OK, so we've had a lengthy discussion about your LEAST favorite artists (Rob Liefeld, I'm looking at you - as a candidate), but I searched and didn't find a thread for FAVORITE artists, so here we go...

So my #1, All Time Favorite Comic Book Artist is...

John Romita Sr.


I became a HUGE fan of Jazzy Johnny back in the 70's. The first comic books I bought featured covers with his art. Spidey Super Stories often featured a Romita cover, and the first Amazing Spider-Man issue I bought (#144) featured a cover inked by Romita. Romita's clean, bold, realistic style is instantly identifiable, and he helped usher in the late Silver Age and the first half of the Bronze Age with his style. His style defined Marvel Comics in the 70's. His Spider-Man is the most marketed, and the most widely circulated.

And his consistency was remarkable. Never less than very good, John Romita was a giant in the idustry, still working into his 80's doing the occasional cover.

Oh, and his work on Captain America, while much shorter lived, was outstanding.


Amazingly impressive for 1954, and still impressive now...



And still doing great work in 2018...

Aside from Romita there are a lot of artists whose work I love...


George Perez
John Buscema
Sal Buscema
John Byrne
Jim Aparo
Neal Adams
Joe Sinnott (his inking make everyone look good)
Gil Kane (with the right inker, but especially with Romita, they made a great team)

And there's a new artist I just discovered ("Welcome to the party, pal!") - Aaron Lopresti - I like what I've seen so far a lot!

1. Todd McFarlane
The definitive Spider-man artist for me.

2. Mike Allred
Any book he’s attached to is automatically good because of his unique art style.

3. Terry Dodson
Best “good girl”/cheesecake artist, but he makes the female characters attractive and healthy without making them look like bimbos. He’s really good at expressions and captures movement well. His best run is easily Harley Quinn, but his Winder Woman stuff was pretty damn good too. Too bad the writing was lacking on the latter.

4. Dick Sprang
The definitive old school Batman artist. Every single cover he’s done is a masterpiece. It’s like he got that 40s Golden Age style down to a science. He even did a version of a Faust-like Batman in the 90s that was still incredibly good.

5. Kevin Maguire
I’m relatively new to his work, so it’s pretty exciting to discover it. Unlike some artists, he really focuses a lot on facial expressions and physical gestures of the characters, and it comes across so naturally.

Lee Bermejo
Jose Luis Garcia Lopez
Lenil Francis Yu
Pete Woods
Chris Burnham
Bryan Hitch
Esad Ribic

I've always thought of Dodson as like an Adam Hughes-light, but AH isn't nearly as prolific.

Some of my favorites (I'd buy comics just for their art):

Art Adams: Clean lines, just an overall pleasing aesthetic to me, he really brought a manga style over before it was insanely popular. Even his early Longshot work is decent enough. Sadly way too slow as an artist to do a regular book, but standouts include the X-babies annuals, three issues of Fantastic Four featuring Grey Hulk, Ghost Rider, Spider-man and Wolverine, and the Gumby Summer Fun Special. Also drew covers for the english translation of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed, which is amazing considering what a great artist Shirow is.

Travis Charest: started off as a (bad) Jim Lee Clone, developed his own distinctive art style and then went off for a while to do European comics. I still love his Wild C.A.T.S. run.

John Cassaday: Drew one of the greatest comics of all time, Planetary. Also Astonishing X-men with Whedon.

Alan Davis: Clean lines, just an overall great artist. Captain Britain, Excalibur, JLA: The Nail, Miracleman, ClanDestine. Clearly inspired Brian Hitch

Mike Wieringo. RIP. Cartoony but stylistic, similar to BTAS/Timm style but still distinctive. The Flash, Tellos, Fantastic Four, Sensational Spider-man




And of course:
John Byrne (Uncanny X-men, Fantastic Four, and post Crisis Superman among a billion others. Sadly I thought his Wonder Woman run was sub par)
George Perez: Avengers, New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Is able to draw seemingly hundreds of characters on demand.
Walt Simonson: Legendary Thor run, but I thought his Orion series was underappreciated
Mike Mignola
Frank Miller
Jim Lee
Mike Allred
Darwyn Cooke (also RIP)
Jae Lee
Geof Darrow (haven't heard from him in a while)
Sergio Aragones
Stan Sakai
Kevin Maguire
Steve Epting
Joe Madureira
Francis Manapul
Barry Windsor Smith
Moebius
Oliveier Coipel (another one who vastly improved from his early work)
Carl Barks
Alex Ross
Adam Hughes
Fiona Staples
Ivan Reis
Stuart Immonen
Chris Samnee
Stephan Sejic
Gurihiru

I won't name other Japanese artists who draw mainly manga or this list would go on forever)

Jim Starlin: Loved the cosmic universe
Mike Grell: Warlord and the Legion
Jim Aparo: I grew up the the B&B Batman
Sal Buscema: Did a lot of the team/team-up Bronze Age titles I read
Darwyn Cooke: The cartoony style really works for me
Gene Colan: Love the mood
John Byrne, George Perez, Neal Adams, etc.

So looking up Aaron Lopresti's info online it turns out the guy is older than me!

