Trevor

Day Twenty-Seven Response and Wrap—Up

When the British 2000AD stuff started being readily available here in the US, I loved it all. But then, I’m ashamed to admit, I almost immediately dropped it all. It was a conscious decision based on my reading time, storage space, and income. I just like too many comics, and don’t have the time or space for everything, even if I had the money.

If I had flip flopped that decision, perhaps Pat Mills and John Wagner would be atop my writers list, and Judge Dredd a favorite character. I’ve accumulated and read a few of their stories over the decades and still enjoy them.

I really liked Wagner’s The Bogie Man, and need to track down the issues I’m missing and try to find the BBC show. Enjoy Mill’s Marshal Law too.

Fiona Staples has a great style and I love her art, need to catch up on Saga soon.

Jim Starlin is a creator who would probably make my list of most important/impactful to the industry. I’ve always at least somewhat enjoyed his art and writing, and really look forward to reading more of it.

Scott Snyder has written a lot of books I enjoy, and Greg Capullo can definitely draw well.

But a fairly easy day for me to stay at eight.
Frank Miller
Jack Kirby
Carl Barks
Alan Moore
Mike Mignola
Jeff Lemire
Bernie Wrightson
Matt Wagner

Trevor

Day Twenty-Eight Choices

This will be our final Strip Sunday, and our first day with a wildcard option.

In our previous Sundays we’ve left out some big names in comic strips, like Chester Gould and Garry Trudeau. But any list I make is going to leave out some heavyweights, so if you have a strip artist on your one list of ten total comic people, please add them today and tell us why you love them.

And let’s twist the theme a bit and include one of the greats for your consideration today. He did some strip work, and his greatest creation was included in Sunday newspapers. I can’t imagine this creator ever not being on my list: Will Eisner.

rocket1312

No strip guys for me.

Eisner is a legend, but I don't have any personal attachment to his work.

B5Erik

No one from today comes close.

Yet again, my list remains intact. For now.

John Romita SR
John Buscema
John Byrne
John Romita Jr
Neal Adams
Gerry Conway
Marv Wolfman
George Perez
Gil Kane
Stan Lee

Cut from the list, but still great...
Sal Buscema

Trevor

A few years ago, my list would have been all Marvel/DC creators. Today, it’s shaping up to be exactly 50/50.

In a few years, I expect it to be nearly 100% “independent”. Comics are so amazingly diverse, surprising, and persistent. I’m thankful for forums like this one that have directed me into areas I didn’t even know existed back in my grade school/college days. I’ll always love and have spots on my shelves for the big two though.

majorjoe23

Eisner is on my list. Still need to make some cuts.

PhantomStranger

Jim Starlin is definitely on my list. His cosmic stuff at both DC and especially Marvel are some of my favorite space adventure comics.

Trevor

Day Twenty-Eight Response and Wrap—Up

I miss the days when comic strips seemed so integral to American life. Maybe it was just my environment and perceptions, but everyone used to read the funny pages. Kids talked about them at school and had strips and panels taped to their notebooks and desks. The family traded pages back and forth at the breakfast table each morning. The paper had up to four pages of daily strips, and two huge sections every Sunday. Strip creators made headlines and were mentioned on the news, and animated shows were made of countless strips.

Pretty sure I was buying book collections of strips even before I would consider myself as collecting comics. I pretty much stuck to the humor, mostly gag a day cartoons, although I dabbled with the ‘serious’ strips and loved much of the art. Was a Doonesbury fan for a time, and liked Ridley’s Believe It Or Not and other ‘educational’ strips.

If I was to honestly include strip creators in a list of work that has affected me most and sticks with me into these 56 years now, I’d have to include Schulz and Watterson at a minimum.

I was lucky to be introduced to Will Eisner’s work during my college years, loving the Spirit reprint singles from Kitchen Sink and getting to his graphic novels pretty early into that format’s rise. He’s a master of conveying the human condition in addition to the multiple genres of storytelling spread throughout the Spirit run. He’s probably number one on my list.

