It's been a while since we've had a good comic book thread.

Who are your favorite comic book artists of all time? What did/do you love about them? Let's discuss and debate who's good and who's not.

I'm starting with a baker's dozen of my all-time favorites, whose work makes me love comics.

These are alphabetical, yo.

Art Adams

His work, to me anyway, represented a sea change in comics, when comics were moving toward the Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld style of drawing. I hated their work but loved Adams'.

Neal Adams

He pretty much got to define the standards for the biggest characters in comics, but even if he just did the Green Lantern/Green Arrow books of the '70s, that would be more than enough.

Norm Breyfogle

Loved his Batman work. Too bad DC has blacklisted him.

John Byrne

I wasn't sure if I should include him. I pretty much detest everything he's drawn since 1988, but his work before that (when he has the right inker, like Terry Austin) is amazing, so here he is.

Dave Cockrum

Loved his quirky work. He was so incredibly good on both The Legion and The X-Men.

Dave Gibbons

Watchmen. Genius.

Mike Grell

Maybe my favorite Legion artist ever.

George Perez

Might be the hardest working guy in comics. He puts so much detail into every panel.

Marshall Rogers

The definitive Batman.

Bill Sienkiewicz

His New Mutants work was so good and inventive it was ridiculous. The Demon Bear was awesome.

Walt Simonson

So much better than Frank Miller could ever hope to be. Also, he made Thor readable.

Paul Smith

An X-Men favorite. He finished off the Brood saga and drew a great Kitty Pryde.

Barry Windsor-Smith

Would be on my list for Lifedeath alone.

[Edited 3/5/13 13:57pm]

Good question. Growing up reading comics, I honestly never paid much attention to who the artists were. I just liked what I liked. I'm probably unknowingly familiar with all of the ones you listed above. But I had to google Neal Adams, whose name I've seen a lot. His stuff is amazing!

Anyway, as I got older, Jim Lee was probably the first artist that I recognized and sought more from. I also love Wally Wood, who I discovered in a bunch of the sci-fi comics my brother gave me when I was a kid.

Gosh, those New Mutant covers and Lifedeath art bring back memories. Some day I'll make time for comics again.

My older brother collected comic books, and as an art lover, I always gravitated to the art and artists but never read them. I don't know any of the current artists, but here are my faves from my brother's collection.

Jack Kirby for that weird cosmic charm. Not the greatest true life artist, but his drawings have an intangible charm I find incredibly cool. His designs were really way ahead of his time.

John Buscema. The man could not just draw, his images flowed! His drawings moved! The man added weight and GRAVITY to his drawings. How badass is that? His Conan! The way he drew women!

Bill Sienkiewicz, In my opinion this man introduced fine art into comic books. Sophistication like that had not been seen before him. He constantly broke conventions of what comic books should look like.

John Byrne and George Perez, are great artists of course, and are fan favorites, i like them, but I never felt anything too deeply for them. To me they never added anything new to the art of comics. John Byrne has his own distinct look for people, but I never found it interesting myself.

[Edited 3/5/13 20:45pm]

For me, Frazetta's comicbook work (like "Untamed Love") will always be number 1.

Jack Kirby is King, of course, tho I look towards John Buscema as the definitive Marvel artist.

As a kid, I was addicted To George Perez's Avengers & John Byrne's X-Men.

I think Kerry Gammill's Power-Man & Iron Fist from back in the day is severely underrated.

Berni Wrightson (particularly the stuff in "A Look Back") & Michael Golden (particularly Dr. Strange) are two massive influences on how I like to draw.

Neal Adams 60's/early 70's Batman work is my fave when it comes to the Dark Knight Detective, with Marshall Rogers coming in at a close second.
Trevor Von Eden had a couple of Batman books that he did that were pretty innovative for it's time.
Oh, & Neal's Superman/Ali treasury-sized edition was also a stand-out.

Bill Seinkiewicz's Electra changed the way I look at comic art.

I don't buy much original artwork, tho of the few pieces I do have, Arthur Adams' name is the one that takes up the majority of my humble collection.

I love Carlos Pacheco's 90's/ early 00's stuff.

Joe Madureira & Greg Capullo still kick ass.

Of the newer guys, I really like Stuart Immonen.