I was surprised that he hasn't done more work over the last 25 years. He's done a fair amount, but as good as he is at the superhero thing his credits are not as extensive as I would have expected. I don't know if he's a deadline misser or something, but as good as his art is I would have expected 2-3 times the output. If I were Marvel or DC I would have assigned him to a top title and kept him on it for a while.

I found his art in the Justice League International reboot from The New 52. I bought both TPB's, only to find out that the title had been cancelled after only 12 issues and an Annual! That sucks, because it was a great title and his art was fantastic!

Jim Lee has always been my favorite. I've never been able to get into DC so post his Wildstorm work I haven't seen a lot. Pre stroke Whilce Portacio I loved. Alan Davis/Gary Frank I tend to group together even though they aren't that similar but I think both are great. Carlos Pacheo doesn't do nearly enough work now but I'll buy what he does.

Here's the thing about these topics - I always forget a bunch.

Like these two, two guys whose work I've always loved...

John Romita Jr





Ron Frenz





Romita Jr over the last decade or so has been less consistent and had some issues that were less than great, but, overall, his body of work is excellent.

Frenz is just a beast. He did a great Ditko-esque job on The Amazing Spider-Man, then did a phenomenal Kirby influenced style on Thor. He hasn't done anything I haven't liked, even when inked by Al Milgrom on Thunderstrike (one of my favorite titles).

And I'm sure I'll think of someone else that I forgot soon...

Terrible news about my favorite comic book artist of the last decade, Stjepan Sejic. Harleen will be his final book, he just announced he's retiring from comic book art. There's apparently one short story left to be published but he's done working on American comic books. Many were looking forward to a promised Poison Ivy book from him.

How old is he? Is this health related, or is he just burned out?

Dang, really? Always loved his art.

Oh, he's retiring basically from work for hire, which I completely understand: he'll do his own stuff (Sunstone, etc.) via web comics which may be collected into graphic novels, but not the monthly superhero grind.


As an aside there are some amazing web-only comics out there that are completely divorced from the comic shop/Diamond dynamic. Like some amazing artists that do web comics only and then maybe publish them as books.

Honestly, for really really talented illustrators like Sejic (or guys like Charest, Bisley, Ross, etc.) they can probably make more doing covers, posters, European albums, etc. than they would on a regular monthly comic that are largely fire and forget (as unfortunate as that is). Self publishing on the web is probably viable especially if they attain some level of fame, but drawing comic books for a living seems like a thankless task.

Plus he won't get in as much trouble doing stuff like this:

warning, NSFW involving DC characters.

He's making real money through Patreon and the like, so he's focusing on all his own creator-owned books. It wouldn't shock me to see him churn out a couple variant covers or something in the future, but I think his days at DC are done.

David Mack
Becky Cloonan
Mike Mignola
Frank Miller
Jim Lee

Todd McFarlane - I just love his Amazing Spider-Man run. Spawn was so so.
P. Craig Russell - his art nouveau style is beautiful
Jon J Muth - Amazing painter
Alex Ross - I just love his realistic paintings, it's incredible. He did a Kermit the Frog as the Green Goblin sketch for me and it's pretty funny, nothing like his paintings though.
Bill Sienkiewicz - When he took over New Mutants, I hated it! But then gradually loved the moodiness and craziness of it all.

I had a similar reaction to Sienkiewicz, but like you, grew to appreciate it. It's funny, my artist friend was enamored right away but it took me some time.

You may think I'm crazy, but I had a similar experience with Mignola in Cosmic Odyssey, it took me a little while to recognize how unique he was.

Bernie Wrightson

I guess I should list my all-time favorites.

Alex Ross - Stunning photorealism through painted art. I regret not scooping up as much early artwork as I could afford when it was still reasonably priced.

Curt Swan - The definitive Superman artist for me and most of his supporting cast. When I picture Superman in my mind, it's Swan's classic depiction.

José Luis García-López - Over the years I've come to the conclusion my life-long support of DC stems from his licensed art designs, which were used for DC's popular characters throughout media and merchandise.

George Perez - Love his team books, no one does it like him.

Neal Adams - Obviously one of the all-time greats, if not the greatest.

Mac Raboy - My favorite Golden Age artist by far. Love his work on Captain Marvel, Jr.

OK, so while thumbing through one of my latest acquisitions (Incredible Hulk Past Perfect TPB), I saw some art that caught my eye. I noticed that the same artist did three issues in that collection, and they all looked really good. I don't think I've seen any of his other work, but I may look for some of it now. I wouldn't list him among my favorites at this point, but I like what's in this collection.

Joe Bennett

Barry Windsor-Smith - Conan and Wolverine/Weapon X
John Buscema - His work on Marvel's Conan made me a fan.
Todd McFarlane
Jim Lee
Stan Sakai - I love Usagi Yojimbo
Norm Breyfogle - I was a fan during his run on Batman
Walt Simonson - His Thor run made me a fan
Sergio Aragones
Mike Mignola
Alan Davis
Neal Adams
George Perez
John Byrne
Joe Madureira
Phil Jimenez
Francis Manapul