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Which comic book artists are in your "Mt. Rushmore" ?
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Started by NelsonAI,

175 posts in this topic

furthur

furthur

Posted
Posted

Like others I would have to break this down between comic book and comic strip artists-similar, but absolutely not the same skill set. I would also add that Frank Frazetta could make both lists, but his work in both fields is dwarfed by his work as an illustrator and that is where his talent shined brightest.

Comic books:

1. Will Eisner-His Spirit work was a master class for a huge number of cartoonists-and then he came back and wowed again with his late period graphic novels. He was a triple threat-writer, artist and incredible booster for the entire field of cartooning and what it could be.

2. Jack Kirby. The master of superhero cartooning-but his war and western and romance work was great too and if its possible to underrate the King, I think its possible he was.

3. Jack Davis -he could do it all and do it better than so many others. His ability to work in every facet of cartooning at the highest level hasn't really been matched in my opinion.

4. Robert Crumb. He let his Id run wild on paper and had the chops to make it the gold standard for underground art- and then just Art with a capital A. Of course Zap is great-but so is Genesis and all points in between.

 

Comic Strips:

 

I have to say I just love the big three of classic adventure strips(Foster, Raymond, Caniff)  so its hard to divorce that from what should be a Mt Rushmore of Comic Strip artists. The field is bigger than adventure strips though, and obviously, they haven't stood the test of time as well as humor anyway, so all three can't make it on the list-but dammit, they should add some room for them all!! 

 

1. Winsor McCay. A certified genius of the comic strip in my opinion. He started when cartoonists were still making the whole field up right out their heads and created surrealist landscapes that boggle the mind a century later.

2. Hal Foster. Nobody did it better and with the unbelievable consistency of Foster. His work was superb in the 30's and really just as superb in the late 60's and early 70's as he hit retirement, though collectors want the vintage stuff more.

3. Charles Schulz. I wanted to put Raymond here. I honestly would much rather own a classic Flash Gordon than a classic Peanuts Sunday-but if you are talking Mt. Rushmore of Comic Strips and you leave off Schulz, you are just fooling yourself and nobody else in my opinion.

4. Bill Watterson. In my mind, he created the greatest kid strip that could ever be made. Over the 10 years of Calvin & Hobbes he just got better and better til he hit a height so sublime it still floors me. I go back and read one of those paperback collections at least once a year and I am still bowled over.

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BCarter27

BCarter27

Posted
Posted (edited)

If I don't play personal favorites, but all-time greats-

1. Kirby

2. Adams

3. McFarlane

4. Ross

Those four were undeniable game-changers. Joe Shuster would probably have to be on the list too, if we can squeeze another face on the mountain.

My personal Mt. Rushmore that formed the basis of my early love for comic art-

1. Rude

2. Breyfogle

3. Wrightson

4. Maguire

 

All-time great writers-

1. Gardner Fox

2. Stan Lee

3. Denny O'Neil

4. Alan Moore

With Frank Miller being a close fifth and Neil Gaiman a statue somewhere nearby that you have to pay another $20 on the tour ticket to see. And Roy Thomas has a trail leading up to the top that's dedicated to him.

My personal faves that got me early-

1. DeMatteis and Giffen

2. Jim Starlin

3. Neil Gaiman

4. Frank Miller

Baron and Wolfman have really nice plaques in the parking lot though. And Waid has a commemorative hot dog stand.

 

All-time strip artists-

1. Raymond

2. McCay

3. Schultz

4. Trudeau

 

Personal favs-

1. Jim Davis

2. Williamson

3. Schultz

4. Raymond

Edited by BCarter27
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Stat Monsters

Stat Monsters

Posted
Posted

For their body of work and impact on the industry, as opposed to simply aesthetics or scope of their portfolio, I would carve out:

Jack Kirby - creator of many Marvel heroes

Steve Ditko - creator of Spider-Man; Dr. Strange and others

Bob Kane - creator of Batman

Joe Shuster - creator of Superman

 

For a later era enshrinement, I'd appoint:

Frank Miller

Neal Adams

John Byrne

George Perez

 

...and as for current working modern artists:

I'm not sure who would truly qualify to the higher standards, possibly Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane

Hard to justify, but still not out of the question to mention Michael Turner, Marc Silvestri, J. Scott Campbell, Adam Hughes and a few other names - but those draw really petty pictures, but lack that game changing "substance" of working on memorable material more so than nice covers, splash pages and pin-ups of often times marginal characters or paired with uninspired writers.

 

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NelsonAI

NelsonAI

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Posted

When I started this thread, I knew there was never going to be a right or wrong answer.  Everyone has their personal list of favorites and most influential artists and creators.  Everyone is exposed to different genres from different eras.  Europeans are exposed to different artists than Americans or Canadians.  Someone between the ages of 15 through 30 may not yet have been exposed to artists from earlier generations such as McKay, Herriman, Foster, Crumb, Moebius, etc.  

I would like to thank everyone that has participated so far.  There are names of artists listed that I may not be so familiar with but will certainly take time to research.  This is what makes the hobby great.  Keep the lists coming.

Cheers!

N.

