brayzie

When Davis and Neary were on Detective they were criticized in the letter columns for their illustrations being too cartoony. I can see that, but I wouldn't see it as a weakness. It comes across to me as more fluid, more "animated" than cartoony. Davis + Farmer comes across as more weighted and slightly more realistic due to the extra details. The details in the face of Omac in the above illustration look almost like Neal Adams' work.

As a kid I thought McFarlane's Spider-man work was ultra realistic. By the time he did Spawn I realized his work was very stylized and exaggerated. Jim Lee was/is awesome but there wasn't much variation in his faces and body types.
Brian Bolland to me was always the ideal superhero artist for realism.
Whilce Portacio was really good on X-Factor, Wetworks, and Iron Man.
Humberto Ramos was really good on Impulse and his style fit the tone of the book. But I feel like his later work became way too stylized. His Spider-man didn't even have cartoony fingers, just stubs.

I kind of wished that a lot of those Image artists would have stayed with Marvel a little longer. Their flashy contemporary style and designs, combined with classic characters and solid stories would have been great. During that time, it seemed like the art quality at Marvel took a decline, and most of the Image books weren't worth reading.

fujishig

Nah, they were right to leave at the height of their popularity and the height of the speculator market... they were never going to be hotter than that. Every single one of them, even Valentino, was working on a hot book at the time. Now they absolutely weren't ready for it, and you can see it in their output upon coming to Image... there were a lot of growing pains with scheduling, writing/plotting, building a studio, distribution, etc. But they set a foundation for creator owned comics that Image has morphed into today, where they barely even do superhero stuff anymore.

brayzie

For them yeah, it was the right choice. I'm talking about me as a reader.
The vast majority of all those initial Image comics I bought were awful. And not only that, but I don't think many of those initial founders respected the storytelling craft at the time. With the exception of Savage Dragon and Spawn, I never really knew what was going on in any of the other titles. Production quality-wise, Image comics looked beautiful, from the art, coloring, lettering, and even the quality of paper. Marvel and DC look so bummy in comparison.

fujishig

I guess what I was saying was that in the long run, them leaving, even though the narrative was about splash pages and late books, made a mark on comic book publishing for the better.

But Marvel was already giving them a ton of run in the books. If you remember before they left, McFarlane was basically writing Spider-man and Lee/Silvestri/Portacio/Liefeld were basically writing the x books. The editors would have probably kept them on a more regular publishing schedule, but the lack of storytelling and use of flash would've been a problem regardless.

brayzie

Yeah. The business model for artists and writers at DC and Marvel creating characters and stories "in universe" is bullshit when you think about it.

I forgot about that.
Well then, I wish they would have stayed at Marvel for a little longer, and paired up with quality writers. Whilce Portacio on Spider-man 2099 for example. I enjoy Rick Leonardi's work, but I think the aesthetic of the Image guys would have worked better for the 2099 line.

Red Hood

My understanding was that there was a typical clash between the Image guys (McFarlane, Lee, Liefeld) and the old school creators and editors. I believe that the Image documentary talks about this more, but as you can see in the Bob McLeod interview, there was a rift between the new and old generation.

Red Hood

I didn't know how bad Portacio had become after the coma. This is from Major X #3 released last month

whotony

Red Hood

I copied the link from Liefeld but it seems that the original tweet showing the page got deleted as the guy was basically bashing Rob and got embarrassed publicly when he had the wrong artist

brayzie

I prefer style and detail over a cookie-cutter "Marvel style."
But I can definitely see the problems that came from the "hot" artists of the early 90s and onward. All the Image guys had problems getting their own comics out on time. I remember in the 2000s the All-Star line was created at DC as a showcase for top shelf talent. It was bi-monthly to give artists like Frank Quitely and Jim Lee some extra time and they still were late at times. I think it took Frank Cho 6 months to do one issue of Avengers or Hulk.

slop101

The king of all highly-detailed superstar artists...

Why So Blu?

I was never really that much of a fan of BWS. I didn't like how he drew faces - they all had this weird squareness to them. As far as that picture, it's mostly the way it's colored that makes it look much more detailed than it is. Is there a black and white only version of that? That'll show you how detailed it really is.

whotony

slop101

Not for that, but he has plenty of B&W, even comic art, that's super detailed. And for me, it's not even his detail, but anatomy, and how he depicts movement, where his characters appear as if they're moving even in still panels...

Why So Blu?

I like the first two ^ but that 3rd one is way too busy.

B5Erik

To me, you never need more detail than this...




Any more detail becomes extraneous and messy, unless drawn by someone better than a Liefeld or a McFarlane. Even Neal Adams wasn't a ton more detailed than that, and he was one of the all time greats. Most of the time less is more. Not all of the time, but most of the time.

Trevor

I’m not at all a Liefeld fan, but I think I’d rather read more of his books than Jim Lee again. Not sure how to explain it, but I’d rather see something with heart than all shiny and “company”.

Why So Blu?

I think Lee is a much better writer and storyteller than Liefeld ever was.

Trevor

Liefeld has never done anything I enjoy.

Red Hood

Just finished watching this 5 part doc by Sci-Fy on Image and it was pretty good, although it completely skipped on Liefeld's alleged embezzlement problems that caused him to be pushed out of the company.

Why So Blu?

Never heard that Rob embezzeled money. I did hear that he would try and poach other artists. I remember when he went after Michael Turner. I also remember when he was paying Stephen Platt 40k PER issue of Prophet and SPLATT still couldn't deliver issues on time. I remember there was a full page insert/apology saying "Due to the tardiness of the artist, the next issue will be delayed" until who knows when. Then there was drama with SPLATT that he never got to release the final installment of Soul Saga because shit got heated with Rob and Rob owns the series.

Red Hood

The story I've heard was that Rob got behind in paying talent so instead of using his money, he used without authorization, money from the Image account to pay them. Since Rob was the CEO and CFO of the company, he had direct access to the money. The Image Revolution doc, which is on Amazon Prime, talks about getting behind on payments but not on the embezzling. Again, his departure of Image gets a little fuzzy on this doc too.

B5Erik

Most of the Image art hasn't aged well for me. Of course, the biggest problem with Image was that all the talent that started the company were artists, not writers, that, and once they had Marvel off their backs when it came to deadlines they really got out of control on the art. The art became overblown, and deadlines were then blown. Marvel kept them reined in for the most part, which made for better art in a lot of ways.

Why So Blu?

I will say that after Jim Lee went on a sabbatical (mid-90's?) and eventually sold Wildstorm off to DC, his style was not as tight as it used to be in the beginning. It was way looser, but I understand, he became uber wealthy and could really kick back. He burned the candle at both ends for quite a long time. With McFarlane, he moved into toys and merchandising and also delegated tasks and the business. He didn't necessarily have to keep up with the comic book side of the business just the business side of the business.

Red Hood

The Image Revolution doc mentions the issues with artwork. The main problems were that the 7 founders were overwhelmed with everything so they rushed things and that other artists were brought in to fill in as production for the books was falling behind. Also, like you guys mentioned, there wasn't an editor there to reign them in.