Comic runs where the artist is the stronger half

I'm thinking the 1995-98 Batman run by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones.

Any other runs where the art is the main draw, not the writing?

Everything Neal Adams did for Marvel in the 60s and 70s.

The end of the Spirit Sunday sections, the ones with Wally Wood art.

hmmm, think think think...

I'd say pretty much everything by Jim Lee would qualify, as for as popular an artist he might be, the guy has been saddled with some pretty meh written comics.

I find it hard to imagine the writing is actually worse than the art in any Jim Lee comic

yeah,jim lee gets EXACTLY the scripts he deserves

those batman comics must be fuckin terrible if kelly (fifth-rate berni wrightston) is the stronger half

there aren't really any second-through-fourth rate Wrightsons so he might as well work that territory

John Byrne over Chris Claremont on X-Men (with the added bonus that they're both great in their run and Byrne is just better)

I don't think Kelley Jones is perfect, but I love his depictions of Batman, Scarecrow, Two-Face and guest characters like Swamp Thing and the Spectre who turned up in that run.

I don't think Moench is awful, but his writing on those issues was annoyingly expositional - he often used characters as mouthpieces for whatever science/psychology/paranormal topic he happened to have interest in at the time.

Cerebus

Ian Gibson on anything after Halo Jones.

The Moench-Sienkiwicz run on Moon Knight. I remember back in the day finding a Moon Knight back issue and going to buy it, and the man in the shop said "eh, you do know that Sienkiwicz did not do the art fot this?", very much suggesting that no one bought that title for the stories.

Cerebus

I lol'd

it's kinda true tho

Marshall Law

xpost -- do you mean Gerhard, or the Artist portion of Sim's fragmented mind?

I agree with you jjjusten if you're talking about everything after the initial minseries. I think Mills held his own there.

xpost

Jim Lee rules, and I think he qualifies. Maybe you're not in love with his legacy, but I think it's hard to deny that he's a talented artist...

I always thought Kelley Jones drew an interesting Batman, but I never actually read those books. Always liked his Sandman stuff.

Miller's Sin City stuff always fell into this category for me, aside from the first miniseries. That Marv one-shot he did entirely in brush was something else.

talented in that he managed to take everything that was gd abt michael golden and turn it into an ugly and over-rendered musclefest without a shred of subtlety, wit or grace?

so, found it pretty easy to deny

"gd"? I dunno, I loved Jim Lee when I was a kid, his stuff probably got me into comics more than anyone else's. I don't tend to like any of the other guys who work in that style, but his work has a certain appeal to it and has aged better than most of his Image contemporaries...

^^^^cosign

xpost -- do you mean Gerhard, or the Artist portion of Sim's fragmented mind?

Why not both?

sure, why not? but if SMC meant one or the other, I'm curious to know which

Jim Lee is a terrible draftsman, an incompetent renderer, and an utterly inept cartoonist

Gerhard, although magnificent at what he did, was definitely not stronger than the writer on Cerebus

(I loved that one issue where he actually drew a character though!)

Sim's artist brain stayed stronger later than the writer brain, but the writer was stronger first and held up longer overall

(sadly both of them have plummetted off a cliff on Judenhass and Glamourpuss, but his ebay and commission caricatures are still lively and funny)

yeah I was thinking that artist-Sim is better than writer-Sim... cuz a lot of the art in the latter stuff is pretty amazing, even when the writing is godawful

Jim Lee is a terrible draftsman, an incompetent renderer, and an utterly inept cartoonist

― i'm assuming that it's tity boi, host of the mixtape (sic), Monday, November 22, 2010 6:11 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

Are these not three redundant observations? Or is that the point...

no, those are all distinct functions of drawing/storytelling

ie bad draftsman = eg he cannot draw human bodies, or objects that look the right size

bad renderer = eg his drawings are covered in lots of pointless lines that do not convey any information and only serve to clutter/cover up for the underlying weaknesses

bad cartoonist = eg he cannot create a consistent sense of place and show his characters moving within it

Okay, fair points. I like the pointless lines, but it's not a style everyone can pull off.

i can totally understand not liking Jim Lee's style, but to say he's a terrible artist is straight up malarkey

Comic runs where the artist is the stronger half

IF WE READ THIS STATEMENT AS, SAY, THE WRITER WILLFULLY SUBORDINATE TO THE ARTIST IN THE TRADITIONAL CREATIVE RELATIONSHIP, NOT NECESSARILY LESS NOTEWORTHY IN TERMS OF "QUALITY" (AS HAS BEEN THE GENERAL TONE AND TENOR OF EVERY POST ON THIS THREAD, INCLUDING MY OWN GLIB LITTLE CONTRIBUTION EARLIER), BUT WITH THE ARTIST AS EITHER/OR DOMINANT "IMAGINAUT" OR STRAIGHT UP MUSE FOR THE FELLOW CHAINED TO HIS TYPEWRITER, THEN:

Jack Kirby > Stan Lee (in the greater portion of FANTASTIC FOUR, THOR)

Steve Ditko > Stan Lee (in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, DR. STRANGE)

Brendan McCarthy > Peter Milligan et al. (there's a reason he's listed before Milligan on the cover to ROGAN GOSH).