 

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J.Sid

J.Sid

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Posted

My favorite four comic-book artists:

1. Byrne!  1st artist whose style I recognized and 1st artist whose name I made it a point to remember. 

2. Miller!  In my rotating list of Top-10 favorite comic stories, his works (art and writing) sometimes fill half the slots

3. McFarlane!  I was never so excited for Wednesday to come as I was while McFarlane was drawing Spidey stories. 

4. Risso!  Haven't loved any story since 100 Bullets, but I give them all a try because I enjoy looking at his pages so much. 

 

Honorable mention: Kirby. I doubt I've read a quarter of his work, but I enjoy looking at every Kirby comic someone tells me to read.

Wrong Category: Watterson might top them all if C&H were a comic book instead of a strip.

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drdroom

drdroom

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Posted
16 hours ago, tth2 said:

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!!!"

As self-evident as that seems to you, I can promise you it is equally baffling to me how many comic fans still can't see how brilliant Kirby's writing was in the 70's. His are virtually the only mainstream US comics that hold up on the text end from that period of brilliant drawing and embarrassing literary pretense. The fact that he was a complete comic creator meant that he could meld word and image into a seamless whole just as my other choices, Tezuka, Crumb and Herriman did. For the same reason, I can understand the arguments for Barks, Herge, Caniff, Eisner, Schulz, and a few others. 

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J.Sid

J.Sid

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Posted (edited)
17 hours ago, tth2 said:

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!!!"

I wouldn't call them unreadable, but I will say this:

I just picked up the FF Artist Edition a couple weeks ago. There are Kirby pencil notes all over the pages.

I used to think pages with these notes were proof that Kirby should have been given more credit for the stories than Stan. Kirby pretty much wrote everything as well, right? 

Not so. Seeing all these notes together really gave me a good sense of just how much Stan really did contribute. He added a quite a bit of complexity to the scenes and breathed a lot of life into the characters we all love.

(sample panel from the AE)

FF_artist_edition.jpg

Edited by J.Sid
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RabidFerret

RabidFerret

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Posted (edited)

I like the idea of Mt. Rushmore being artists whose books I'd buy every time they hit the shelves(and did!). So for me at least, it's...

1) Albert Uderzo ~ I love Asterix. Some seriously great art there.

2) Seth Fisher - He left only a small sample of work, but it was all amazing. I've NEVER seen someone move you through a page the way he did. He was a true master.

3) Todd McFarlane - My artistic favorite of all-time. I do concede he can't write and I don't like his horror/gore stuff(which is most of the last 20 years), so he drops a smidge.

4) 1991 Rob Liefeld - I love Liefeld's peak in 1991. Don't care that he's gone downhill since. Don't care what he did before. That year, he was a god. Spoon the haters.

Edited by RabidFerret
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SquareChaos

SquareChaos

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Posted
53 minutes ago, J.Sid said:

I wouldn't call them unreadable, but I will say this:

I just picked up the FF Artist Edition a couple weeks ago. There are Kirby pencil notes all over the pages.

I used to think pages with these notes were proof that Kirby should have been given more credit for the stories than Stan. Kirby pretty much wrote everything as well, right? 

Not so. Seeing all these notes together really gave me a good sense of just how much Stan really did contribute. He added a quite a bit of complexity to the scenes and breathed a lot of life into the characters we all love.

(sample panel from the AE)

FF_artist_edition.jpg

From all of my reading, I also feel it was a definite team effort. Kirby is King, but even a King can't do it alone. Kirby's largest successes came as part of a team with Joe and Stan; is it just fashionable these days to suggest Stan contributed little to nothing? (shrug)

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drdroom

drdroom

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Posted
1 hour ago, SquareChaos said:

From all of my reading, I also feel it was a definite team effort. Kirby is King, but even a King can't do it alone. Kirby's largest successes came as part of a team with Joe and Stan; is it just fashionable these days to suggest Stan contributed little to nothing? (shrug)

I certainly wouldn't say that. Stan did serious damage to Kirby's vision for ten long years! That's an indelible mark on comics history :devil:

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malvin

malvin

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, KirbyJack said:

1. Kirby

2. Mignola

3. BWS

4. Ditko

That's today's list. Tomorrow's could be different, but the #1 spot will never change!

with your user name I am surprised it wasn't:

1. Kirby

2. Kirby

3. Kirby

4. Kirby

xD

Malvin

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zhamlau

zhamlau

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Posted

My definition of "Mt Rushmore worthy" is simple: Who is responsible for where we are today? There are guys I might like more but in terms of influence of importance This would be my Rushmore...

1. Jack Kirby: any question really?

2. Neal Adams: Dynamic expressions and body angle and anatomy. Incredible sense of design and flow. He made the world real.

3. Wally Wood: Lighting, drawing of the female form and face, revolutionized how mechanical were rendered as well as cast shadows. Kirby Machinery is really just an interpretation of Wood Machinery (probably learned in Skymasters).

4. Robert Crumb: again, really anyone question this?

5. Sal Buscema: You work at the highest level and have your work still connect with new readers and fans for 50+ years straight, you are on Mt. Rushmore. No other artist has his body of work or decades of being relevant to new and old readers. He is more important than John.

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JadeGiant

JadeGiant

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Posted
2 hours ago, zhamlau said:

Sal Buscema: You work at the highest level and have your work still connect with new readers and fans for 50+ years straight, you are on Mt. Rushmore. No other artist has his body of work or decades of being relevant to new and old readers. He is more important than John.

If I were looking for a new BFF in this hobby, a statement like this would put you at the top of the list. 

 

Well said!

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