Hey guys, I was just wondering who everyone's favourite classic comic artist was?
George Tuska?
Curt Swan?
Will Eisner?
Jack Kirby?

Popular, unpopular, better, worse, it's all about personal preference....

...mine is Jose Delbo, my personal favourite stuff by him were the comic strips from the newspaper but I also loved his Wonder Woman.

I also think it'd be cool to say WHY your favourite artist is better than everyone else's picks but hey...whatever you think will keep things interesting at the forum!

Very cool topic!

Currently(because my list of favorite artists classic and otherwise, is constantly evolving) I would probably go with:

Yaroslav Horak, generally best known for his work on the James Bond comic strip in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He also worked on some obscure comic books as well.

His style is kind of a cross between Kieth Giffen's more stylized work and the art of Alfonso Font(Prisoner of the Stars/ Heavy Metal magazine)


-J

John Romita, Sr

Now about these two artists, I have always felt that when it comes to classic artists that they had to have art that suited the times but there was (for a long time) two separate art styles....black and white vs. ready for colour.
I have always felt that those big bright flat colours added tons to John Romita Sr. but I personally prefer someone like Yaroslav Horak because their black and white was so strong without needing to essentially...rely on colour...but for the technology of the time, their would be something underwhelming about his art in the colour work of the time.
So....who do you think is better?

Very good point! I hadn't thought about(or even really remembered) the ready to color/b&w issue.

While I do agree that Romita certainly benefitted from color, I don't feel that it diminished him as an artist, since the art was intended to be colored and it achieved the desired result. In any color work, I tend to consider the color as part of the art because it can have a big impact on the final product. Also artists tend to draw a little differently depending on whether the art is going to be color or b&w(level of shading, detail, etc.).

And although I also agree that Horak's art probably would have been slightly diminished by the coloring system of the day(Photoshop might be a different story), I still favor him over Romita, really more as a matter of personal preference than anything else.

Maybe it's due to his style being a little more off beat, but there you have it.


-J

I'd quite agree with you, I would be curious to see that classic black and white style with some modern colours. Any one found examples on the net?