VARIOUS ET CETERAS.

i can totally understand not liking Jim Lee's style, but to say he's a terrible artist is straight up malarkey

I genuinely believe those things I posited upthread, and have done so since I was a teenager & first noticed him existing. feel free to actually argue against those specific points!

VARIOUS ET CETERAS.

'nother one just occured to me:

Alan Davis > Alan Moore (re: CAPTAIN BRITAIN)

was McCarthy listed before Milligan in the OG Revolvers? just curious, it's def "his" story. see also his title billing for Skin when it's p much idea McCarthy, writing Milligan, art Swain

the Moore/Davis Cap Britain seems a better example of people being right at the same level to me. it's Moore finding his feet, working out how best to work with the collaborator, and Davis learning his chops right before our eyes imo. (the earliest eps are v shaky artwise, though I've only read the hideously colourised Marvel US 90s reprints, which don't do it any favours)

I pretty much agree with sic regarding Jim Lee. I might go back to his All-Star Batman stuff and see if he ever improved.

also agree with him re: Sim

I'd give him more credit as a cartoonist than you do, I think his layouts and staging are pretty good and often dynamic. He draws exaggerated physiques, but it's an internally consistent style and part of what makes him attractive as a stylist. He's pretty sound in most ways and I think there's so many of his contemporaries who are so much worse than him fundamentally (admittedly none of them are mentioned on this thread) that I can't imagine picking on him for any other reason besides finding his style unappealing.

I've only read the hideously colourised Marvel US 90s reprints, which don't do it any favours

Those are the only ones I've read!

the earliest eps are v shaky artwise

Actually, yeah - at the moment I'm flashing back on the cramped little panels in those early chapters and a few rather formless frames of rather muddy exposition ("here's what came before in some other writer's run...") - dull white backgrounds.

IMO, THOUGH: in the end, Davis was superior to Moore in that go round.

Honestly, I think I'd score that round for Moore, if only because my overriding memory of CB is of the occasional bits of Mooreian madness. I'm flipping through it right now and Davis' work is great, but I think my appreciation of it might've been hampered by the digital color job of the 2002 reprint, which really hurts the overall presentation...

tam tam otm re lee

i was going to especially highlight the 'internal inconsistency' part but i realize that applies to liefeld as well, so maybe let's gloss that

i sorta hate to do this, but: probably the most irritating thing about lee (and everyone else that passed through image at the get-go) is that they heavily influenced a lot of artists that followed, and not often for the better

nb i stopped being a comic nerd like ten years ago

Haha yeah I actually quit reading comics full-stop about 7 years ago... I'm just getting back into them now.

it's possible i hate all the image artists as much for their influence as for their crimes -- they drove me out of comics from approx 1993 to -- i dunno, about 2004

i sorta hate to do this, but: probably the most irritating thing about lee (and everyone else that passed through image at the get-go) is that they heavily influenced a lot of artists that followed, and not often for the better

xp

I remain oddly fond of McFarlane, artwise - is he the least influential? I mean there were tons of people who could barely draw who were doing Liefeld impersonations at the time and dozens of sub-par Lees (Lee impersonators = current DC housestyle, probably).

There was this odd caricature aspect in Todd's work that I quite liked.

i don't even know where to start now. xmen seems too difficult (everyone's dead???), and image stuff blows iirc.

xp mcfarlane is why i even read image comics, tbh. used to idolize the dude when i was a teen

I'd say McFarlane definitely had his imitators... like Capullo, obviously.

tho my faves eventually were probably jrj, quesada, bachalo, in descending order of how long i gave a shit

xp oh capullo was slavish at the outset, for sure

all of em trafficking in mcfarlanes fat fingered caricature style. capullo actually drifted more towards lee (if we're gonna assign arbitrary axes) than he did towards that lardy mcfarlane style

i don't even know where to start now. xmen seems too difficult (everyone's dead???), and image stuff blows iirc.

DO YOU WANT US TO ENABLE YOU?

and image stuff blows iirc

A preconception that can be put to rest - at least now, when Image is putting out some fine fine comics. I mean, hot damn, BRANDON GRAHAM! ORC STAIN rocks hard, pure energy punk rock HEAVY METAL, as odd as that sounds. As does BULLETPROOF COFFIN.

none of those words make sense to me

xp mcfarlane is why i even read image comics, tbh. used to idolize the dude when i was a teen

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Monday, November 22, 2010 10:23 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

Same gbx... when I was in 5th grade I wanted to draw like McFarlane and Lee, lol. The WildCATS cartoon got me into comics, but I read the shit out of Spawn for a good while... that's where I was first exposed to guys like Dave Sim, Moore, Gaiman, etc. That was sorta the creators rights era, so I imagine that got some guys on board out of ~*independent spirit*~ more than the lure of working on a wonderful unique totally original property like friggin Violator or whatever... or maybe it was just the giant paychecks.

