Overrated art? 1 1

[Flambit]

I managed to discover Love and Rockets in 1990 and that gave me a reason to go into comic shops for the next five years.  Of course, the Bros didn't exactly produce on anything like a consistent basis, but it was definitely worth waiting for!  A absolute masterwork of American comic books.   

Alex Ross was what ultimately drew me back into comics, though.  I think I read Marvels and Kingdom Come around the same time - I missed Marvels when it came out, I think - and was totally blown away that there was an artist doing that kind of incredible work!

I'd always wondered what would have happened if someone like Joe Jusko had done a few painted mini series - could his star have been lifted a bit as the "pre-Alex Ross guy?"  Jusko is a monster talent and Ross really underlined that for me.  I feel like he is a bit under appreciated in retrospect. 

And I completely missed Keown.  I actually didn't discover him until very recently: looking though caf, in fact, and seeing these unbelievable Hulk pencil pieces!  I want one!  This guy is outrageous!  

[SquareChaos]

2 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

Yeah but how much did some of those guys actually produce on a consistent basis once they went to Image? Keown was a non-entity, with what 3 issues of Pitt in two years? Portacio and Jae Lee didn't do much. McFarlane stopped penciling and did some inking, spending more time on Toys and Baseballs. Jim Lee even faltered output-wise, but his clones on Stormwatch were fairly consistent. Silvestri cranked out stuff semi regularly,  Savage Dragon was fairly regular. Liefeld and his clones flooded the market with a ton of wretched looking product. So the greatest volume of material came from those with the least appeal for me.   Wildstorm was by far the steadiest pillar of the bunch, and that's why D.C. Saw fit to buy them.

Jae Lee worked on his craft and, in my opinion, improved more than anyone else on that list. By far.

 

[Jeffro.]

On 2/19/2017 at 7:48 PM, tth2 said:

 

On 2/16/2017 at 0:37 AM, drdroom reborn said:

John Romita. Solid mid-level comic hack. He stages well, is better than John Byrne, but never as good as prime period Don Heck.

Post-1970 John Buscema. All his Conan work is more or less phoned in, like the scripts. The sketches are still great though.

 

Romita Sr and J Buscema would also be in my list, as they're the epitome of journeymen.  Although I think it's unfair to say that Romita is worse than Heck.  If Romita was a journeyman, then Heck was the apprentice who should've been told by his master after a few years that perhaps he should consider another line of work, such as being a butcher.

 

Heck better than Romita???

Spoiler

What utter BS

 

Edited May 23, 2017 by Jeffro.

[Jeffro.]

On 2/20/2017 at 0:25 PM, Twanj said:

 

On 2/20/2017 at 11:25 AM, Fred Chamberlain said:

As a kid, I found Kirby's stuff to be awful..... didn't appreciate his stuff until years later.

I was in the same boat. love Kirby now.

 

Me too. Definitely didn't appreciate Kirby until later

[MyNameIsLegion]

My opinions of artists have not changed dramatically over time - my appreciation for inkers (or dislike) has increased exponentially over the years. 

[drdroom]

2 hours ago, Jeffro. said:

Heck better than Romita???

  Hide contents

What utter BS

 

PRIME PERIOD Heck. Pre-code through pre-hero Silver Age.

 

[jreezy]

On 2/16/2017 at 1:25 PM, SquareChaos said:

I think what you're saying is a given and we all understand that (I hope anyway) - OP is asking for opinions, and I think we're all aware they're just opinions. These type of threads do seem to crop up pretty often, but I don't think there is anything wrong with them. One that popped up in General a while back was asking which artists were 'garbage' and I think a number of people rightly had a bit of an issue with the wording used there.

Art is subjective. Some people like renaissance art, street, modern, impressionist, etc.  clearly some of the artists being mentioned here have a fan following and have been around for years. 

Not a fan of skottie young, but I get why he has fan base. 

 

[F For Fake]

15 hours ago, Jeffro. said:

Me too. Definitely didn't appreciate Kirby until later

Same. When I was a kid, I thought Kirby's stuff was just so...weird. Of course, I grew up in the 80's, so I was all about Art Adams, George Perez, John Byrne, and their ilk.

When I was about 18 or 19, I started working at a comic book shop, and I was spending a lot of time bagging and boarding books. And then one day, it was like a switch was flipped in my brain, and I suddenly GOT Kirby, and was suddenly, totally in love. He's been my absolute favorite ever since.

[PhilipB2k17]

I think a better thread topic should be which artists do you think is UNDERRATED, and should get more love than they do in the collector world. 

Asking who you think is "overrated," is not a fair question. Some might say Jack Kirby is "overrated," from a technical standpoint. But, 30 years ago he was most certainly vastly UNDERRATED. And, honestly, there is a qualitative difference between what Kirby was doing in the early to mid 60's and what he was doing in the 70's and 80's. That early to mid-60's Kirby is virtually unmatched as far as storytelling sense and he was probably at the height of his technical prowess. He became much more stylized and abstract as he moved into the 70's and 80's. And, who inked him also made a difference. 

So, how do you rate an artists? What criteria?

An artist who I think is UNDERRATED is Jackson "Butch" Guice. I don't really have as much familiarity with the modern artists, who are all supremely skilled from a technical standpoint, and are clearly influenced heavily in term of action posing, and page composition by people like McFarlane, Miller, Lee and Leifeld. And, I'd say Neal Adams too. But that's the era they grew up in, although Adams' heyday was much earlier. A ton of artists who were influential in the 80's were heavily influenced by Neal Adams. 

