Thursday, June 26, 2008

Comic Artists

For your enjoyment, I'll talk about my favorite artists. (Ok, so it's more for my enjoyment)
As most of you already know, I adore comic artists. When I was younger, and still sometimes today, I wouldn't pick up a book unless I liked the art. As I got older, I began to notice styles, and I could decipher one artist from the other.

The first artist I did this with was Joe Madureira. His style is fused with Japanese Manga and old time American comic art. I love it! For a long time in the mid 90's I would pick up anything that looked like his, and sure enough, from comics to video game magazines, it had the famous (or famous at least in my mind) MAD! logo. He did a comic called Battle Chasers, but he never finished it :(. Then he was missing from the business for so very long I thought I would cry. He's back now doing work for The Ultimates.


My next favorite is Chris Bachalo. His style is (in my opinion) softer than that of Joe. He is extremely talented at female facial features. He is so detailed and sometimes a bit abstract. However, there are times that his art gets in the way of reading the story line. I find myself reading the same few panels several times to understand where he is going with it. This was just the case when I read his Steampunk series. I don't think I ever knew what was going on in that book, but the art was so beautiful, that I bought everyone I could just to look at the pretty pictures.

If you like cover art, and I know I do, you will love James Jean. HE ACTUALLY DRAWS A COVER THAT FITS THE COMIC!!! Just look at any Fables cover. (It's what won him the Eisner award a few years back for best cover artist) You just don't understand how good the cover art is until you read the comic. He does a lot of work for magazines and usually that stuff is VERY trippy. His concepts simply blow my mind. I would never think of them, yet he creates something so perfect that it seems there is no other way for the art to be done. I believe he is going to have a book of fables covers coming out soon, but I could be wrong.

Man, I could go on and on and on about this stuff. Right now I'm fascinated with art I see on Deviant art. Perhaps I'll do a B-log on that. Dunno.
-Out!

6 comments:

Suzanne Ferrell said...

Fantastic review of your fav artist, Lynds! I love the fact that you're able to teach us what you like about each one and decipher the differences, too!

Anna Campbell said...

Hiya Lynds! Just popping over to say hi from the Romance Bandits. Proud Mamma may have dropped a hint about your new blog! Wow! I've never heard of these guys and their stuff is amazing. Thanks for broadening my knowledge!

Trish Milburn said...

Nice work. I was wondering if you've seen Georges Jeanty's work? He's doing the covers of the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics. Very cool.

UntouchableGreen said...

Trish,

No, I havent heard of him. I Googled him, and saw that he had a few weapon-x and x-men shots. Pretty neat.

-L

jo robertson said...

Interesting article, Lyndsey, and we over at Romance Bandits LOVE your work.

I really like all the artists you've named but my favorite is James Jean.

UntouchableGreen said...

Jo,

I adore James Jean, if you haven't, you should check out his site: www.jamesjean.com