First new addition in awhile brings me to ninety percent completion.
Frank Miller
Jack Kirby
Carl Barks
Alan Moore
Mike Mignola
Jeff Lemire
Bernie Wrightson
Matt Wagner
Will Eisner

Trevor

Day Twenty-Nine Choices

Today I want to add a random quartet.

Richard Sala, whose work I've only got into the last several years and is one of the few occasions where I kind of got beat into it by the podcast and in this instance specifically Vince. It really was looking at some of the more current hardcover covers that got me in tho. They are very easy to look at and striking.

Stuart Immonem who I really like and when he was doing the OG X-Men was one of those instances where I immediately went to go get a page, for the love of Jeanie, but I wasn't on board with the whole is this THE guy of his generation talk.

And the third is some cat named Milo Manara.

And the fourth is really one of the biggest dudes in comic history and even in a box above that box with a real select literal few. Herge.

Are any of them in your top 10?

Hokeyboy

Stuart Immonen did great work on a bunch of comics I enjoyed, like Superman and Legion of Super-Heroes, but not in my Top 10. A fine artist though.

ytrez

Been away from the board for several days so, a quick catch up:

Rick Veitch, Stephen Bissette, Eddie Campbell, Frank Quietly, Kevin O’Neil, Eduardo Risso, or Mark Buckingham
Pat Mills, John Wagner, Fiona Staples, or Jim Starlin
Chester Gould and Garry Trudeau, Will Eisner
Richard Sala, Stuart Immonem, Milo Manara, Herge

So many great talents in there; I own works from all of them (except Sala) and some are absolutely amazing. I've decided to exclude creators of newspaper strips otherwise Gould might be a threat. Eisner is a legend but doesn't break into the list. Manara....he almost displaced Joe Kubert but I resisted the urge. Mostly because I was exposed to Kubert in my youth through Tarzan comics and didn't discover Manara until 1990 or so.

Still:
1. Jack Kirby
2. Frank Miller
3-4. Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez
5. Joe Kubert
6. Alan Moore
7. John Byrne
8. George Perez
9. Steve Ditko
10. Stan Lee

majorjoe23

About six months ago I thought “I wonder what Richard Sala is up to?” Out of nowhere and Googled him, only to find out he had died about a year earlier. That was a real bummer, and I’m not sure how I missed the news.

Love his work, I first found his work while shopping in a used book store in England. But I don’t think he goes on my top 10.

fujishig

When was Immonen considered so highly? I mean I have always loved his work (he's a guy who did Legion after all) but I don't think I've ever seen him get a ton of fanfare.

rocket1312

No one for today. Herge looms over the entire medium, but I don't care for the French. I admit I don't know Milo Manara. I googled him and his work immediately piqued my interest. Or maybe peaked is a better word.

I was wondering the same thing. Not a knock on Immonen at all (I like his work a lot), but what's he even best known for? Late 90's Superman and Bendis X-Men?
​​​​

Trevor

I think he won best artist in 2010. Not sure what he was doing then, so must have been Marvel.

B5Erik

Yet another day with candidates that I'm not familiar with, or are nowhere close to my list.

My list remains intact as is. For now.

fujishig

That was the Shuster awards, right? I mean that's for best Canadian artist, so...

j/k, I didn't even know he won that, that's pretty cool. But even if I look at recent Eisner award winners for penciller/inker I'm not sure many of the recent winners make my top 10.

Hokeyboy

I would say that just because an artist isn't a "big fanfare" artist doesn't mean their work isn't highly valued and/or appreciated.

Immonen was IMO a fine artist who was also a workhorse, in the sense that he was dependable to produce monthly work of fine quality. I'll take that over a splashy pin-up type who might be able to do 5 issues a year, maybe.

fujishig

Like I said before, I value Immonen a lot, I have since his early work. But top 10 comic creators is something else entirely.

