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

Aren't these things funny? Personal opinions can be so strong. Whenever I hear Lebron or Michael, I think "I'll take Wilt". Tiger or Jack? Sorry, Bobby Jones for me. And strip art without Winsor McCay??? That is what makes these discussions fun, splitting dem hairs.

Did you know that Winsor McCay would start by drawing the outline of the figure and then defining the interior? On finished drawings, in ink. Beautiful beautiful ink. 

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20 minutes ago, tth21 said:

Comic:

1. Frazetta

2. Barks

3. Adams

4. Raboy

 

Strip:

1. Raymond

2. Foster

3. Caniff

4. Trudeau

Did you by any chance read Dave Sim's Glamourpuss? It was one half fashion model satire and one half history of photorealism in comic strips, all drawn by Dave in his attempt to become as adept with the brushes as Alex Raymond. He even recreated panels and strips by utilizing the Heritage archives of big scans. It has since turned into something else entirely, not more or less but something different, but those issues of Glamourpuss were awesome in going over Caniff, Raymond, Foster, Drake, etc. I devoured them.

glamourpuss_issue_2_page_5_by_dave_sim-d

 

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2 hours ago, tth2 said:

Comic:

1. Frazetta

2. Barks

3. Adams

4. Raboy

 

Strip:

1. Raymond

2. Foster

3. Caniff

4. Trudeau

Good picks by you.

For me my criteria is the comic book artist has to write his own stories.

Comic:

1. Jack "King" Kirby. No one can touch him for action and creativity. 

2. Jim Starlin  Some of the most amazing stuff ever seen in comics.

3. Frank Miller A game changer with his Daredevil and Batman stuff.

4. Todd McFarlane Just an amazing talent that will continue to be appreciated as time goes by.

Strip:

1. Bill Watterson The master of modern comic strips. Hard to beat Calvin and Hobbes.

2. Hal Foster Just beautiful work!

3. Alex Raymond. Great storytelling.

4. Charles Schultz Peanuts "nuff said"

honorary mention for marketing techniques.

1. Jim Davis Garfield 

 

Edited by ComicConnoisseur
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1 hour ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Good picks by you.

For me my criteria is the comic book artist has to write his own stories.

Comic:

1. Jack "King" Kirby. No one can touch him for action and creativity. 

2. Jim Starlin  Some of the most amazing stuff ever seen in comics.

3. Frank Miller A game changer with his Daredevil and Batman stuff.

4. Todd McFarlane Just an amazing talent that will continue to be appreciated as time goes by.

 

It's a good criteria, although pretty tough on artists from the old days when writing and drawing were strictly bifurcated.  Also, if writing a story includes writing the dialogue, then I would argue that Kirby did NOT write his own stories.  It's painfully apparent from Kirby's dialogue in the 1970s and later that Stan wrote the dialogue for all of their great Marvel work.

As for McFarlane, I would actually deduct points from him for his writing.  Good artist (I'm one of those who really like his art), but horrible writer (both plot and -script).

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2 hours ago, Bird said:

Did you by any chance read Dave Sim's Glamourpuss? It was one half fashion model satire and one half history of photorealism in comic strips, all drawn by Dave in his attempt to become as adept with the brushes as Alex Raymond. He even recreated panels and strips by utilizing the Heritage archives of big scans. It has since turned into something else entirely, not more or less but something different, but those issues of Glamourpuss were awesome in going over Caniff, Raymond, Foster, Drake, etc. I devoured them.

glamourpuss_issue_2_page_5_by_dave_sim-d

 

No, had not heard about this.  Sounds interesting, and will definitely have to check it out. (thumbsu

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5 hours ago, batman_fan said:

For me it would be:

1. Neal Adams, his understanding of the human form and ability to translate it to spectacular story telling it tops in my book.

2. John Romita, I love his work on so many titles

3. John Buscema, Avengers, Silver Surfer, nuff sail

4. D ick Sprang, while not necessarily someone would think as a top artist, his would on Batman has a special place in my heart.

Honerably mention:  Norm Breyfogle, one of my favorite "modern" artist.

I certainly think of Sprang as a top artist.  Arguably the best artist to ever draw that family of characters and certainly the definitive Joker artist.

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On Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 11:05 PM, NelsonAI said:

Which comic book artists are in your  "Mt. Rushmore" ? 

For those of you not familiar with Mt. Rushmore, it is a mountain located in South Dakota, U.S.A. where the faces of 4 U.S. Presidents were carved onto the face of the mountain (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln).

So who are YOUR top 4 comic book artists of all time?  Please remember, this is a top 4 list only.  Lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this post asking for who we believe are the most important comic artists are in the history of comics? Or who are our personal favorite 4 artists are?