It goes in cycles. 

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by PhilipB2k17

[dirtymartini1]

On 2/16/2017 at 0:07 AM, MagnusX said:

• J. Scott Campbell
• Skottie Young
• Humberto Ramos

Yes I agree with all 3. 100% super over rated.

[Flambit]

On 5/23/2017 at 3:52 PM, Jeffro. said:

Me too. Definitely didn't appreciate Kirby until later

I certainly don't have the best eye or the most refined taste, but one thing I can give myself credit for early on: I loved Kirby from the first moment I saw his work.  He was the reason I fell in love with comics.  My first comic was one of his 70s Marvel books, and even at six or seven, he the was the only artist I could distinguish art by even if I didn't know his name or understand the process of comic production.  I followed him though Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur and then on to Captain Victory and Silver Star.  I don't think I really understood the stories, but the pictures, the lines, it was all so perfect.  Like Toth or Jaime Hernandez, not a wasted line or image that was non essential to telling his story.

ironically, I didn't get around to reading his FF run for another 30 years...

[KirbyJack]

On ‎5‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 9:48 PM, Flambit said:

I certainly don't have the best eye or the most refined taste, but one thing I can give myself credit for early on: I loved Kirby from the first moment I saw his work.  He was the reason I fell in love with comics.  My first comic was one of his 70s Marvel books, and even at six or seven, he the was the only artist I could distinguish art by even if I didn't know his name or understand the process of comic production.  I followed him though Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur and then on to Captain Victory and Silver Star.  I don't think I really understood the stories, but the pictures, the lines, it was all so perfect.  Like Toth or Jaime Hernandez, not a wasted line or image that was non essential to telling his story.

ironically, I didn't get around to reading his FF run for another 30 years...

As a kid, I didn't think about the art. I just completely immersed myself in the entire comic. At that time, Marvel was publishing Fantastic Four by Buckler, and Marvel's Greatest Comics by Kirby. I could not have told you why back then, but I knew that I strongly preferred MGC! I loved Kirby from the very beginning of my comic book experience.

[MagnusX]

 

Michael Cho prices;
really..?

 

 

[Kevin76]

Overrated  IMO 

Adam Hughes...still don't get the appeal after all these years

J Scott Campbell....Jim Lee Clone  

JR JR...Can he make anything realistic at least to some degree? 

Artgerm....See Adam Hughes comment

Alex Ross .... Ok so paint everything with a low perspective to give the illusion the characters look bigger than they are...ok got it. 

 

It's very hard to come up with a style that's going to capture an audience the way, Kirby, Wrightson, Adams and even Mcfarlane has. Very few artists can do it and it's even much, much harder now to do it cause we've seen everything by now. What I'm not seeing is risks being taken nowadays, everything is a group shot, a money shot a "Hey I can sell this to someone cause it's got everything an art collector wants" kinda shot. As much as I like Jim Lee, every other page is a splash page he can sell for 20K+  that looks like it was set up that way for the money grab. I'm not worried about an artist making every piece of anatomy perfect, it's really about how the piece makes you feel when you look at it. Love him or Hate him, Mcfarlane brought a lot of energy to the page, so did Kirby. I don't feel that way about any of the popular artists I listed above.   

 

 

[Flambit]

Posted in the wrong thread!

Edited May 31, 2017 by Flambit
Posted in the wrong place

[Panelfan1]

16 hours ago, Kevin76 said:

Overrated  IMO 

Adam Hughes...still don't get the appeal after all these years

J Scott Campbell....Jim Lee Clone  

JR JR...Can he make anything realistic at least to some degree? 

Artgerm....See Adam Hughes comment

Alex Ross .... Ok so paint everything with a low perspective to give the illusion the characters look bigger than they are...ok got it. 

 

It's very hard to come up with a style that's going to capture an audience the way, Kirby, Wrightson, Adams and even Mcfarlane has. Very few artists can do it and it's even much, much harder now to do it cause we've seen everything by now. What I'm not seeing is risks being taken nowadays, everything is a group shot, a money shot a "Hey I can sell this to someone cause it's got everything an art collector wants" kinda shot. As much as I like Jim Lee, every other page is a splash page he can sell for 20K+  that looks like it was set up that way for the money grab. I'm not worried about an artist making every piece of anatomy perfect, it's really about how the piece makes you feel when you look at it. Love him or Hate him, Mcfarlane brought a lot of energy to the page, so did Kirby. I don't feel that way about any of the popular artists I listed above.   

 

 

So there is no wrong opinions on this thread, but as a guy who loves kirby and mcfarlane, while also loving some of the guys above - I wanted to share my feelings on it.

with the exception of JR JR, the majority of artists on your overrated list - are primarily cover artists. Yes Ross did draw interiors at the start of his career, but since then has become primarily a cover artist.  Campbell and Hughes same deal.  Covers generally get higher prices because they are more sought out than interiors which makes these artists more in demand.   

Another difference that Campbell, Artgerm and Hughes have with Mcfarlane and Kirby is drawing sexy girls or pin ups.   They have a different focus all together.  Most collectors love them because of this. 

With respect to JR JR - most folks that I have met - don't really like his work.  This to me would say he is not overrated that often.  In the cases where he has fans, I would argue its tied mostly to nostalgia.  For instance, I love his Punisher War Zone stuff - but am not a fan of most of his super hero stuff. 

Another point is that Adams, Artgerm and Ross all do great realistic paintings that have their own audience.  While I personally prefer Inked art to painted art, there are many that see painted art as superior or more desirable. 

any way. that's my