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Artists you didn't like at first, but grew to love because...
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49 posts in this topic

As a kid my friends loved Jack Kirby, specifically his 70s stuff— and I just couldn’t see it— the blocky figures and the square fingers bugged me.   Now I’m the biggest Kirby fan in the world.   Same thing with Frank Robbins— I hated his work as a kid— I’d literally groan if I saw he was drawing the inside of a book— but now?   He’s probably my favorite artist of all time— I love his loose inky style.   So much energy.

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Steve Ditko

I started buying Amazing Spider-Man with issue 153 in late 1975 so Ross Andru was my Spider-Man artist.   My first exposure to other artists was through the reprints in Marvel Tales.

Man, I did not enjoy Steve Ditko's work when I was a young boy.  Eventually, I did come to appreciate his work as I grew older.   .  

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Richard Corben. 
When I first saw his work - a story published in Creepy, I believe - I found his work to be awkward and out of place compared to the usual range of style of Warren artists.  At the time I thought it was the worst drawn story in the book.  All of his characters seemed malformed.  As more of his work was published by Warren, I started to appreciate his work.

 

As a side note I think there's a bit of a difference when viewing and critiquing an artists' work in real time as it comes out, as compared to looking at an artists' work in retrospective.

In real-time, I can only compare the art to what has come out before or to what's currently being published.  That's the only comparisons I can make.

When I look at comic art that was published before I started reading comics, or when I look back on an artists' work, I can't help but to compare it to what came after, as well. 
As an example, under this perspective art that now may seem to be derivative may have actually been ground-breaking at the time.

Because of this I know that my perspective of say, the golden age artists that I only first saw while silver age books were being published, would be much different than if I were around reading those books when they first came out in the forties.

 

 

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Rick Leonardi - When I was growing up reading X-men I hated when he filled in on Uncanny.. I called him the bubble man because of how rounded everything was. I think the disdain came from how different he was from the regular run artists on the book then (JRJR Silvestri Lee). Now a  million years later I love his art , how unique his style is and the emotion he conveys.. I chalk it up to dumb kidness.

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9 hours ago, malvin said:

I was just thinking about him for this thread! 

 

Now that I am on a computer instead of a phone and can type things out, for me Sienkiewicz is someone where I didn't like the abstractness of the art when I first saw it but now I appreciate it.  Other artists who are also abstract (Jason Shawn Alexander comes to mind) I also feel the same way.

I can't think of "regular" artist where my views of changed though.  Either it clicks when I first saw it, or it didn't.

Malvin

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53 minutes ago, Unstoppablejayd said:

Rick Leonardi - When I was growing up reading X-men I hated when he filled in on Uncanny.. I called him the bubble man because of how rounded everything was. I think the disdain came from how different he was from the regular run artists on the book then (JRJR Silvestri Lee). Now a  million years later I love his art , how unique his style is and the emotion he conveys.. I chalk it up to dumb kidness.

I saw him at a convention a few years ago
I was browsing his OA Itoya portafolio for sale.

There was not a single piece I have interest to purchase.

He could draw but have not talent IMHO.

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On 8/9/2020 at 5:37 PM, Blastaar said:

Rob Liefeld.

Graduates high school and with NO formal/professional training gets a job with DC at 19. Nobody wanted to work on Hawk and Dove so Mike Carlin gives it to him while telling him nobody else wanted it. He does 5 issues with Carlin telling him how bad he is. Marvel offers him a job around the same time. Within 3 years at Marvel he co-creates a comic at Marvel whose fist issue sells 4 million copies. At 23 when most of us are fresh out of college he partners up and creates the third largest comic book publisher. Even today he is enthusiastic about what he does. He is a comic book fan who would do what any of us would have done and more. I'ts not his fault people gave him jobs and bought his comics.

Did X-Force #1 really sell four million?  The figures I remember being bandied about at the time were closer to half that, which would still be impressive for something so poorly drawn

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On 8/9/2020 at 11:37 AM, Blastaar said:

 

 

 

Calling him the Kurt Cobain of comics is clearly an attempt to trigger me personally. 

I am not giving in to temptation. 

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On 8/9/2020 at 6:26 PM, AndyFish said:

Same thing with Frank Robbins— I hated his work as a kid— I’d literally groan if I saw he was drawing the inside of a book— but now?   He’s probably my favorite artist of all time— I love his loose inky style.   So much energy.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug

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Herb Trimpe -  At first, I saw his style as a Kirby imitator, but over time, learned to appreciate him as one of the definitive artists on Hulk (similar to Romita on Spider-man) and G.I. Joe.  Herb was also one of the few comic artists able to change his style as needed.  His work on Savage Tales was super-detailed and gorgeous and contrasted the blocky style we were used to seeing from him.  He even learned to draw in a "Liefeld" style toward the end of career at Marvel as that was the popular style of the time.  

Also, as I got to know Herb as a friend, I learned to love him as a person... a true great and humble person.

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8 hours ago, Chaykin Stevens said:

Did X-Force #1 really sell four million?  The figures I remember being bandied about at the time were closer to half that, which would still be impressive for something so poorly drawn

It’s hard for me to put too much stock in sales numbers from the early 90’s, since quantity over quality is what lead to Marvel’s bankruptcy. 

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6 hours ago, cloud cloddie said:

It’s hard for me to put too much stock in sales numbers from the early 90’s, since quantity over quality is what lead to Marvel’s bankruptcy. 

I bet if we were all tasked to go find 10 copies of X force #1 within one hour most of us could do it.  

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15 hours ago, comix4fun said:

Calling him the Kurt Cobain of comics is clearly an attempt to trigger me personally. 

I am not giving in to temptation. 

Oh, but the video goes on to compare Liefeld's work to Jack Kirby, and how well he put the lessons of Kirby's art to work as well.

You know you wanna........
 


 

 

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1 hour ago, ESeffinga said:

Oh, but the video goes on to compare Liefeld's work to Jack Kirby, and how well he put the lessons of Kirby's art to work as well.

You know you wanna........
 

hm  Only if he compares their worth ethics to one another. 

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21 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

hm  Only if he compares their worth ethics to one another. 

Well, the video does say that Liefeld was one of the few artists who could come close to matching the speed of Kirby, and if you say something on the internet (especially with an English accent) it's automatically true.

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1 minute ago, CartoonFanboy said:

Well, the video does say that Liefeld was one of the few artists who could come close to matching the speed of Kirby, and if you say something on the internet (especially with an English accent) it's automatically true.

If we're talking speed....then there's a group of serious artists that also merit consideration and comparison.

 

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