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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 22, 2022 14:35:20 GMT -5
It varies from artist to artist. Don Newton's work still seems special, though the writing on a lot of it (which was almost never his) doesn't. Adams, on the other hand is decidedly less special. And Grell's art is less special but his writing is still pretty good.
Like Kurt there are guys who I didn't care about (Kubert) or that I actively disliked (Simonson) who I absolutely love now.
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Post by profh0011 on Feb 22, 2022 22:00:00 GMT -5
In the last 2 years, I've actually enjoyed LOST IN SPACE even more than I did when it was first-run! EVEN-- the "really stupid" ones! You can never tell...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2022 7:32:48 GMT -5
It may be somewhat because I associate the storytelling with the art from this era, but sadly most of my beloved 80's stuff just doesn't seem special anymore. Byrne on FF, Simonson on Thor, Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, Frank Miller on Dark Knight, Giffen on Legion. Much as I try, I can never rekindle my love for this stuff (living that era was so amazing at the time).
I started reading comic books in the 70's but all the ones mentioned above seemed so amazing and special at the time, and the art was a big part of it and influenced me as I studied drawing at the time. George Perez from that time is a big exception, still stunning, I think always will be.
I find the old school classic artists to be the ones that hold up the best (I'm still one of the biggest Ditko fans ever). Speaking of Curt Swan, he will always be my favorite Superman artist, but somewhat on topic here I remember picking up a book years ago that was a retrospective on his career and art and showed a number of raw pencil renderings. And it really dawned on me how professionally he was trained, and while his peak years as a comic book artist might seem tame compared to what was to come, how much more substantial he technically was to a number of flashier other artists. I think I could say the same for a number of artists from his time.
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Post by commond on Feb 23, 2022 8:29:01 GMT -5
I don't have many experiences like this, but I do find lately that guys like Mike Mignola and Keith Giffen (in his Jose Munoz phase) don't appeal to me much. I also find that artists like John Byrne tend to draw characters' faces the same. And creators I like, eg. Grell and Dave Sim, often draw ugly pictures. But for the most part, I'm discovering great artists all the time. In fact, I think it's amazing how many great comic book artists we've been blessed with.
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Post by tonebone on Feb 23, 2022 9:24:08 GMT -5
It's usually the opposite for me: artists I didn't appreciate or flat-out didn't like as a kid are now in my pantheon of greats. This list includes Joe Kubert, Steve Ditko, Lee Elias, Dan Spiegle, Ross Andru, Frank Thorne, Jack Davis, Bruno Premiani, and Bill Everett. I don't think Neal Adams' work holds up, though. His figure work is awesome and he designs great pages but he's a wretched storyteller. Cei-U! I summon the re-evaluation! Dan Spiegle is the greatest!
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Post by tonebone on Feb 23, 2022 9:32:36 GMT -5
I agree that some artist that I didn't think were special , I now think are good. Curt Swan is one. I'm surprised about the critique of Neal Adams' storytelling. I thought he was the complete package.
I never disliked Swan's work, although I have more appreciation for it now. Ultimately though, my assessment is the same as it was when I was younger: his style isn't the most dynamic, but he has a great sense of anatomy and subtle expression. The problem is that after Murphy Anderson left, he was given bland inkers who accentuated the weakest part of his style. I'd love to have seen him do a run on a comic with a strong inker who could lend a high gloss to his foundation.
I would add that one of Swan's greatest attributes is that he can tell a story, with no ambiguity or confusion. It has been mentioned earlier that Adams was a fantastic illustrator, but much of his storytelling is muddled and, without the context of dialogue or captions, can be confusing. I think you could pretty much read a Curt Swan story on visuals, alone. As a matter of fact, before I could read, I was reading Superman, and Legion of Super-Heroes.
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Post by tonebone on Feb 23, 2022 9:40:14 GMT -5
I think the original Image creators are a perfect example. I just thought we were amazing but now don’t see anything special in any of their work. On the other side George Perez, John Byrne I get that sense of awe when I go through some photos f their early works. Early Byrne, like in his Charlton era, is SO GOOD. No matter what story he's telling, his art features so many of the quirks and nuances he would later develop into a powerhouse in his X-Men and FF runs. It's like he fulfilled the promises he laid out in the Charlton stuff.
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Post by MDG on Feb 23, 2022 10:39:04 GMT -5
I've done a flip on a lot of what attracted me to comic artists (talking comic book for-hire artists here as opposed to cartoonists) when I first got into them (instead of just reading them).
