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Pacra
Aug 5, 2004

I've always loved the funny panels, badass moments, and panel recommendation threads. They've always been a mainstay of BSS when I visit, and I'll have them perennially bookmarked. I've often wondered why there wasn't an image-thread of the worst, or conversely best, art to grace the comic book world; so here, enjoy!
I'll start things off with some of the more obvious ones; it's not a complete list by far, and I'd love to hear/see other people's predilections.

The Worst

Who else could I start with, but by presenting a simple smattering of awful work by the anatomy-eschewing Rob Liefeld? Only Captain America here, with possibly his most famous and egregious work:



Followed by two (Sears- funtax) works that don't look like any Cap I know.





Next up is fairly recent, Sal Larocca's alternate perspective-bending cover for house of M:



Following up with Igor Kordey's mind-boggling Wolverine and Gladiator faces :pwn:



And ending this edition with Dan Jurgen's appalling lack of perspective in the Death of Superman arc:



The Best
After all, gotta balance out the abominations with some really wonderful visual treats.

I've always been partial to cover artist Jeremy Robert's timeless depiction of Captain America:


Marc Silverstri captures Batman as the human pinnacle, technocrat-cum-detective so well:


And Cassaday captures the feel of the X-Men better than anyone else I've read.



Feel free to add your opinions of the best, or worst.
Please, if you're going to reply, contribute at least one work of good/bad art.
If mods require each image to have a description of the book they came from, I'll edit to suit that rule.

Pacra fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Mar 30, 2011

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Mr Wind Up Bird
Jan 23, 2004

i'm a goddamn coward
but then again so are you
Superhero artwork is so boring. And while there are so problems with the art on Death of Superman it also kind of owns in a different way if you pay attention to how it builds and how the panel size changes until it's basically all splash pages as they beat on each other. It's not really groundbreaking storytelling, but it's kind of fun to watch.

Bad art is easy to spot because it's distracting or silly or, even worse, totally uninteresting. Boring art is never ok. You are drawing characters that can do anything and it's boring???? Ugh back onto the shelf you go. Picking on Rob Liefeld is easy and you know what? It's played out. If you are looking at his art you are reading a bad book stop it. Don't buy ugly books.

I think that it's a mistake to say that in order for something to be "good" art it has to look like it was drawn in the Renaissance. And so much depends on the whole team behind the art. Scott Kolins can look like a totally different artist depending on who is inking.

Anywhere here are some artists I dig:

James Stokoe



The first thing you notice when you pick up Orc Stain is how colorful everything is. But when you look a little closer you can see how tight his pencils are and how effective he is at conveying action. I kind of feel like he's drawing a lot from Kirby and Darrow but he does while feeling unique and fun. Also he does everything for Orc Stain! That poo poo is nuts!

Juanjo Guarnido



The Blacksad books are basically the best combinations of euro and american comics. Super crisp lines with beautiful watercolors on some of the most expressive and interesting looking characters I've ever seen in a comic. Wonderful noir style, fantastic story telling. Great great books in general.

Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa



More euro comics. They do such a good job with panel composition and creating expressive cartoon characters. Noa in sky doll is so expressive from her giant Disney eyes to her posture to her outfits. The amount of work that they put towards making her sexy without being sexual is something a hack like Ed Benes couldn't ever do in a billion loving years.

As far as bad art goes just pick up a floppy from just about any of the big 2. It's uninspired, flat, and totally lifeless. Occasionally a light shines though like Amanda Conner or Doug Mahnke but for the most part it's all interchangeable and people just eat that poo poo up I guess. Whatever.

funtax
Feb 28, 2001
Forum Veteran

Pacra posted:

Followed by two more Liefeld works that don't look like any Cap I know.





These two are actually by Bart Sears, I believe. He's always had an over-the-top style, but he appears to have gone completely nuts in recent years.

Echoing Stokoe:



The original artwork is apparently four feet tall. His "Orc Stain" is a word of lunatic genius:

Ka0
Sep 16, 2002

:siren: :siren: :siren:
AS A PROUD GAMERGATER THE ONLY THING I HATE MORE THAN WOMEN ARE GAYS AND TRANS PEOPLE
:siren: :siren: :siren:
I do enjoy Olivier Coipel's Thor:



as well as Meynerding's Avengers.

I loathe Joe Madureira. I'm alone on this, but I've never been able to digest his way of depicting expressions. I do not care much for his deformed stylizations either.



I know it's not as bad as Liefeld's "sucking lemons/no feet" but decidedly dislike it.

