Coffee Talk #410: Who’s Your Favorite Comic-Book Artist?

Today’s Coffee Talk was inspired by a post from RPadholic Thundercracker and seconded by N8R. The former asked me about my favorite comic-book artist and the latter suggested that the topic should get its own Coffee Talk. Well here it…

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, waiting for a shipment from a certain fruit company, Bill Simmons’ theory of Tom Hanks’ two careers mirroring Michael Jordan’s, or where the hell Dennis Miller is these days, Coffee Talk is the place to do it. 

Today’s Coffee Talk was inspired by a post from RPadholic Thundercracker and seconded by N8R. The former asked me about my favorite comic-book artist and the latter suggested that the topic should get its own Coffee Talk. Well here it is! Unfortunately, I don’t have much to contribute. I enjoy looking at comic-book art and appreciate it, but I’m so awful at drawing that a lot of it is beyond me. I like to write and reading is one of the best ways to improve writing. For example, my blogging style is influenced by the writing of Mark Waid, Peter David, and Brian Michael Bendis (love my parenthesis!).

As far as artists go, I dig the technical proficiency of guys like Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane. That said, I enjoy Frank Miller’s stuff too; his pencils aren’t the sharpest, but his style is so distinct. I like artists that use exaggerated styles like Ed McGuiness and Humberto Ramos. Mark Waid’s comedic writing in Impulse was perfectly complemented by Ramos’ playful art style. Of course I love Alex Ross’ paintings. Should I win the lottery, I would pay Ross to paint one of my walls.

Now it’s your turn! Who are some of your favorite comic-book artists?

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

26 thoughts on “Coffee Talk #410: Who’s Your Favorite Comic-Book Artist?”

  1. Of course i dig Jim Lee and Mcfarlane, both are capable of drawing Psylocke and Rogue VERY well…maybe..too well?

    lol

    As i stated yesterday, i really like Simon Bisley. His paintings actually remind me of the Renaissance masters. You can clearly see the influence, very rough, very organic. I also used to read Lobo when i was a child, and NO one illustrated Lobo like Bisley could.

    I really cant argue with Alex Ross either

    1. Curious….wouldn't that pretty much be a Bionic with a new name if released on Verizon? Moto is strange…the Photon, Atrix, Bionic, X, X2, Droid…etc. So many diff devices where most are relatively close in terms of design.

      Perhaps this one differentiates itself? The bionic is LTE, the X2 isn't. I think it would be hard to tell the difference if the two were sitting on a table. (i'm not a fan of qHD screens yet)

      3. That's the word on the street. It should be light and durable. I don't know how kevlar behaves with sign compared to plastic or glass though. I'm also unaware if kevlar weave has the same brittleness issues as carbon fiber.

  3. I'm going to use "artist" as an all-encompassing term here … and I've got a few favorites. Sure, I could go with the usual suspects … people like Frank Miller, Alex Ross, Peter David, Mark Waid, etc., but I think there's a hell of a lot of talent out there that slips under the radar more often than not.

    In terms of writing, a couple of my personal favorites have been Paul Jenkins and James Robinson. Robinson's Starman was phenomenal and his recent work on Shade proves he's still great. And, in my own personal opinion, Jenkins has been writing deep characters as long as I can remember.

    As far as the visual side goes, I'm all over the place here. Cully Hamner does some great, clean, sharp imagery with a very distinct style. One of my good friends, Randy Green, is also a phenomenal artist with a cool animated style. Michael Turner and Mike Wieringo were also great talents whose presence will be sorely missed.

      2. For sure. I've been writing about DC stuff mostly with The New 52, but I'm mildly interested in X-Men: Regenesis and want to get back into the Ultimate Comics stuff.

  4. Well, I mentioned Alex Ross yesterday because the guy is in a league of his own. A graphic novel that can also double up as an oil panting is just classy. If I can hit the powerball this weekend, I'll definitely call him up to not only do a wall in my house, but I'm going to give him his own art gallery in downtown as well.

    Thinking about it a bit more, I have to say that as a "traditional" comic book artist, I like Mark Bagley. Now, this could be influenced by Brian Michael Bendis since the two were together for over 100 issues of Ultimate Spiderman and I did like Bendis' stories, but even with out the words, Bagley did a great job of illustrating people and situations. I think Bagley translates body language into a visual format very well. When you look at a character on a page and can tell they are being sarcastic by the expression on their face, that is some great talent, right there.

    <img src="http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/40/853853-batman689pg18_super.jpg"&gt;

    <img src="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~superman/blogimages/ultimatespiderman66.jpg"&gt;

    -M

  5. I don't really like comics, guess I'm the odd man out. I am trying to fit in though, I am going to try and read Preacher.

    Wait, I lied, I LOVE The Walking Dead graphic novels. That's about it.

    1. I'm not too big on comics as much as others here are either. I liked the L4D comics and the artwork that everyone else talks about looks cool, but I'm not really interested in this stuff to pay too much attention to it. I like Spider-Man a lot, but never read many of the comics. Couldn't ever spend the money on them, and when I could there was always something else I wanted more.

  8. Also implemented a "share on Facebook" option for comments. It pops up after you've submitted the comment. Not sure if I like that feature, but it could be fun for a certain RPadholic that's battling another RPadholic in a game that sounds like Plortal Wombat. Since one of those guys is on Facebook and the other isn't, posting taunts would be extra funny.

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