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Who do you think are the top 5 most influential comics artists? And what omnibus is the best example of their work?
For me it's: Jack Kirby FF 1-4 John Byrne Uncanny X-Men 1-2 Perez New Teen Titans 1-2 George Jim Lee Lee and Claremont X-Men 2 Frank Miller Daredevil
Just outside Joe Shuster Superman Golden Age vol 1
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Neal Adams belongs on any such list, but unfortunately is not well-served by Omnis. His own Batman volume is marred by the horrible re-coloring of his classic stuff (a self-inflicted wound regrettably), and his latter-day vanity project Odyssey (ditto). Some other places to look include the Deadman Omnibus (oop) and Avengers Vol 4, but each of these is less than half Adams' work.
Steranko-- check out the SHIELD single-volume Marvel Omni.
Barry Smith-- Conan the Barbarian Marvel Years vol 1.
I've got Neal Adam's gallery edition for X-Men and his art is fantastic. I've thought of picking up his green lantern/green arrow omnibus being reprinted this year, but have heard it's not great if your a half Jordan fan
Steranko is great.
Steranko is my Dad's all-time favorite
It's a shame that he didn't do much at Marvel as I would've loved contributions from him on other characters
I totally get your pretty heavy late-70's, early 80's roster there, but buddy, we need some golden/silver folks in there, they laid all that groundwork and should get more love!
Jack Kirby is in every list with good reason, and he's absolutely the King, but he had a lot of worthy contemporaries
Steve Ditko, complete nutter, brilliant artist
Jim Steranko, the fact that people forget about him kills me he's probably the first real superstar artist like an Image founder would be
Joe Kubert, so good and so much great art
CC Beck, just check out his stuff, you can see modern comics being shaped
Jim Aparo, another steady hand that worked for like four decades, always excellent and clean
Wally Wood, possibly one of the best straight-up artists to ever work in the olden days of comics
Romita Sr. obvs, the man is probably the all-time Spidey artist to this day
Curt Swan, literally the guy who defined the look of Superman
Carmine Infantino, the Silver Age doesn't happen without The Flash, and Flash don't happen without Carmine
Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, what an incomparable draftsman
John Buscema, the sleeves-rolled-up mainstay man, his brother, Sal, too, deserve a lot of love
Gil Kane, brother created a huge swath of the Silver Age of DC along with Infantino and Swan
Sheldon Moldoff, in the same way Bill Finger deserves the majority of credit for Batman, Sheldon deserves almost all the credit for the art along with a couple of unsung ghost artists. Great dude too, met him at a signing at a shop I worked at.
This is a list that should be a lot longer, but I can't hold all of those names in my active brain anymore.
Those silver age Doctor Strange by Ditko 🔥🔥🔥🔥 I’d forget what I read because I would be looking at the art for so long 🤣
Yeah, he and Kirby really got into some weird multi-media shit that just made their weird sci-fi landscapes bonkers back then!
The fact that Ditko wasn't a heavy drug user always amazes me.
Was going to say the same thing. I would stare at the hands and fingers. So great
Great list, also giants like Alex Raymond and Hal Foster had all kinds of influence all the way up to today.
Those are all incredible artists, and I definitely blanked on swan and ditko, I think I'd add them to my top five, the rest would be in the top ten
That's a great list and very nicely thought out. I've just turned 60 today and I've just finished reading Showcase 22 which contains amazing artwork of Gil Kane. Sadly, with all the wonderful creators you mentioned, we will never see their likes again as the industry they helped build now slowly falls apart.
Happy birthday man!
Thanks!
Which of these artists have in print omnis for me to get a feel for them?
If you type them into Google you can probably get ranges for most of their work. It was a lot less formalized back then.
Jack Kirby is the best published, and Ditko and Romita with ASM. Any of the DC guys like Infantino, Kane, Aparo, and Swan are major, major contributors on any silver age book for their respective characters (Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, Superman).
Thanks, I bought superman silver age but have been nervous to delve deeper into that era.
Strong list. Lots of revolutionary artists from the medium here
Shout out to Bill Sienkiewicz's work on New Mutants
Most influential since Kirby is likely Jim Lee on X-Men (not something I'm too keen on re homogenised body types etc but the influence is v much ongoing)
His New Mutants work is fantastic! I love seeing Sienkiewicz’s art evolve on Moon Knight as well. Some of those covers are bonkers and I love it!