Trevor

Day Twenty-Nine Response and Wrap—Up

If everything by Richard Sala is as good as The Chuckling Whatsit he might be making my list someday. Crap, he died recently, almost forgot about that. Ordered a few more of his books. Love his style and creativity.

I’m not really a superhero art guy, but I like Immonem. Nextwave is probably the only stuff of his that I plan to save.

Aware of their work of course, but I have almost no exposure to Manara or Herge.

My list stays at nine.
Frank Miller
Jack Kirby
Carl Barks
Alan Moore
Mike Mignola
Jeff Lemire
Bernie Wrightson
Matt Wagner
Will Eisner

B5Erik

So... Where are today's nominees? I can always come up with a list.

Trevor

Sorry, work got busy.

And thanks, go for it!

B5Erik

OK, I think Trevor knows what's coming...

It's INKER'S DAY!

I've been a great admirer of a lot of inkers over the decades, going back to the 70's when I first started buying the comics and reading the credits. I pretty much guessed how the penciling and inking process worked, and noticed right away that some inkers were better than others. And sometimes it's a matter of styles meshing well. I'm not a fan of Klaus Janson's inks, but sometimes, on some pencil artists, he did a great job. Case in point, The Defenders when inking Keith Giffen's pencil art. Giffen was doing an odd Kirby meets Everett style at the time (shown most in the couple of issues he inked himself). I'm not a fan of that period in Giffen's work, but Klaus Janson, an inker who I don't usually like, really worked wonders on the handful of issues he inked there. Their styles were totally different, but perfectly complementary.

Inkers can make mediocre pencil art look really good, but they can also make really good pencil art look mediocre. Sometimes a great inker just didn't fit with a great pencil artist, too.

For me, there are a group of inkers that are some of my favorites - and that's where the nominees start today. Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia, Jerry Ordway, John Severin, Ernie Chan, Norm Rapmund, and Brett Breeding. I'd also include John Romita Sr. in there, but he's already a nominee for his overall work, as were Bob Layton and Sal Buscema.

Beyond that, though, there are a bunch of other guys worthy of recognition. The aforementioned Klaus Janson (who has his die hard supporters), Tom Palmer, Murphy Anderson, Terry Austin, Romeo Tanghal, Mike Esposito, Pablo Marcos, Joe Rubenstein, Jim Mooney, Joe Staton (both pencils and inks, at different times), Bob McLeod, and I'm sure I'm forgetting several others worthy of recognition.

Feel free to take this opportunity to include a write in candidate and include them in your Top 10 if you believe they belong there - and give a reason why.

That's a lot of inkers, but I suspect that we won't see many, if any, of them make your Top 10 lists. One will make mine, though...

Hokeyboy

Jerry Ordway is a favorite, as is Terry Austin. Austin tightened up Byrne's pencils to sheer perfection, and Ordway gave any loose-fingered penciler a sense of depth and majesty.

Klaus Janson... worked really well with Frank Miller. That's all I got with him.

I never cared for Joe Staton's art. Too loose, craggy, and IMO unappealing.

None are in my Top 10.

B5Erik

And I have an addition (and subtraction) to my Top 10! (Finally...)

Joltin' Joe Sinnott easily makes my list. His work on the Fantastic Four gave that title it's look for two decades. He set the standard, and made Kirby's work look better than it ever had before. His work on Thor was fantastic, as was his work on The Incredible Hulk inking Sal Buscema's pencil work. I love his smooth, bold, but detailed style. He made almost every pencil artist look better. My three favorite inkers are Sinnott, Giacoia, and Romita Sr. I've got a lot of favorites, but those three are at the top for me.

My UPDATED Top 10...

John Romita Sr
John Buscema
John Byrne
Neal Adams
Gerry Conway
Marv Wolfman
George Perez
Gil Kane
Stan Lee
Joe Sinnott

Cut from the list, but still great...
Sal Buscema
John Romita Jr.