Talking about ECs (my first love), I was initially attracted to the more lush "dive into the art" styles of folks like Wood, Williamson, and Ingels. Now, where I'm more into comics as comics--a way of telling a story--my favorite EC work is by Craig, Kurtzman, and Krigstein. (Though I still love the others) (Jack Davis is my favorite artist who worked in comics, but far from my favorite comic artist.)
Similarly at that time, while Adams, Wrightson, Steranko, Smith, etc were ascendant and younger fans were starting to hold Kirby and Ditko in contempt, I went along with it. Now, I can't look at a post-1960 page by Kirby or Ditko without seeing the total command of storytelling. I still love Wrightson, but, as noted by others, Adams seemed to feel his job was to get people to pay attention to the art dammit! instead of making sure the art served the story.
Same with Steranko, even though, on the whole, he could tell a story very well when he focused on that. He dipped in my estimation when I read his "graphic novel" Chandler the third time after being away a while and realized that the pictures were totally extraneous. Nicely done, but didn't add anything that wasn't in the text. Not comics. (I pissed some people in a FB original comic art group off when I pointed out that a lot of things weren't "original comic art." They were "pictures of Batman.")
Two others favorites I initially didn't like--Infantino and Toth--until I saw them in a different context that made me focus on what they were doing. Infantino in the Amazing World of DC Comics devoted to him and Toth with a fanzine called The Alex Toth Treasury or something like that.
In the 70s-80s, new artists would come in, there were some I liked because they drew really well (Ordway, Byrne) and others I liked because they were telling the story in interesting ways (Rogers, Miller, Giffen). There's definitely overlap between these groups, but I gravitate toward the storytellers.
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Post by tonebone on Feb 23, 2022 12:09:47 GMT -5
It may be somewhat because I associate the storytelling with the art from this era, but sadly most of my beloved 80's stuff just doesn't seem special anymore. Byrne on FF, Simonson on Thor, Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, Frank Miller on Dark Knight, Giffen on Legion. Much as I try, I can never rekindle my love for this stuff (living that era was so amazing at the time). I started reading comic books in the 70's but all the ones mentioned above seemed so amazing and special at the time, and the art was a big part of it and influenced me as I studied drawing at the time. George Perez from that time is a big exception, still stunning, I think always will be. I find the old school classic artists to be the ones that hold up the best (I'm still one of the biggest Ditko fans ever). Speaking of Curt Swan, he will always be my favorite Superman artist, but somewhat on topic here I remember picking up a book years ago that was a retrospective on his career and art and showed a number of raw pencil renderings. And it really dawned on me how professionally he was trained, and while his peak years as a comic book artist might seem tame compared to what was to come, how much more substantial he technically was to a number of flashier other artists. I think I could say the same for a number of artists from his time. I'm sort of the opposite. I can't muster much of an interest in modern comics or comics artists. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large, I can only get really excited about the comics of my youth, or the comics I MISSED in my youth. This current golden age of comics reprints coincides nicely with my living a little more "comfortably" and being able to afford the series' I had to pass up as a poor kid/teen. Of course, I see them now through different eyes... I am fully aware that the thrill I get is not as much the excitement of the story, but more so the feeling of nostalgia and being reminded of how much I loved this stuff back then. There are a few comics stories I have read so many times I have them practically memorized, but I will pull them off the shelf and read them again, and all the old feelings come flooding back. The feeling of laying on the floor of my grandpa's living room with a copy of Captain America's Bicentennial Battles is just a stone's throw away. I can crack open a Captain Canuck hardcover and remember how certain I was that I was going to devote my life to creating comics (I didn't). I can revisit the Legion of Super-Heroes and remember my uncle giving issues to 6 year old me and having me read them to him (turns out he was illiterate, and just wanted to know what was happening). I get none of that from the majority of modern comics. I wish I did, I just don't.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2022 12:32:14 GMT -5
It may be somewhat because I associate the storytelling with the art from this era, but sadly most of my beloved 80's stuff just doesn't seem special anymore. Byrne on FF, Simonson on Thor, Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, Frank Miller on Dark Knight, Giffen on Legion. Much as I try, I can never rekindle my love for this stuff (living that era was so amazing at the time). I started reading comic books in the 70's but all the ones mentioned above seemed so amazing and special at the time, and the art was a big part of it and influenced me as I studied drawing at the time. George Perez from that time is a big exception, still stunning, I think always will be. I find the old school classic artists to be the ones that hold up the best (I'm still one of the biggest Ditko fans ever). Speaking of Curt Swan, he will always be my favorite Superman artist, but somewhat on topic here I remember picking up a book years ago that was a retrospective on his career and art and showed a number of raw pencil renderings. And it really dawned on me how professionally he was trained, and while his peak years as a comic book artist might seem tame compared to what was to come, how much more substantial he technically was to a number of flashier other artists. I think I could say the same for a number of artists from his time. I'm sort of the opposite. I can't muster much of an interest in modern comics or comics artists. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large, I can only get really excited about the comics of my youth, or the comics I MISSED in my youth. This current golden age of comics reprints coincides nicely with my living a little more "comfortably" and being able to afford the series' I had to pass up as a poor kid/teen. Of course, I see them now through different eyes... I am fully aware that the thrill I get is not as much the excitement of the story, but more so the feeling of nostalgia and being reminded of how much I loved this stuff back then. There are a few comics stories I have read so many times I have them practically memorized, but I will pull them off the shelf and read them again, and all the old feelings come flooding back. The feeling of laying on the floor of my grandpa's living room with a copy of Captain America's Bicentennial Battles is just a stone's throw away. I can crack open a Captain Canuck hardcover and remember how certain I was that I was going to devote my life to creating comics (I didn't). I can revisit the Legion of Super-Heroes and remember my uncle giving issues to 6 year old me and having me read them to him (turns out he was illiterate, and just wanted to know what was happening). I get none of that from the majority of modern comics. I wish I did, I just don't. I should clarify I don’t read modern comics, I keep going further backwards, more 60’s/70’s. It’s just the 80s I can’t seem to get back in the groove with. My 70’s childhood comics (and 60’s reprint comics from that time) still gots the mojo for me.
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Post by profh0011 on Feb 23, 2022 22:32:50 GMT -5
Sometime in the next year or two, I'm actually hoping to DITCH about HALF of my entire comics collection. I need the space. What I keep, and what I get rid of, will be determined by what I feel, from my current perspective, is stuff I may actually want to re-read some day...... or not. However, there is one run of LEGION I'm considering taking out back and SETTING ON FIRE.
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Post by berkley on Feb 24, 2022 1:47:31 GMT -5
As far as I can tell, I still feel the magic for most of my old favourites. I put it that way because I haven't actually dones much re-reading the last several years - all the old stuff I read these days is more or less new to me - e.g. Caniff's Steve Canyon, various 2000AD serials - so there's no nostaligia involved in my response to them, even with the things I have read bits of before (e.g. Eisner's Spirit).
But I did read the first issue of Mister X last night - I think for the first time since the 1980s since i lost my original copy sometime in the early 90s and only recently re-acquired it - and I have to say I was blown away by how good it was. It all came back to me as I turned the pages, characters and scenes, individual panels that I hadn't thought about in decades all came back to me as I saw them again. I knew I liked it at the time but I suppose it had been eclipsed in my memory by Love and Rockets, whenever I thought of the Hernandezes and their comics.
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Post by profh0011 on Feb 24, 2022 16:53:11 GMT -5
More on "old favorites"... I recently re-read the 9 years worth of Alex Raymond's FLASH GORDON where they were on Mongo. It got MUCH WORSE than I ever remembered it being. Around the same time, I re-watched thr 3 Universal movie serials. They all struc kme as VASTLY better-written than the source comic-strip was-- EVEN the 2nd one, " Trip To Mars", which is infinitely inferior to the 1st & 3rd serials. Not every day when you find a movie "adaptation" of sorts that's that much better than the original comics.
The next time I watch those, I'm definitely gonna go after the DVDs.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 25, 2022 10:35:20 GMT -5
It may be somewhat because I associate the storytelling with the art from this era, but sadly most of my beloved 80's stuff just doesn't seem special anymore. Byrne on FF, Simonson on Thor, Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, Frank Miller on Dark Knight, Giffen on Legion. Much as I try, I can never rekindle my love for this stuff (living that era was so amazing at the time). Giffen's Legion run still brings joy to my eyes; since the creation of the concept, so few artists ever really captured what the Legion required. To me, Giffen stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Cockrum and Grell in making the Legion finally live up to their youth drama-meets sci-fi-drama underpinnings. If I had any issue with Swan its that he rarely broke out of the training, meaning his work often looked like the safe, instructional work (unless inked by Anderson) one would see in 1950s art classes. Others were trained just as well, but they evolved far beyond anything anyone could teach, having had such a unique talent/ability, and knew where to get the most out of the emotion of nearly every story point--so much so that it never appeared like it was just there, but was showing real moments of life with impact & feeling.
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