And finally, for me, Adam Hughes, despite the little amount of published work he puts out (he makes a shitload more money on private commissions) is the most talented artist drawing today.

Honorable mentions : Travis Charest, Barry Windsor Smith, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Howard Chaykin (American Flagg), J. Scott Campbell (tho his cartoony style gets a little tiresome sometimes), Alan Davis (Excalibur), Brian Bolland (The Killing Joke), Jason Pearson & some Marc Silvestri.

Damn, this thread got me goin....

I just remembered Steve Rude. These days, there are a buncha artists, including Rude, whose best work seem to come out more on private & con commissions than in the published work they do. I've seen a buncha Steve's con stuff, & it looks awesome. Particularly when he does his mock Kirby style (I like it better than Bruce Timm's).

Rude also reminded me of Alex Toth. I like Toth's classic published work, but I've seen stand alone pieces that really blew me away.

Brian Stelfreeze is another example. Of the little published work he's done, IMO, none of it looks as great as the stuff at conventions (BTW, I'm assuming that you guys already know that alot of this con art can be seen on the internet via FB, Da or just by googling the artist's name).

Back on to more published guys,
I forgot to mention three faves, one "older" the other two a little more current.
First, Wally Wood.
His black & white artwork is my favorite. Stuff like Cannon, that adult-oriented material & especially, an issue in Mad Magazine, where he drew a story of popular news-strip characters like Little Orphan Annie, Blondie, etc, but in a more realistic stye, was pretty incredible.

Second, Alberto Varanda.
I've been following his work on FB lately, & the stuff he's been putting on there is pretty awesome too. In particular, his Elixir sketches &, of course, the popular Little Heroes World.

And third, Mike Mignola. Watching his simple blocky shadow artwork go from the Phantom Stranger to Cosmic Odyssey to early Hellboy was a cool experience in watching an artist's stye evolve.
Though, the current weird anatomy kick he's into isn't reall my cup of tea.

Neal Adams of course. His version of Batman is the one I grew up with.

John Byrne.

And of course artists such as Joe Jusko, John Buscema , Frank Frazetta, with Frazetta being my favorite one even though he is not really a comic artist, is he?

John Buscema

[img:$uid]http://www.deviantart.com/download/183305918/john_buscema_conan_pinup_color_by_bek76-d314vr2.jpg[/img:$uid]

His Belit version is one of my all time favorite female comic book characters ( but I also still have a crush on Talia Al Ghul ).

[img:$uid]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxcn98mE3U1qzafsno1_500.jpg[/img:$uid]

I also like old school artists like Carmine Infantino but I must admit that the mid to late 60s cartoonish Batman is not really my favorite version...I prefer Batman to be a bit darker and more mysterious, and Neal Adams´ version is by far my favorite because there was a balance between dark , mysterious and serious and the playboy lifestyle of Bruce Wayne, and I just loved the new setting back then (with the Batcave being in the new Wayne Enterprise building in the city, the Ferrari looking Batmobile, the "Lazarus Pit " story, Ras Al Ghul and especially Adams´ version of Talia Al Ghul...very sexy).His art was always movielike, dramatic, realistic.

I bought his "Batman:Odyssey" series a few years ago and was utterly disappointed, it was like a "1999 album compared to MPLSound" moment for me but his 1970s legacy still remains strong and unparalleled.

Marshall Rogers comes close to Neal Adams, and I even prefer some of his work over Adams but he didn´t draw many Batman stories so I can´t really say who´s my favorite. I´m just more familiar with Neal Adams´ material and his iconic interpretation of Batman.

[img:$uid]http://www.grouchoreviews.com/content/interviews/70/4.jpg[/img:$uid]

Of the newer ones I like Jim Lee and Tony Daniel´s art but I´ve lost track and can´t really get back into reading graphic novels these days unless I have a bit too much time on my hands, maybe in the summertime at the lake...but those two are two new artists that I like, even though the stories are not really my cup of tea.

Why did Norm Breyfoogle get blacklisted? I´ve read this in interviews but I´ve never read an interview where he goes into any details on WHY he´s blacklisted.

[Edited 3/6/13 4:29am]

KoolEaze said:

Why did Norm Breyfoogle get blacklisted? I´ve read this in interviews but I´ve never read an interview where he goes into any details on WHY he´s blacklisted.

