Roquefort Raider
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 2, 2021 13:09:43 GMT -5
John Byrne could not draw children. His children used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. Haha - so true! Lots of comic book artists seem to struggle drawing children. They usually look like they wandered in from the uncanny valley. Michael Golden was a memorable exception. Golden is a god! Another exception, although I never was a fan of his art generally, was Jon Bogdanove. In Power Pack, he even drew kids of different ages very convincingly; they didn't look like the diminutive adults or deformed homunculi many other artists give us.
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Post by badwolf on Aug 2, 2021 13:16:36 GMT -5
Haha - so true! Lots of comic book artists seem to struggle drawing children. They usually look like they wandered in from the uncanny valley. Michael Golden was a memorable exception. Golden is a god! Another exception, although I never was a fan of his art generally, was Jon Bogdanove. In Power Pack, he even drew kids of different ages very convincingly; they didn't look like the diminutive adults of deformed homunculi many other artists give us. Although for some reason he turned Franklin back into a toddler.
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Post by String on Aug 2, 2021 14:33:27 GMT -5
Byrne, by a country mile, for a couple of reasons.
Simply put, I enjoy Bryne's art more, he has one of the most distinctive art styles ever in the medium. As a youth, he and Perez were the art foundations of the Big Two for me so I'm always going to be drawn to his output. As for writing, his work on FF helped make me a lifelong fan of the family and urged me to seek out the history of the title either through back issues or the Official FF Index title. Alpha Flight focused on a country and culture that I was not all that exposed to as a kid. For me, Byrne IS THE definitive X-Men artist. In fact, he is responsible for the two most shocking deaths I read as a kid: Jean Grey and James Hudson.
As for Starlin, I think of him more as a writer than an artist, mainly because my first big exposure to him was his return to Marvel in the 80s-90s with his work on Silver Surfer, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, etc. His writing was good however he was usually paired with Ron Lim for the art, so for me, Ron Lim is the top cosmic artist of Marvel. (Yes, I said that).
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 2, 2021 14:48:41 GMT -5
Wow. It’s amazing how two people can look at the exact same thing and have opposite opinions. Cockrum was never an artist I felt lacked talent, but I definitely preferred Byrne’s art over Cockrum’s no matter whom was inking Byrne’s pencils. Though, by the early 90’s, Johnny definitely started cutting corners. Yeah, Cockrum was decent - what I would call "solid, reliable" - but I was never attracted to his work. Cockrum's Legion of Superheroes work was that title / subject's best--he modernized the look of the group, created fantastic costumes and tapped into the changing visual language of sci-fi at the time, making the LSH seem as futuristic (and apart from the rest of DC heroes) as they were supposed to be--a contrast to how they were illustrated in earlier years. He was a stylish, insightful designer (see his work for Aurora Plastics Corporation in the 1970s), with a talent forever associated with the LSH (and the X-Men, for that matter). Personally, he was a superior artist to Mr. swollen pectoral muscles / nearly everyone with dimples Byrne.
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Post by berkley on Aug 2, 2021 16:54:02 GMT -5
We've gone from Byrne vs Starlin to Byrne vs Cockrum, but anyway:
I usually preferred Byrne's art but I still liked Cockrum's and every now and then he would come up with something special - my favourite example, which I think I've mentioned somewhere before, is the well-known drawing of Mantis with her arms crossed: I thnk this is one of those images that captures the essence of a character, or perhaps helps create that essence by becoming a defining image of the character. If I was writing or editing a comic featuring Mantis, that's one of the main images I'd ask the artist to keep in mind when drawing their own version.
I found Cockrum's second stint on the X-Men much inferior to his first - but I think someone mentioned here once that he was only doing rough breakdowns or layouts his second time on the series?
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2021 17:05:07 GMT -5
We all due respect to all you fine people, Cockrum doesn't even belong in the same sentence with Starlin and Bryne.
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Roquefort Raider
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 2, 2021 18:48:08 GMT -5
In terms of design and graphic inventiveness, I find Cockrum to be way ahead of Starlin, whose characters basically fall into three types: the tall lanky dude, the stocky dude with a tiny nose (or no nose at all), and the guy with bug eyes and winglets for ears. Cockrum, meanwhile, could create a new wardrobe for the entire Legion and Imperial guard, aliens as diverse as the Shi'ar and Brood, spaceships that look like insects or are actual space whales, and all that before breakfast!
I love Starlin for other reasons, but when it comes to designs few people come near Cockrum! (Byrne is actually one of them, now that we mention it).