Ka0 fucked around with this message at 18:04 on May 16, 2011

Semper Fudge
Feb 19, 2009

Pitchfork was wrong. (f)lowers of Algerbong is crap.
More love for Stokoe, I honestly cannot remember a comic in recent years that I've enjoyed as thoroughly as I have Orc Stain. Every page of that book sings gloriously and it's not just the fact that he's an incredible artist, with an eye for detail. But, the designs and the concepts and all of the psychedelic creatures he comes up with just add to the fancy. It's easily the best book on the stands and the fact that James apparently cannot make a living off of his art is the saddest thing in the universe.

http://oi51.tinypic.com/1ya2cm.jpg

Nawid
Mar 27, 2011

Ka0 posted:

I do enjoy Olivier Coipel's Thor:



I believe that's Travis Charest. This is Coipel:

He is quite good.

Ka0
Sep 16, 2002

:siren: :siren: :siren:
AS A PROUD GAMERGATER THE ONLY THING I HATE MORE THAN WOMEN ARE GAYS AND TRANS PEOPLE
:siren: :siren: :siren:
Oh my mistake, yes he is.

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009

Mr Wind Up Bird posted:

Superhero artwork is so boring. And while there are so problems with the art on Death of Superman it also kind of owns in a different way if you pay attention to how it builds and how the panel size changes until it's basically all splash pages as they beat on each other. It's not really groundbreaking storytelling, but it's kind of fun to watch.

Bad art is easy to spot because it's distracting or silly or, even worse, totally uninteresting. Boring art is never ok. You are drawing characters that can do anything and it's boring???? Ugh back onto the shelf you go. Picking on Rob Liefeld is easy and you know what? It's played out. If you are looking at his art you are reading a bad book stop it. Don't buy ugly books.

I think that it's a mistake to say that in order for something to be "good" art it has to look like it was drawn in the Renaissance. And so much depends on the whole team behind the art. Scott Kolins can look like a totally different artist depending on who is inking.

Anywhere here are some artists I dig:

James Stokoe



The first thing you notice when you pick up Orc Stain is how colorful everything is. But when you look a little closer you can see how tight his pencils are and how effective he is at conveying action. I kind of feel like he's drawing a lot from Kirby and Darrow but he does while feeling unique and fun. Also he does everything for Orc Stain! That poo poo is nuts!

Juanjo Guarnido



The Blacksad books are basically the best combinations of euro and american comics. Super crisp lines with beautiful watercolors on some of the most expressive and interesting looking characters I've ever seen in a comic. Wonderful noir style, fantastic story telling. Great great books in general.

Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa



More euro comics. They do such a good job with panel composition and creating expressive cartoon characters. Noa in sky doll is so expressive from her giant Disney eyes to her posture to her outfits. The amount of work that they put towards making her sexy without being sexual is something a hack like Ed Benes couldn't ever do in a billion loving years.

As far as bad art goes just pick up a floppy from just about any of the big 2. It's uninspired, flat, and totally lifeless. Occasionally a light shines though like Amanda Conner or Doug Mahnke but for the most part it's all interchangeable and people just eat that poo poo up I guess. Whatever.

I think this is being WAY too focused on genre, not content. Not to mention that a lot of the good artists you mention only produce something every 3-6 months. Which is wonderful, but not quite the same as producing something every 3 weeks. Plus, Rafael Albuqurque, Marcos Martin, JHW3, JRJr, Emma Rios, Amanda Connor, Tim Sale, Alex Maleev, Adam Warren... All working on cape books and all incredibly talented, and that's far from a comprehensive list. A good artist is a good artist. Hell, Brothers wrote a glowing review of Kaare Andrews X-Men work recently, which is not your 'bland' Big 2 style (even if I think the stylisation crosses into the grotesque and caricature-ish, and not in the good way).

Mr Wind Up Bird
Jan 23, 2004

i'm a goddamn coward
but then again so are you
I guess I came off kind of harsh on cape book artists but I was just trying to showcase some other unique talents. Cape books can have amazing art, and often do. Frank Quietly is responsible for my all time favorite comics, all of which are superhero books. I break out my New Teen Titans archive editions and flip though them just to look at George Perez's art.

And a lot of the guys you listed are agonizingly slow as well. We get one Empowered book a year, maybe. Batwoman has been nothing but delays and re-solicitations. Kick rear end 2 #1 came out in October. Amanda Conner hasn't done anything I'm aware of since her story in Wonder Woman #600.

Mr Wind Up Bird fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Mar 30, 2011

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009
Well, to be fair, Romita's also doing Avengers and Empowered is around 200 pages of material each time, which is close to 9 or 10 issues, so it's not like Warren's not productive.