He said this in an interview:

Tell me about the character of Anarky.
Anarky was just another character in one of Alan’s scripts, and neither of us really knew how important he’d become—although Alan must have had more of an inkling of that than I did. But Anarky’s philosophy was the catalyst for a long, faxed discussion between Alan and I wherein we debated philosophy, politics, religion, science, and just about everything else. We came to agree to disagree about some things, but we both eventually realized that our apparent differences were mostly semantic in nature.

Anarky embodies very subversive undercurrents. Did the two of you meet with any censorship at the editorial level, or were you essentially allowed to do as you liked, in terms of the character’s motivations, politics, and actions?
That’s an interesting question, and I can’t answer it definitively. My nagging feeling is that Anarky was eventually canceled and Alan and I were more or less blacklisted at DC Comics because of the revolutionary, anti-elite philosophy Anarky spouted. But like I say, that’s just a nagging feeling with very little backing it up as incontrovertibly factual or perfectly convincing evidence.

Still, it does nag. Alan could undoubtedly provide a much more in-depth answer to this question than I can, if he wanted to do so.

Even Norm admits that his reasoning here is debatable. I guess I've always taken his word for it that he's blacklisted, but it very well could be just his imagination. Still, the internal politics of comics companies has always seemed weird to me, so I guess it's possible.

Visionnaire said:

Damn, this thread got me goin....

I just remembered Steve Rude. These days, there are a buncha artists, including Rude, whose best work seem to come out more on private & con commissions than in the published work they do. I've seen a buncha Steve's con stuff, & it looks awesome. Particularly when he does his mock Kirby style (I like it better than Bruce Timm's).

Rude also reminded me of Alex Toth. I like Toth's classic published work, but I've seen stand alone pieces that really blew me away.

Brian Stelfreeze is another example. Of the little published work he's done, IMO, none of it looks as great as the stuff at conventions (BTW, I'm assuming that you guys already know that alot of this con art can be seen on the internet via FB, Da or just by googling the artist's name).

Back on to more published guys,
I forgot to mention three faves, one "older" the other two a little more current.
First, Wally Wood.
His black & white artwork is my favorite. Stuff like Cannon, that adult-oriented material & especially, an issue in Mad Magazine, where he drew a story of popular news-strip characters like Little Orphan Annie, Blondie, etc, but in a more realistic stye, was pretty incredible.

Second, Alberto Varanda.
I've been following his work on FB lately, & the stuff he's been putting on there is pretty awesome too. In particular, his Elixir sketches &, of course, the popular Little Heroes World.

And third, Mike Mignola. Watching his simple blocky shadow artwork go from the Phantom Stranger to Cosmic Odyssey to early Hellboy was a cool experience in watching an artist's stye evolve.
Though, the current weird anatomy kick he's into isn't reall my cup of tea.

Love your analyses on this, Visionnaire, and I'm glad you brought up Mignola and Rude.

I don't follow comics or graphic novels at all, but I do know that I love Dave McKean.

Love love love his stuff.

Alex Ross

The late, Michael Turner

J. Scott Campbell

Bruce Timm

And of course, myself: Leroy Pugh

CarrieMpls said:

I don't follow comics or graphic novels at all, but I do know that I love Dave McKean.

Love love love his stuff.

I loved all of Dave McKean's Sandman covers. They were wonderful. He's a nice guy, too.

michael golden, art adams, norm breyfogle, george perez, carlos pacheco, jerry ordway, howard porter, todd mcfarlane for superheroes.

al williamson, don rosa, stan sakai, jaime hernandez, michael deforge, charles forsman, michel fiffe, dave sim, carl barks, francois schuiten, jeff smith for just about everything else.

Efan pretty much stole my thunder with his list. I would add;

Jim Starlin (his work on Captain Marvel is legendary. He also did Iron Man #55 which I still have. It's Thanos' first appearance.)

Dale Keown (his version of the Hulk is my favorite. He and Peter David had an incredible run with ol' Greenskin.)

Todd McFarlane

Paul Gulacy (loved his work on Master of Kung Fu)

Billy Graham (Hero for Hire, Black Panther)

[Edited 3/7/13 3:05am]

Donald Duck, Goofy, Scoobydoo.

I don't have any fave female characters, most often the female characters are merely male fantasies, not apealling for girls.