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Which comic book artists are in your "Mt. Rushmore" ?
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175 posts in this topic

I'm impressed with the number of votes for Schomberg. I mean, who even owns a Schomberg original? And also, I love his stuff, but it's really just covers, isn't it? He didn't advance the form of comics in any significant way, did he?

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It's not really your 4 favorite or 4 best or 4 impactful or 4 whatever comic artists.

From Wikipedia Mount Rushmore re: Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln...

"The four presidents were chosen, respectively, to represent the birth, the growth, the development, and the preservation of the United States. "

If you stick with that criteria in relation to comics, I think you'd get a totally different collection of 4 artists.  I'm not knowledgeable enough to venture a list.

 

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8 hours ago, Will_K said:

It's not really your 4 favorite or 4 best or 4 impactful or 4 whatever comic artists.

From Wikipedia Mount Rushmore re: Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln...

"The four presidents were chosen, respectively, to represent the birth, the growth, the development, and the preservation of the United States. "

If you stick with that criteria in relation to comics, I think you'd get a totally different collection of 4 artists.  I'm not knowledgeable enough to venture a list.

 

For birth, you would probably be best served by picking Richard F. Outcalt, creator of the Yellow Kid.

For growth, I would nominate Will Eisner. Don't forget, he also included a comic book as a supplement to a newpaper which increased readership across two separate reading groups, while developing a separate organization whch generated the likes of Lou Fine, Jack Kirby, etc.

For development, I come back to Kirby or Adams (maybe both, at different times).

For perservation, that's tough; nothing compares to Lincoln. Who saved the industry? Miller, maybe, with Dark Knight? That resulted in the Batman movies in place of the kitchie TV Batman and helped save comics publishing by letting them become a springboard for movies/TV. 

Edited by Rick2you2
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Outcault .  Wow.   A new entry in the mix, I think.

I'd put Kirby over Adams.  Because he came first and sheer volume.

I'd say that not only are these artists but in one way or another they fall into the "auteur" category.

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On 4/3/2019 at 9:31 PM, Will_K said:

Outcault .  Wow.   A new entry in the mix, I think.

I'd put Kirby over Adams.  Because he came first and sheer volume.

I'd say that not only are these artists but in one way or another they fall into the "auteur" category.

Outcault is widely credited with being the first creater of a strip having the same lead character. No regular hero's or villians without him. If you want to go back a bit further, there was the political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who gave us the modern image of Santa Clause, the Elephant for the GOP, and the Jack- for the (he was a , and that is not a donkey).

I am not sure I agree with placing Kirby over Adams. Adams quite literally changed the way artists set up their pages and drew their work. Compare, for example, Murphy Anderson to Adams. There really are few artists from the 1970's onward in mainstream comics whose work was not affected by him or his layouts, and his volume is actually pretty huge, by the way. Kirby captured a lot of hearts with his style, but I don't know if you can say his style was copied and used as a template for development.

Don't forget Miller. Comics are viewed by the media as a source of profitable movies and TV shows. Would comics, and their relatively low profit margins, still exist except as a niche product without The Dark Knight? 

Edited by Rick2you2
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2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

I am not sure I agree with placing Kirby over Adams. Adams quite literally changed the way artists set up their pages and drew their work. Compare, for example, Gardner Fox to Adams. There really are few artists from the 1970's onward in mainstream comics whose work was not affected by him or his layouts, and his volume is actually pretty huge, by the way. Kirby captured a lot of hearts with his style, but I don't know if you can say his style was copied and used as a template for development.

Yeah, but Kirby co-created much of the Marvel Universe and its most memorable characters and storylines. And then created a ton of more stuff in the '70s at both Marvel and DC. His style was influential and used as a template for development back in the '60s - many Marvel artists in that decade carried some of his influence and/or were explicitly asked to ape his style to some extent - everyone from Trimpe and Barry Smith to Jim Steranko...even Buscema and Romita Sr. 

Adams is on my comic artist Mt. Rushmore, but, Kirby is first among equals. 

Edited by delekkerste
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2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Yeah, but Kirby co-created much of the Marvel Universe and its most memorable characters and storylines. And then created a ton of more stuff in the '70s at both Marvel and DC. His style was influential and used as a template for development back in the '60s - many Marvel artists in that decade carried some of his influence and/or were explicitly asked to ape his style to some extent - everyone from Trimpe and Barry Smith to Jim Steranko...even Buscema and Romita Sr. 

Adams is on my comic artist Mt. Rushmore, but, Kirby is first among equals. 

I guess I am showing my personal bias because I am not a fan of his style. 

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22 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

I guess I am showing my personal bias because I am not a fan of his style. 

I'm not a big Marvel fan and I don't have a romanticized view of Jack Kirby. 

But I wouldn't quibble with any one putting Kirby on a "best of..." list. 

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58 minutes ago, Will_K said:

I'm not a big Marvel fan and I don't have a romanticized view of Jack Kirby. 

But I wouldn't quibble with any one putting Kirby on a "best of..." list. 

Thank you for your supporting views. I was assuming I would get reeked for this opinion. I read his biography, and it’s a good one. The images of his early art, in particular, show how skillful he was. But the energy many fans see and like in his more classic Marvel and Fourth World work just looks messy to me.

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6 hours ago, Matches_Malone said:

1. Kirby

2. Mignola 

3. McFarlane

4. Keeps Changing 🤔

 

that's ok, but you have to have at least one that has a first or last name that begins with the letter "A".  It appears to be a rule here.  I went All in with Alex Raymond, Al Williamson,Neal Adams, and Alex Ross. :nyah:

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