ChuckDHead
Dec 18, 2006

Mr Wind Up Bird posted:

And a lot of the guys you listed are agonizingly slow as well. We get one Empowered book a year, maybe. Batwoman has been nothing but delays and re-solicitations. Kick rear end 2 #1 came out in October. Amanda Conner hasn't done anything I'm aware of since her story in Wonder Woman #600.

Romita's actually meant to be quite fast, in part due to his very functional style. Kick-rear end 2's release is slow partly due to the fact Millar's putting it out in 8-page instalments in his CLiNT anthology over here in the UK (Kick-rear end 2 is the book's main draw, after all), so it takes about 4 months to get one US-sized issue out.

To contribute, personally I consider Mark Bagley to have some of the most consistently excellent work in comics, and was sad to see him leave Ultimate Spider-Man. But one artist who I did accept happily during his time away from USM was Stuart Immonen.

His work on Nextwave was fantastic, and I don't think there's anyone whose style could have suited the book better. He has this wonderful cartoonish, edgy style that really works with with the book's colour palette and general tone.

And man can he draw a splash panel:

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

Mr Wind Up Bird posted:

I guess I came off kind of harsh on cape book artists but I was just trying to showcase some other unique talents. Cape books can have amazing art, and often do. Frank Quietly is responsible for my all time favorite comics, all of which are superhero books. I break out my New Teen Titans archive editions and flip though them just to look at George Perez's art.

And a lot of the guys you listed are agonizingly slow as well. We get one Empowered book a year, maybe. Batwoman has been nothing but delays and re-solicitations. Kick rear end 2 #1 came out in October. Amanda Conner hasn't done anything I'm aware of since her story in Wonder Woman #600.

I actually asked Conner about this last year at SDCC because she had just come off of Powergirl and basically had nothing else on her plate. She said something along the lines of not having time to do 22 pages of interiors and felt it was better if she instead just did covers. It's unfortunate because the first 12 issues of Powergirl are some shining examples of awesome vibrant fun art you'll find these days.

Also James Stokoe always reminds me of a more detailed Skottie Young.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Pacra posted:



Following up with Igor Kordey's mind-boggling Wolverine and Gladiator faces :pwn:
His Emma Frost is pretty bad too:


I'm also not a big fan of Jeanty's art in Buffy, it looks really flat and lifeless:


I'm a really big fan of Enki Bilal though. He has really distinct style and some of his art is gorgeous. The Beast Tetralogy is probably his best work artwise:



Grzegorz Rosiński is another artist I really dig:

Alhazred fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Apr 4, 2011

Bigass Moth
Mar 6, 2004

I joined the #RXT REVOLUTION.
:boom:
he knows...
Worst: S.Platt Steven Platt's "everyone must have huge guns, fanny packs and belts" art style of the mid 90s that inspired a million Image and Dark Horse comics with "Death" and/or "Blood" in the title. Certainly not a bad artist by any means, but his style ushered in a terrible era in comic art.

Best: Peter Bergting (especially for his fantasy/role playing work in Shadowrun sourcebooks). I guess he's doing comics now but I haven't seen them. As for regular comics art it's hard to go wrong with Alex Ross' depictions of anyone.

Semper Fudge
Feb 19, 2009

Pitchfork was wrong. (f)lowers of Algerbong is crap.

Nawid posted:

He is quite good.

Not really a fan of Coipel, though I'm judging him mostly on Siege. His panels are big and wide shot, but they're completely devoid of scenery and come off as empty and a waste of panel space. He can draw a mean Thor, but his action scenes are stiff and lifeless. Also, every other page seemed to have a dust cloud being kicked up that only existed as a means of obscuring a characters' feet. I like his faces and I've seen him do a couple of impressive things in Thor, but he just bores me when he doesn't give that little bit of effort.

Crisco Kid
Jan 14, 2008

Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book?
More love for Stokoe! Another recent favorite of mine is Rafael Grampá. He only got into comic art in the last 2 or 3 years, though, so keep your eyes peeled for his work - busy, crunchy lines with a muted palette.

From Marvel's Strange Tales II, issue 1. He drew the cover and an 8 page story.


Hellblazer #205 (won him an Eisner)


Mesmo Delivery, 2008





I also like Cameron Stewart a lot, but I think color ruins his work. :(
Batman & Robin 16, Grant Morrison run

Dacap
Jul 8, 2008

I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower.

You have more fun as a follower. But you make more money as a leader.



