't stress that enough. Vote for as many of as few newspaper strip cartoonists as you wish. Vote for as many comic book cartoonists as you wish. Same goes for mangaka, web comic cartoonists, and editorial cartoonists. Create your list however you see fit. The possibilities are infinite.

How to Vote and How it Works

The voting and tallying of votes will work exactly the same as Brian Cronin's CBR Top 50 Writer and Artist voting. List you Top 10 cartoonists, number them 1-10, and email your list to me at ryankirk80@hotmail.com .

Make sure to number your selections 1 through 10 (1 obviously being your top choice) as this will determine the points each creator on your list gets. Your #1 selection receives 10 points, your #2 selection receives 9 points, and so on. Get it? If you don't number your selections I'll have to email you back, if you don’t respond I’m just gonna give each creator on your unnumbered list 1 point.

And so we’re all on the same page; vote for who your favorite cartoonists are. Your own personal preferences. Don’t feel obliged to create an objective criteria based greatest or most influential list, though that very well might be your personal preferences (in which case great) and its certainly a great topic of discussion for here.

After voting has ended (in two weeks on September 2, 2007) I'll tally the points and then (as Cronin did) reveal the selections counting down from 50 (with similar work related biographies and images). As Cronin asked during the CBR Top 50 Writer and Artists thread, I would ask that you not outright reveal the lists you send to me on here. But please, let’s talk about cartoonists. Are you leaning towards older writer/artists, indie creators, newspaper strip cartooninsts? How are you deciding who make your list? Are you giving more weight to art, writing, a mixture of the two, do you separate art and writing at all in your thinking? Who do you think/hope will make the list, top the list, be omitted from the list? Why? Any particular favorites, anybody you’ve never particularly liked, anybody whose work you’ve just never gotten around to reading or appreciating? Anybody wanna share their personal gigantic lists?

Personally I always need a reminder of who’s out there when creating a list like this, so to get the ball rolling and give people a chance to remember some creators here are a couple (completely incomplete) lists of cartoonists:

List of Cartoonists
List of webcomics
List of mangaka
List of editorial cartoonists

And here are all of the vote getters from the CBR Top 50 Writer and Artists threads:

CBR All Time Writers 1-100
CBR All Time Writers 105-201
CBR All Time Artists 1-100
CBR All Time Artists 105-325

Remember, not everyone on those lists would qualify, do some research if you have to. Or ask on this thread. I’m sure someone will answer or do a little checking.

If anybody else has any links or just wants to list some cartoonists, feel free. It’d be a shame if someone were left off the list because he/she just slipped all of our minds.

Also, if I'm unclear here on anything or you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to say something. I only have a slight idea of what I'm doing.

[gary bolt]

Awesome! The CBR Top Writer/Top Artist dialogue was excellent and I learned tons of things about comics and the creative process. I'm sure it will be the same this time. Thanks for organizing and starting this for us Ryan. I scanned the links you placed in your post and now realize just how much I don't know about webcomics, mangaka and editorial cartoons.

Let the learning begin.

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

Originally Posted by Ryan K

I’m sure I’ll get some people who will vote for people that as far as I know do not have any experience writing and illustrating their work. I’ll do a quick bit of research into those names I’m unfamiliar with, but if I can’t find anything expect an email if you vote for someone like Stan Lee or Alan Moore (they’ve never illustrated any of their work, right?).

Actually, Moore used to:

http://www.4colorheroes.com/images/hhpannelcombo.jpg

...But a lot of that was too early on his career for a lot of folks to remember.

[thehod]

Originally Posted by Ryan K

And despite Scott McCloud’s theory I’m gonna go ahead and include single panel comics such as Family Circus, The Far Side, etc (I’m using “etc.” a lot).

So political cartoonists are acceptable, such as my favourite Philip Zec, who's most famous cartoon appeared in the Daily Mirror on On V.E. Day.

The piece is called "Here you are! Don't lose it again."

[Ryan K]

Originally Posted by The Beast Of Yucca Flats

Actually, Moore used to:

http://www.4colorheroes.com/images/hhpannelcombo.jpg

...But a lot of that was too early on his career for a lot of folks to remember.

Interesting. You learn something new everyday. Thanks.

Originally Posted by thehod

So political cartoonists are acceptable, such as my favourite Philip Zec, who's most famous cartoon appeared in the Daily Mirror on On V.E. Day.

Perfectly acceptable.

[Joe Rice]

Sent in my votes!

[Chris Nowlin]

Cool, Ryan.

I started posting on forums when I noticed Brian's 100 greatest almost a year ago. Then never left. To the chagrin of many.

I have 10 in mind but I'm afraid I'm forgetting somebody obvious so will vote later

[Ray R.]

I just passed along mine. A combination of comic book, newspaper comic, editorial, and historical significance.

[Chris Nowlin]

Technical question. I notice Ditko on the wiki list of cartoonists.

Does his work plotting/drawing Spider-Man/Dr. Strange qualify him? Or does Lee actually being the writer knock those works out consideration?

[Jack Zodiac]

Sent! And man, it took a while. I wound up having to bump off four people I really wanted to nominate just because I kept thinking of people I enjoyed even more. Good luck, Ryan! Gonna' be lookin' forward to this.

[Slam_Bradley]

My top five are set.

I'm still plugging away that the second five.

But I'm very excited about this.

[JeffreyWKramer]

This was a tough one for me - my initial list numbered 27! and I'm sure I'll probably end up thinking of better entries after the fact. It's also complicated by the fact that a lot of the better work of folk like Kirby and Ditko wasn't completely solo stuff, so one has to consider their writer + artist work apart from their body of work as a whole.

[Ryan K]

Originally Posted by coke & comics

Technical question. I notice Ditko on the wiki list of cartoonists.

Does his work plotting/drawing Spider-Man/Dr. Strange qualify him? Or does Lee actually being the writer knock those works out consideration?

That is an excellent question. One I pondered myself when I thought people might vote for Kirby on the basis of Fantastic Four (course Kirby's gonna get plenty of vote for Kamandi, New Gods, etc.).

My first instinct is to say that Ditko's Spider-Man work shouldn't count and shouldn't factor into a vote for him, but I don't want to rush to judgment.

Does anbody have any opinions on this? Should work in which the artist was credited with story or co-plotting count towards the cartoonist work which we are evaluating them on (for the sake of this thread)?

Out of curiosity was Ditko officially credited with story in the books or later on? I don't have my copy of Essential Spider-Man on hand.

[Ray R.]

Originally Posted by Ryan K

That is an excellent question. One I pondered myself when I thought people might vote for Kirby on the basis of Fantastic Four (course Kirby's gonna get plenty of vote for Kamandi, New Gods, etc.).

My first instinct is to say that Ditko's Spider-Man work shouldn't count and shouldn't factor into a vote for him, but I don't want to rush to judgment.

Does anbody have any opinions on this? Should work in which the artist was credited with story or co-plotting count towards the cartoonist work which we are evaluating them on (for the sake of this thread)?

Out of curiosity was Ditko officially credited with story in the books or later on? I don't have my copy of Essential Spider-Man on hand.

Personally, I think Ditko's limited to Mr. A, Liberty Belle, and any other stuff he had complete control over. Whether he co-wrote or completely plotted Spiderman and had Stan Lee do dialogue still knocks him out for that. Kirby gets bumped because I don't find his solo writing that good, but that's just me.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I'm interested in seeing how this one comes out. Even more than in the comics one, a lot of excellent folk arent' going to make the cut. Hell, I had to leave a pile of my favorite folk off my list by limiting it to 10.