Consistent Modern Artist

All we care about is speed? Ok then.

X-Family: Jim Califiore - Exiles was the most timely book in the history of ever I am pretty sure. I'll give Califiore a slight nod over Clayton Henry, as I think he drew more issues. Seems like this book would come out three times a month.

Spider-Man: This is hard because since BND the book has been coming out like gangbusters but they've been rotating artists so much it's hard to claim they have a "definitive Spider-Man artist" anymore. (which is sad because can you think of a comic property that has a longer list of iconic artists?) It would probably be Bagley, but he's going to get my nod for Ultimate, but actually Ron Frenz on Spider-Girl was just about as fast. So let's go with Ron Frenz.

Hulk: it's definitely not McGuiness as much as I love his work. Mike Deodato did a pretty professional job earlier in the decade as I recall. Plus he had a run on She-Hulk that came out in time every month, so there you go.

Street Level: I mean this is pretty much a tie between Maleev and Lark right? Both prolific, hardly ever late.

Cosmic: I will have to plead ignorance here. I don't read enough cosmic books to have an opinion.

Ultimate: Mark Bagley - there may have been one or two delays in his 100+ issue run but I don't remember many of them. In fact isn't this the only Ultimate book to come out on time at all?

Avengers: JRJr's been pretty fast so far, as has Deodato, but for pure speed Scott Kolins was probably the fastest, during the Geoff Johns/Austen runs.

ADDENDUM: Fantastic Four - kind of forgot a big corner of the Marvel U there BC!! Does FF count as Cosmic? I never have thought so. Anyhow Mike Wieringo wins this one.

Ok there is my list I look forward to seeing other opinions on this because I get the feeling this will be judged by selective memory in some cases.

Sigh.... There was a time when this question was total insanity.... I miss those days.....

I don't know for sure, but I'm going to go right on ahead and assume it's because art became less homogenized in the 1990's. I mean, for the most part, you could flick through any number of comics, and having collected a few trades from the original New Mutants run, I remember thinking that Sienkiewicz's art was very very different from the standard art that you would get at the time, where most of the characters looked identical to one another bar hair colour, style, costume and maybe varying a little in height. Flicking through the black and white trades of Essential X-Men, I often find it difficult to tell the difference between many of the female characters other than looking at their hair.

I would hazard a guess and say that the reason that it happened was because there became a greater onus on having the style of the art fit the tone of the book. Sienkiewicz's art fit New Mutants because it was just as the Demon Bear stuff kicked off, and a lot of the backstory of Magik was being exposed, and the style really did seem to fit the tone of the book. 

Originally posted by drzoidberg07 Originally posted by Blackcyclops Thanks for responding Anna...I was thinking just speed and being on time.... I did forget the FF which I apologize...Eaglesham has been on for a while with no problems... Eaglesham actually only did 7 issues before moving on.

Wait who am I thinking about then? ohh Epting LOL

Originally posted by drzoidberg07 Epting is at 6... ahaha sorry to be a downer

LOL dang then who was that's been drawing the majority of Brubaker's run?

Originally posted by drzoidberg07 Wait I thought we were talking about the Fantastic Four with Hickman...

wait you know what...I got confused...sorry LOL...I was thinking Captain America but said FF...LOL

I almost got really sad then you made a Pirates joke and the world was better.

So here is my take. It can be neatly summed up in the form of two comic illustrators I sat down to listen to give talks on their art at Wizard World Texas last year.

The first artist, Michael Golden, famous in the 80's from such comics as the Avengers, the artist who first drew Rogue, was a classic illustrator from day one. He was very professional, and took many jobs, drawing, not just comics. In many of his jobs, including much of his early comics work, he would not get paid until the job was done. If the job didn't get done on time, his rent probably didn't get paid, they repossessed his car, he didn't get to eat for a month. Now this never happened, because Mr. Golden was very conscientious about deadlines. And when he became an editor at Marvel, he tried to hold all the artists under his wing to the same high standard. But he hasn't been at Marvel for going on over a decade now.

Now take the case of the next artist, Greg Horn. He is notable for his covers, because his process is very slow. In fact in his talk, he mentioned how he was proud that he's starting to develop a process that might eventually let him do interiors full time. But if not no big deal. Why not? Because he's such a popular cover artist, he gets paid (originally my Marvel, now by DC) to be an exclusive artist. This is a nice contract, that he gets paid up front.

You want to know why books don't come out on time? It's because alot of the more popular artists, the ones with name recognition get big up-front exclusive contracts. That's not to say that editors don't get mad at them if theu don't turn their work in on time, but if they are a big enough name, they'll keep getting work anyway. In Michael Golden's day, if you didn't get your stuff turned in - they might still give you work again later, but you didn't get to eat that month.

Now, since I am an artist, I'm really not going to trash the system as it exists today. To be honest, the idea of not getting any kind of salary, health benefits, whatever is pretty crappy, and if you want to attract top tier talent, and have the artform keep evolving, then you are going to need to pay the top people well.

But I will say this, this is not a slap at Greg Horn, that guy was nothing but nice. But a lot of the newer artists I met and talked to at that convention are real divas. Like I said before Michael golden was an illustrator, he drew ads in newspapers, technical manuals, children's books, all sorts of stuff. Today these artists are JUST comic artists. Ask them to do something else and you'll probably get attitude. And yet a ton of them talked about how it was a waste of their time and talents to be drawing superheroes, the "in-thing" is gritty crime dramas or vampire love stories or whatever. Or they don't want to do a comic about Speedball, they want to go straight to Wolverine. Michael Golden said he didn't particularly like superhero comics, but he recognized he was good at them and he did them because it was his job. He was a consummate professional. I think a lot of these younger guys get pissy that they aren't drawing Batman comics as their first job, so they drag their feet and moan that they aren't getting to do what they want.

Basically "comics artist" has become akin to "rock star" in a lot of these guys minds I think. But it's PRIMARILY the up-front pay.

Edited by Anna Raven - 12-Apr-2011 at 3:06am

On time comics are awesome, but royalties, owning artwork, and a viable third option of creator owned comics is more awesome. I'm much more tolerant of a late Invincible rag because Kirkman & Co. answer to nobody and it's their asses on the line if the book doesn't sell. I know I'm getting something I can't get anywhere else, and some Bednisite jackass isn't going to undo the last 42 issues so he can fan fictionize a character he likes and dredge them up from the house of death. Some dope on Daredevil is late because he didn't have time to make every supporting cast member look like a known celebrity? He can screw off.

I like John Buscema but the reason his stuff was on time was he dealt mostly in roughs. His art often looked liked whoever the hell was inking him at the time. Some of my favorite stuff from him was the Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine stories he did with Klaus Janson. Given the nature of the best, I think it was due more to Janson, though.

Update: Michael Golden is God. Right after Jack Kirby and Neal Adams, and right before Gil Kane and Frank Miller.

Edited by The Bub - 12-Apr-2011 at 6:34pm