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Most Important / Impactful Living Artist
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159 posts in this topic

4 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

The documentary on Crumb was amazing.  He definitely had an "interesting" childhood and his brothers were even more "interesting"

Yeah I saw it too. In fact thanks for bringing it up because it’s time for a rewatch.

His artistic take on the sixties, Whiteman and so forth for me splendid. He seemed more an observer than a drop out devote of the hippies. Allowed him to journal the experiences without blackout whitewashed history.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, batman_fan said:

The documentary on Crumb was amazing.  He definitely had an "interesting" childhood and his brothers were even more "interesting"

One of the best documentaries I've ever seen focusing on a living person. He is shown as a fascinating individual - in every sense of the word - even to those that know nothing about the art.

Worth everyone's time in my opinion.

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I'm not well-versed on the UG creators such as Crumb, Williamson, et al. so I'll leave that for others to determine the greatest amongst the non-mainstream folks.

So, narrowing it down to the single most important living creator today, I personally feel there are only two choices:

1.  Frank Miller - mostly for the reasons already cited in other posts, but also because of his influence in making unique comic book films look and feel like his printed works.  Sin City, the Spirit, and 300 immediately come to mind

2.  Todd McFarlane - his influence on Spiderman and a generation of look-alike artists, establishing a viable option to the Big Two via Image, leading edge colouring on his books, etc.  As a huge Spidey fan, it was difficult to choose Todd over John Romita Sr, but honestly, Mr. Romita is the artist on your father's Spidey, whereas Todd is the relevant artist for folks in their 30's - 50's

Your mileage may vary...

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On 9/13/2019 at 8:42 PM, vodou said:

Dead on. I call this the Thomas Kinkade Standard of Greatness.

image.thumb.png.b9cca66394dab31cd10ef11efc4d93b1.png

See it enough times and surely you will be mesmerized into...buying!

Agreed, using the standard of how much it sells for to determine greatness is off...but clearly its what some folks here use.

 

I will say this for Kincade, a lot of people seem to like his stuff since it sells so well. I dont get it myself, but to each their own.

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45 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

I will say this for Kincade, a lot of people seem to like his stuff since it sells so well.

Probably because it's "easy", not challenging in any way and likely matches just about any middle-class urban or suburban decor one might have.

An interesting thing to figure out would be how much of the business went to interior decorators servicing that sort of clientele: some thousands to spend per piece but zero taste other than non-offensive or challenging in any way? Expand that to doctors, dental, psychiatrist offices too :) in areas where the medium income skews higher than national average.

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My top ten would be this group

Neal Adams, Barry Smith, Jim Steranko, Frank Miller, George Perez, John Romita, Sr., Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Jim Starlin, Ramona Fradon

Fradon may be my top choice as she excelled in as a woman in the what was a male dominated field.  There were other women but since she is still with us, she is my list and I admire her greatly for her art, longevity, and I think inspiration for other women.

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On 9/13/2019 at 9:46 PM, grapeape said:

Yeah I saw it too. In fact thanks for bringing it up because it’s time for a rewatch.

His artistic take on the sixties, Whiteman and so forth for me splendid. He seemed more an observer than a drop out devote of the hippies. Allowed him to journal the experiences without blackout whitewashed history.

 

 

finally watched it as a result of this thread.... great documentary.   

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1 hour ago, vodou said:

Wow. Really? This thing is ancient. Did you find R.Crumb to turn out to be the only sane one in the family? I did.

I have to wonder what you even mean by 'sane' here. There certainly must have been something about the environment the Crumbs were raised in.

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6 hours ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

 

2.  Todd McFarlane - his influence on Spiderman and a generation of look-alike artists, establishing a viable option to the Big Two via Image, leading edge colouring on his books, etc.  As a huge Spidey fan, it was difficult to choose Todd over John Romita Sr, but honestly, Mr. Romita is the artist on your father's Spidey, whereas Todd is the relevant artist for folks in their 30's - 50's

Your mileage may vary...

Yeah, the importance of the creation of Image cannot be overstated. 

And you didn’t even mention Spawn, which in two weeks will be the longest-lived creator-owned comic when issue #301 hits the stands 

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30 minutes ago, jjonahjameson11 said:

Correct, it's Cerebus.

Funny -- the first article I just looked at put some asterisks on that: https://www.polygon.com/comics/2019/5/20/18632646/spawn-300-todd-mcfarlane-image-comics-anniversary

I didn't know about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Also Dave Sim wrote and drew every issue of Cerebus, right? I mean -- with help.  Sounds like Todd has been an absentee landlord at times?  I haven't been following. 

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5 hours ago, glendgold said:

Funny -- the first article I just looked at put some asterisks on that: https://www.polygon.com/comics/2019/5/20/18632646/spawn-300-todd-mcfarlane-image-comics-anniversary

I didn't know about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Also Dave Sim wrote and drew every issue of Cerebus, right? I mean -- with help.  Sounds like Todd has been an absentee landlord at times?  I haven't been following. 

Somewhere between "absentee landlord" and what Dave Sim did.

He's been involved, if not responsible for story pretty much throughout. (and gotten full writing credit on numerous issues)
He's also inked/finished the majority of the pages, albeit digitally.  (don't know how many, but easily more than half)
...And he's done a lot of covers.

 

 

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Sure, but the metric is different.

It's one thing to have written and drawn a comic for 300 issues. And something else to own the title, and have drawn or been involved in the drawing/inking of "easily more than half".
Maybe that's just my opinion, but I see them as distinctly different things.

That said, in today's marketplace, to be able to a keep a title in print for that long is in and of itself quite a feat. I feel like most comic titles today barely last longer than 2 or 3 trades before they hang up the spurs. Attention spans being what they are.
But keeping a title in print, creator owned or otherwise, is not even close to the same as writing & drawing every single issue for 300+ issues, like Araki's Jojo or Sim's Cerebus.

Interestingly, I've read that like Sim and Gerhard, Araki has used assistants, so he draws all the main characters and his assistants handle the background chores.

 

 

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3 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

Sure, but the metric is different.

It's real different.

Sim's Cerebus survived the 1980s b/w crash, then the mid-1990s gimmick implosion, making it all the way to 2004, accomplishing an earlier and publicly stated planned death to the book. I don't know but maybe declining sale would have lead it there anyway (was it still popular after that long, really?)

Nonetheless, I agree that keeping any book "in print" and really "selling enough" to justify "in print" (I really doubt McF would have kept making them at a loss just to hit 301!) these days is something else. The market is scattered (shattered?). Captain America and a million other heroes of days past not named Batman or appearing in Detective Comics get reboot #1's every few years, or just end at an arc closure never to return, Big Two, Big Indy, fer sure Little Indy...all the same fate. Issue #301 is definitely something to talk about, but it ain't Sim's 300 issues of Cerebus.

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15 hours ago, J.Sid said:

Yeah, the importance of the creation of Image cannot be overstated. 

And you didn’t even mention Spawn, which in two weeks will be the longest-lived creator-owned comic when issue #301 hits the stands 

Agreed about Image. Regarding Spawn however, I'm far more impressed by the fact that Erik Larsen has written and drawn all 245 issues in on the Savage Dragon. In my opinion, if Larsen crosses the 300 issue threshold with that title, it's a much greater accomplishment. 

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