Who are some people who would have been great comic artists, but they had far more lucrative careers elsewhere?

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Everyone knows someone who showed preternatural talent with art, drawing comics/cartoon characters effortlessly, but few of these people ever end up making a career of it, probably because being a molecular biologist or plumber pays more. Who are these people?

Philip Nunez, Saturday, 3 February 2018 20:15 (six years ago) link

Breaking into comics isn't exactly easy; I'm not sure that the salary is necessarily a deterrent to interested parties(?)

absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Saturday, 3 February 2018 22:51 (six years ago) link

Hef? I don't think he was that great tho.

i believe that (s)he is sincere (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 3 February 2018 23:53 (six years ago) link

adolf hitler

i gotta be a gazpacho man (bizarro gazzara), Sunday, 4 February 2018 00:39 (six years ago) link

KIm Salmon of the Scientists is pretty good. I've seen some stuff he did taht was really li8ke the Arturo Vega Ramones stuff. Don't think he ever pursued art as a line of work though, more of a hobby.

Stevolende, Sunday, 4 February 2018 15:06 (six years ago) link

Robyn Hitchcock could’ve been a cartoonist. I tried to encourage Eric at Fanta to try to do a collection of Robyn’s album sleeve comics one time.

Winter. Dickens. Yes. (Jon not Jon), Sunday, 4 February 2018 16:27 (six years ago) link

Bob Monkhouse was known to have owned one of Britain's finest collections of original American comic strip art. He was also pally with the comics and film historian Denis Gifford (creator of the dreaded 'Looks Familiar' TV show), who was himself a fairly talented cartoonist.

Archie Goodwin, Bruce Jones, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison (and many others, I'm sure) are good to very good artists who have worked in comics primarily as writer/editors.

Jeet Heer on John Updike's youthful aspirations to be a comic strip artist:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/mar/20/fiction.johnupdike

Agharta Christie (Ward Fowler), Sunday, 4 February 2018 21:06 (six years ago) link

three weeks pass...

A couple of Finnish examples come to mind...

http://finnishcomics.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/katjatukiainen02.jpg

Katja Tukiainen released some sweet and beautiful-looking, mostly (semi)autobiographical comics in the '90s and early '00s, but in the last 15+ years she's mostly focused on her career as a painter, I guess because it has been easier to make a living from fine art than indie comics.

http://www.kvaak.fi/images/articles/15092009125218-8.jpg

Sami Toivonen broke into the comics scene in the early '90s with a really unique B&W expressionist style, but later on he found more success as an illustrator, eventually starting a extremely popular children's picture book series with his wife Aino Havukainen (another former comic book artist) that was made into a movie last year. His comics work has been sporadic since the '90s.

Tuomas, Tuesday, 27 February 2018 15:12 (six years ago) link

Chris Cunningham could've had a solid career as a Simon Bisley imitator (he contributed covers and some strip art to Judge Dredd Megazine in the early nineties under his real name of Chris Halls), but evidently found his creative muse elsewhere.

http://www.2000ad.org/covers/megazine/hires/2.43.jpg

Pheeel, Wednesday, 28 February 2018 20:12 (six years ago) link


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