For Best, I always love me some Mike Allred



Jae Lee does some beautiful work as well



For Awful, I've got t go with Larry Stroman, keep in mind that this is supposed to be a the X-Men character Bishop as a baby and not a thalidomide child or something like that.

Madkal
Feb 11, 2008

I believe in all the ways that they say you can lose your body
Fallen Rib

Dacap posted:



For Awful, I've got t go with Larry Stroman, keep in mind that this is supposed to be a the X-Men character Bishop as a baby and not a thalidomide child or something like that.



Stroman nearly made me give up on X-Factor. I have been following the title via trades and his arc was just painful to read/see.

Big Bad Voodoo Lou
Jan 1, 2006

Madkal posted:

Stroman nearly made me give up on X-Factor. I have been following the title via trades and his arc was just painful to read/see.

I loved the first five X-Factor trades, but when Stroman came aboard in volume 6, I lost interest in the series completely. I've read it since he left, but it hasn't been the same for me.

NoneMoreNegative
Jul 20, 2000
GOTH FASCISTIC
PAIN
MASTER




shit wizard dad

Who was the feller who took over artwork on Punisher MAX for I think one or two issues and it was unbelievably bad? I can only imagine the sales numbers falling through the floor with a loud crunch :)

redbackground
Sep 24, 2007

BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!
Grimey Drawer

NoneMoreNegative posted:

Who was the feller who took over artwork on Punisher MAX for I think one or two issues and it was unbelievably bad? I can only imagine the sales numbers falling through the floor with a loud crunch :)
You mean Howard Chaykin on #50?

NoneMoreNegative
Jul 20, 2000
GOTH FASCISTIC
PAIN
MASTER




shit wizard dad

redbackground posted:

You mean Howard Chaykin on #50?

Aye, thats the one... After a quick google its not as terrible as I remember; I think it coming after a run of 49 really grim and gritty issues of artwork it was just a bit 'oh' at the time :o:

Haledjian
May 29, 2008

YOU CAN'T MOVE WITH ME IN THIS DIGITAL SPACE

Mr Wind Up Bird posted:

Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa



More euro comics. They do such a good job with panel composition and creating expressive cartoon characters. Noa in sky doll is so expressive from her giant Disney eyes to her posture to her outfits. The amount of work that they put towards making her sexy without being sexual is something a hack like Ed Benes couldn't ever do in a billion loving years.

Cosigning this, just checked this series out like last week and it's not only way less creepy than I thought it would be but totally gorgeous. The faces are great, but I also loved the backdrops and the color especially. Took me a while to get through cause I spent so much time looking at each page. Is it supposed to be continued or something?

Dr. Notadoctor
Aug 26, 2008

funtax posted:

Echoing Stokoe:




Holy poo poo! Galactus has always looked really goofy to me. I always thought he was an effective villain and his design definitely made him imposing, but he just looked...well...silly. This guy actually made him look cool while keeping the original design! D: this is loving awesome!

Also as for best, I can't believe I haven't seen Alex Ross here yet:



Dave McKean gets the prize for probably the scariest drawings of the joker I've ever seen:



Also Adi Granov's stuff is beautiful:




worst:

Lary Stroman. Wow. At first glance this doesn't look so terrible. I mean the back looks hosed up but it doesn't seem too bad, just some weird stylized art. But then you look again and start to see just how awful everything here is. The faces are hosed up, the postures are weird, their eyes don't exist...I poo poo you not I see something new that sucks about this thing every single time I look at it.



Deitric Smith. I cannot stop laughing at this hair. I mean look at it!



Also I don't know who drew this, but this poor woman! Her back is about to snap in two!

funtax
Feb 28, 2001
Forum Veteran
That's from Mark Bagley - who can either be awesome or terrible depending on who's inking him and how rushed he is.

Fish Of Doom
Aug 18, 2004
I'm too awake for this to be a nightmare


Efilnikufesin posted:


Deitric Smith. I cannot stop laughing at this hair. I mean look at it!



The entire era of 90's comic can be summed up in this one image. If only he had a few pouches.

Fish Of Doom fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Apr 2, 2011

Myrddin Emrys
Jul 3, 2003

Ho ho ho, Pac-man!

Fish Of Doom posted:

The entire era of 90's comic can be summed up in this one image. If only he had a few pouches.

Are... are his claws coming out from the space between your fingers? :psyduck:

The_Rob
Feb 1, 2007

musicals are garbage

Ka0 posted:







This looks like the knockoff art you see on the side of a funhouse in a parking lot carnival.