The mt rushmore metaphor is making this a bit tricky for me to know how to answer this thread.  For example I recognize that Kirby was king for a reason and I admire his creativity and boldness.  In the context of comic art he would be on the mountain. On the other hand, not a huge fan. That is - I can appreciate it, but don't love it.  If we're talking personal favorites other artists come to mind.

Edited by Panelfan1
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6 hours ago, Dumur said:

Well this is a fun topic. A reminder this is MY personal Mt. Rushmore and not a recognition of the obvious influences of the past..

Yes, that's how I'm approaching this, too. If it's the top four most important comic artists of all-time, then we're all going to be talking about the same handful of names.

My Mt. Rushmore are the guys, who if their names were attached to a book, I'd always buy it. So this is an admittedly '80s fanboy list:

Neal Adams

Frank Miller

Steve Rude

Dave Stevens

Honorable mention: Brian Bolland, Michael Golden, George Perez.

 

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4 hours ago, tth2 said:

It's a good criteria, although pretty tough on artists from the old days when writing and drawing were strictly bifurcated.  Also, if writing a story includes writing the dialogue, then I would argue that Kirby did NOT write his own stories.  It's painfully apparent from Kirby's dialogue in the 1970s and later that Stan wrote the dialogue for all of their great Marvel work.

It's my criteria as well, so I'll offer a defense. The bifurcation only existed in comic books, and not even always there: see Jack Cole and Will Eisner. Kirby always wrote his own work from the beginning (and also wrote stories for other artists in the S&K shop). Stan's dialog & captions over the sixties work doesn't invalidate Kirby's writing claim on that work, come on! He thought up all the characters, everything they did and even approximately what they were saying. He's clearly the primary author of the books. For myself, it's hard to read Stan's writing as an adult. His repetition, bombast and a quality of condescension toward the medium dims the luster of Kirby's great period. 

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19 minutes ago, drdroom reborn said:

For myself, it's hard to read Stan's writing as an adult. His repetition, bombast and a quality of condescension toward the medium dims the luster of Kirby's great period. 

All I can do is point you to Kirby's 4th World work as evidence of life without Stan.  Great concepts, great art, but virtually unreadable, even to middle school me.  It got even worse during his mid-70s return to Marvel, which was the worst of all worlds--neither the concepts nor art were great, but the dialogue was just as bad (if not worse).

Or as Kirby would say in his own inimitable dialogue, "YYYAAAAGGGHHHH!!!"

Edited by tth2
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Great topic! I have actually thought about this a lot so glad someone posted a thread. I can guarantee you that my list will be unique. As a Hulk fan/collector, my Mt/ Rushmore would be:

 

Sal Buscema

Dale Keown

Ed McGuinness

Paul Pelletier

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11 hours ago, Panelfan1 said:

Is this post asking for who we believe are the most important comic artists are in the history of comics? Or who are our personal favorite 4 artists are?

The mt rushmore metaphor is making this a bit tricky for me to know how to answer this thread.  For example I recognize that Kirby was king for a reason and I admire his creativity and boldness.  In the context of comic art he would be on the mountain. On the other hand, not a huge fan. That is - I can appreciate it, but don't love it.  If we're talking personal favorites other artists come to mind.

See for me, it's a bit of a hybrid. It's My "personal" Mt. Rushmore. In that, it's not who I acknowledge to be comics founding fathers (Where I would certainly have Kirby and Ditko, but don't have them on my list), nor is My Mt. Rushmore necessarily my 4 favourite all time artists. In fact it isn't. McKean, Billy Sink, Maguire, Alex Ross, Nate Powell and Paul Pope would  That would be an entirely different list. Rather it's a list of the four artists who most influenced me in my earliest days of comic book collecting and reading. The artists who grabbed my attention off the rack and would keep me coming back. Same for the writers. My favourite all time comic writer is Jeff Lemire. Hands down, but he is not on my Mt. Rushmore, because he wasn't one of the original writers who formed my initial bedrock of comic book reading. Others faves not on Rushmore, Kindt, Tomine, Seth, Bendis... Actually, I just realized Gaiman should probably be on Rushmore.

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17 hours ago, Panelfan1 said:

Is this post asking for who we believe are the most important comic artists are in the history of comics? Or who are our personal favorite 4 artists are?

The mt rushmore metaphor is making this a bit tricky for me to know how to answer this thread.  For example I recognize that Kirby was king for a reason and I admire his creativity and boldness.  In the context of comic art he would be on the mountain. On the other hand, not a huge fan. That is - I can appreciate it, but don't love it.  If we're talking personal favorites other artists come to mind.

 

Edited by Dumur
Double posted
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