Of all time? Hmm tough question. But I'd say, everything we see today is in some way or another, birth out of the work and innovations of,
Osamu Tezuka
Jack Kirby
Moebius
Robert Crumb
Winsor McCay
Ha I was going to say basically the same list, except that I'd swap McCay with Alex Raymond (even though I personally prefer McCay, by a long distance). You could also make a cause for subbing in Roy Crane or Milton Caniff somewhere in there
Or Outcault or Hergé
Or Spiegelman or Kurtzman
I've never read anything from Raymond but his art has always blew my mind, so I just bought his X-9 material with Hammet. Can't wait to dive in!
Agree with all your picks, and would ad a 1000 more. Comics are littered with influential geniuses and this party is just starting. The art form one could argue, is very young, and still has leaps to evolve.
McCay definitely inspired lots of folks. Groundbreaking stuff he was doing with his panels. Really pushed the medium.
Yup! We could almost say, he was the guy responsible for having panels the way we do today. Only dude that comes to mind that has been incredibly influential to not one, but TWO art forms. Comics and cinema. (animation)
Infantino is pretty important because he was basically the official DC “House Style” during the course of the Silver Age. And he was the first person besides Bob Kane to get credit as a Batman artist, since he was too well-known and distinct to be passed off as a ghost artist.
Also Adams, he brought realism to DC and is probably their most important Bronze Age artist. Always funny to watch his old interviews where he brags about being the first guy to draw Batman with nipples and chest hair when he was shirtless.
Jack Kirby, Windsor McKay, Moebius, Will Eisner, Carl Barks. It feels wrong to leave out so many others like Kubert Sr., Romita Sr., Steranko, Hergé, Sienkiewicz, Toth, Frank Miller, Finger, Swan, Wally Wood, Art Adams, BWS, Infantino, Dan DeCarlo, Stan Goldberg…
you left out Alex Raymond...
I left out a lot more than that, that was just off the top of my head!
How did you leave off Eisner?
I've never read any Eisner stuff, is it tough to find his works in print?
Check out A Contract With God. Won't disappoint you.
Thanks
Neal Adams. Unfortunately, his most iconic work(Batman) was sabotaged by Neal himself with redrawn panels and recolored issues. Hopefully, DC re-releases the Batman by Neal Adams Omnis with original artwork and original colors.
I definitely think when DC does the Bronze Age Batman omnis, it will use the original coloring. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure the Brave & The Bold omnis don’t have that awful recoloring on any of Neal’s issues in there.
Hopefully. I'm not gonna pretend the original inking/coloring was perfect but what Neal and co. did was an over-correction. Very George Lucas of him.
Kirby, Ditko, McFarlane, Perez, and Adams/Romita Sr tie
Probably not top 5, but haven't seen Howard Porter he is 90s DC to me.
I love his work on jla
Excellent call
Kirby, Bernard Krigstein, and McFarlane instantly come to mind for different reasons
Kirby - his contributions with the Marvel method and world building
Krigstein - visual storytelling (so many techniques commonplace in comics today can thank him)
McFarlane - the last true superstar artist besides his Image collaborators
The Comic Tropes video about him makes a pretty good case for him being in the top 5.
I'll just stick to Marvel artists for this. I'm thinking of artists who really set the tone for not just their comics, but how other books they weren't on were to be drawn. Real House Style guys.
Jack Kirby - Fantastic Four - I mean, the Kirby Krackle is a term that exists. He's not the origin of comic book artists but he's as close to a progenitor as Marvel's got.
Gene Colan/John Romita Sr. - Daredevil/Amazing Spider-Man - They both really brought a sense of romance and acting to their books, that I think found it's way through Marvel all-together.
John Byrne/Walter Simonson - X-Men/Fantastic Four/Thor - Maybe less of jump from Colan and Romita, but they both really had a detailed, epic style that they brought to the heavily sci-fi/fantasy books. Put George Perez in here as well during his 80s DC time.
Jim Lee - X-Men - Besides his costume design being the defacto style for a lot of the X-Men for a long time, his style was basically the House Style for Marvel Comics (and others) during the first half of the 90s. You either drew like Jim Lee or didn't draw.
Joe Madureira - X-Men - Same as Lee, his art became the House Style for a good chunk of the 90s for Marvel. Even if it was just making the covers look like Madureira had drawn them. His manga-style really lit a fuse in the states.