I love Frank Quitley. He has such a cool stylized art style. I loved every issue he drew of Batman and Robin, and his artwork for All Star Superman has become iconic.



fritz
Jul 26, 2003

Gaz-L posted:

Not to mention that a lot of the good artists you mention only produce something every 3-6 months. Which is wonderful, but not quite the same as producing something every 3 weeks.

It's "Worst/Best comic book art example thread", not "Worst/Best comic book art example thread (high volume output edition) "

And anyway, Jim Woodring:

Only registered members can see post attachments!

ShineDog
May 21, 2007
It is inevitable!

The_Rob posted:

This looks like the knockoff art you see on the side of a funhouse in a parking lot carnival.

I love Frank Quitley. He has such a cool stylized art style. I loved every issue he drew of Batman and Robin, and his artwork for All Star Superman has become iconic.





He can be a fantastic artist, but sometimes it seems like the dude can only draw one face, whether it's a man or woman. His run on The Authority was just comically bad.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
His run on the the Authority is the only reason to read that piece of poo poo.

redbackground
Sep 24, 2007

BEHOLD!
OPTIC BLAST!
Grimey Drawer

ShineDog posted:

His run on The Authority was just comically bad.
That isn't true at all.

Madkal
Feb 11, 2008

I believe in all the ways that they say you can lose your body
Fallen Rib
My taste in artists range quite a bit. I love Jim Lee who has a very traditional approach to the artwork. Despite having a lot of imitators I think he still has a very unique a cool style.



I love the weirdness that is Kelly Jones, and really consider him one of the best Batman artists. His style is very exaggerated and weird, and may not be anatomically correct, but it is more of a style choice than lovely artwork. His work on Batman was dark and more gothic than straightforwward which worked well for Batman vs Draculla: Blood Rain



Another favourite is Sam Kieth who also works in exaggerated forms and such. What I love about his artwork is that it can come across both as cartoony and dark/scary at the same time.



The only problem with Kieth is that his artwork can be a bit scratchy at times making it look a bit incomprehensible. Some panels will be beautiful and others will look like random pencil lines.

Pacra
Aug 5, 2004

redbackground posted:

That isn't true at all.

I dunno, I can see the reasoning behind "Can only draw one face"


Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Madkal posted:

My taste in artists range quite a bit. I love Jim Lee who has a very traditional approach to the artwork. Despite having a lot of imitators I think he still has a very unique a cool style.

Have to say that I don't see the why so many love Jim Lee. Technically he's good but I don't see how he's unique. I just find his art very generic.

Madkal
Feb 11, 2008

I believe in all the ways that they say you can lose your body
Fallen Rib

Alhazred posted:

Have to say that I don't see the why so many love Jim Lee. Technically he's good but I don't see how he's unique. I just find his art very generic.

I can understand this and I can see why people say this. For me he has a very traditional style. His artwork isn't trying to be more than it is. He is doing artwork for superhero comic books and it doesn't try to be anything else. For this I think he does a very good job.

Beanpants
Oct 27, 2004

Alhazred posted:

I just find his art very generic.

It seems generic because over half of the industry has spent the last 20 years doing their best (worst) Jim Lee impression, so his style is now ubiquitous. I'm not the biggest fan of his, but for better or worse, he set the tone for American comic art for a long time after he hit the scene.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




Beanpants posted:

It seems generic because over half of the industry has spent the last 20 years doing their best (worst) Jim Lee impression, so his style is now ubiquitous.

I don't if I really agree with that. I hadn't even read that many superhero comics before I was exposed to Lee's art. The first "real" Batman comic I read was probably Hush. And while the art certainly wasn't bad it didn't really strike me as unique either.

Ka0
Sep 16, 2002

:siren: :siren: :siren:
AS A PROUD GAMERGATER THE ONLY THING I HATE MORE THAN WOMEN ARE GAYS AND TRANS PEOPLE
:siren: :siren: :siren:

Alhazred posted:

I don't if I really agree with that. I hadn't even read that many superhero comics before I was exposed to Lee's art. The first "real" Batman comic I read was probably Hush. And while the art certainly wasn't bad it didn't really strike me as unique either.

Could we please shy away from taste discussion? obviously some people are going to rub certain folks' favorite artists but this thread is just for providing examples.

Here are Jeremy Roberts' Avengers:



and some random Madureira bullshit I looked up:

Ka0 fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Apr 4, 2011

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ShineDog
May 21, 2007
It is inevitable!

redbackground posted:

That isn't true at all.

I'm mainly blaming the appalling faces here, the rest of it was fine, but god drat those faces were a real laugh.

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