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 2, 2021 20:10:33 GMT -5
In terms of design and graphic inventiveness, I find Cockrum to be way ahead of Starlin, whose characters basically fall into three types: the tall lanky dude, the stocky dude with a tiny nose (or no nose at all), and the guy with bug eyes and winglets for ears. Cockrum, meanwhile, could create a new wardrobe for the entire Legion and Imperial guard, aliens as diverse as the Shi'ar and Brood, spaceships that look like insects or are actual space whales, and all that before breakfast! I love Starlin for other reasons, but when it comes to designs few people come near Cockrum! (Byrne is actually one of them, now that we mention it). Cockrum is heralded for his costume design, but he was really slow. This hurt him and it's why he couldn't continue on a monthly title.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Aug 2, 2021 20:17:53 GMT -5
I voted Byrne.
I'm not a massive fan of either, to be honest, but Byrne's art is just a little more pleasing to my eye than Starlin's. As writers it's not even close: Byrne's Fantastic Four, The Thing and the post-Crisis Superman are all really enjoyable comics, whereas I find Starlin's Warlock saga verbose and overblown almost to the point of being unreadable, and even the Death Of Captain Marvel is a bit of a slog, frankly.
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Post by Bronze age andy on Aug 2, 2021 21:04:05 GMT -5
I like both of them but Byrne pips the post due to his work on several underrated series like Namor,X Men:The Hidden Years and The Lost Generation.
They both lose points for their work on The New Gods.
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Post by badwolf on Aug 3, 2021 8:42:49 GMT -5
Yeah, Cockrum was decent - what I would call "solid, reliable" - but I was never attracted to his work. Cockrum's Legion of Superheroes work was that title / subject's best--he modernized the look of the group, created fantastic costumes and tapped into the changing visual language of sci-fi at the time, making the LSH seem as futuristic (and apart from the rest of DC heroes) as they were supposed to be--a contrast to how they were illustrated in earlier years. He was a stylish, insightful designer (see his work for Aurora Plastics Corporation in the 1970s), with a talent forever associated with the LSH (and the X-Men, for that matter). Personally, he was a superior artist to Mr. swollen pectoral muscles / nearly everyone with dimples Byrne. Yeah, he created some nice costumes. But Byrne's art was so much more dynamic. Compare the cover of X-Men #109 to that of Alpha Flight #17. Byrne wins hands down.
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Post by commond on Aug 3, 2021 8:57:27 GMT -5
I'm not so sure about that. Guardian looks better on the Byrne cover, but everything else is more interesting on Cockrum's cover.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 3, 2021 9:19:20 GMT -5
Do I even need to post who I voted for here? I think you all know.
As goes Bryne, I like his writing well enough; Sensational She-Hulk and much of FF he did. But I have never been a fan of his art. His humans look strange. All that said though I had to force myself to read through Warlock because I found Starlin's art very ugly at the time. Now let me defend myself a bit in that I started reading in the 90's, the decade of a lot of flash over substance. However I read through all of Warlock, and by the time I got to the end, I felt a bit different about his art. Still to this day I think there are much better artists, Ron Lim in particular, for his cosmic Marvel stories. But when he writes his own creations; Dreadstar, Gilgamesh, Wyrd, Cosmic Guard, etc. his own art really complements the mood he's setting in the story, so in my opinion, they marry well together.
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 3, 2021 12:21:00 GMT -5
In terms of design and graphic inventiveness, I find Cockrum to be way ahead of Starlin, whose characters basically fall into three types: the tall lanky dude, the stocky dude with a tiny nose (or no nose at all), and the guy with bug eyes and winglets for ears. Cockrum, meanwhile, could create a new wardrobe for the entire Legion and Imperial guard, aliens as diverse as the Shi'ar and Brood, spaceships that look like insects or are actual space whales, and all that before breakfast! I love Starlin for other reasons, but when it comes to designs few people come near Cockrum! (Byrne is actually one of them, now that we mention it). Cockrum is heralded for his costume design, but he was really slow. This hurt him and it's why he couldn't continue on a monthly title. In the 70s, Cockrum was very busy; in addition to his comic book work, as noted before, he was working for Aurora, designing several of the company's model kits, co-founding the company Graphic Features (which hired the comic book heavy hitters to illustrate the comic instructions for Aurora's Comic Scenes kits). While being one the creators involved with launching the new (1975) X-Men, he was designing numerous horror and sci-fi kits for Aurora, so if he was ever perceived as "slow" it could be argued that he was not "just" a comic book artist. Like Romita and Adams in the same decade, Cockrum was making another pop culture mark--in the world of licensed products, which, in my view--made him one of the larger "crossover" comic artists of the era.
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Post by berkley on Aug 3, 2021 13:14:48 GMT -5
They both lose points for their work on The New Gods. As do many others, but yes, they are two of the absolute worst, no question. I know more about Starlin's New Gods work than Byrne's but that one notorious Barda story alone puts Byrne near the bottom of the heap and Starlin is right there with him for his Cosmic Odyssey and Death of.
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