Does Image still exist even? I remember it was pretty irrelevant when I was leaving comics back in 2002.

^^^yup

all the stuff my buddies and i drew (yes, we did that, we tried to make our own comics, ~independent spirit~) was shamelessly mcfarlane/lee like (no one liked youngblood, no one could draw like keith, who even cared about keown).

yeah, ditto re: image. sorta thought it was a vanity label when i stopped buying comics

haha yeah even when I was 9 years old I looked at Youngblood and was like "eurgh"

They publish GODLAND so all else is forgiven. Seriously.

FEELING PEDAGOGICAL, SO A FEW EXAMPLES:

IMAGE COMICS ("you've come a long way, baby")

Brandon Graham

ORC STAIN

BULLETPROOF COFFIN

also, and more in keeping with the spirit of the thread: being someone who read comics exclusively in the 90s, i grew up with the impression that the artist was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more important than the writer. not as a bedrock principle or anything, just that that was all i gave a shit about. i was at least as good as chris claremont as coming up with sweet story lines (I WAS TWELVE), but i def couldn't draw as well as anyone i've mentioned so far. so the drawings were all i cared about. i totally appreciated clever dialogue and intrigue, and w/e, but if the art was shit (by my adolescent standards), i wasn't reading it

Does Image still exist even? I remember it was pretty irrelevant when I was leaving comics back in 2002.

Not quite - THE WALKING DEAD looks to be a fine crossover hit for them.

ORC STAIN

BULLETPROOF COFFIN

these are just hipster metal bands right

whereas I didn't come back to reading comics until I discovered that writing had made a comeback

xxp

the only comic i have read since ditching em for college/records (lol :-/) is BONE, which i believe is a v v fine work, even though it is the cardigan sweater/"autumn is the best season" of comics

I can kinda appreciate the work Smith put into Bone, but at the end of the day it was an epic journey into boredom.

also, and more in keeping with the spirit of the thread: being someone who read comics exclusively in the 90s, i grew up with the impression that the artist was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more important than the writer. not as a bedrock principle or anything, just that that was all i gave a shit about. i was at least as good as chris claremont as coming up with sweet story lines (I WAS TWELVE), but i def couldn't draw as well as anyone i've mentioned so far. so the drawings were all i cared about. i totally appreciated clever dialogue and intrigue, and w/e, but if the art was shit (by my adolescent standards), i wasn't reading it

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Monday, November 22, 2010 10:36 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

I agree with this to a degree, but I will say that once I got a taste of Alan Moore & co. my perspective shifted. I mean I was 12 when G-Mo's JLA debuted, how could I go back to shit like Spawn after having my mind blown like that? I also think that getting in the mode of following writers more than artists also exposed me to a lot of artists outside my comfort zone who I didn't necessarily like but was forced to learn to appreciate, like Kevin Nowlan.

no I agree with that---funnily enough, because that run of spawn early on that had all the guest writers.

I followed Bone when I was a kid and I sort of appreciated it but never loved it... I stopped reading after 20 issues or so, I think.

I mean I didn't read Moore until like spawn 7 or w/e

I followed Bone when I was a kid and I sort of appreciated it but never loved it... I stopped reading after 20 issues or so, I think.

see I always heard about it in WIZARD but never bought it cuz it was thin and BW. got the collection and now I plan on gifting it to fukkin grandchildren

Haha yeah I read about it in WIZARD all the time, which is why I started reading it. I bet I'd get more out of it now, I always loved his visual sensibility... that giant dragon with the weird human hands always fascinated me.

kinda think itd be up yr alley, tamtam, tbh

also just checked my shelf all "hmm that might be nice to read" and apparently i have lent out my copy of BONE to someone and ~i can't remember who~

btw is there a dylan dog thread? that is the only comic i have purchased this year

VARIOUS ET CETERAS.

Billy The Sink > Frank Miller - Elektra Assassin

Little Annie Fanny.

IN GOOD OLD EVALUATIVE TERMS:

Rucka/Williams Batwoman run seems kinda self-evident. Unless you're Rachel Maddow, you probably didn't buy it for the Rucka. Which isn't to say he isn't worth noting - he provides a fine fine framework for all the fireworks Williams brings to the game.

I disagree on Batwoman. Feels really balanced to me.

fwiw I agree with upthread poster who cited Kirby and Ditko as being better than Lee, but only insofar as I've never really believed that Stan actually did much that can be called "writing"

I think Lee capturing the changing American zeitgeist in 24-page chunks from 1960-1970 can't really be overstated, but at the same time he wasn't a great writer. So, uh, I think I agree with Shakey.

By the hoary hosts of hoggoth he was hawesome! Dr. Strange is spectacular writing. FF & Spider-Man, maybe not so much.

Lee's contributions are historically overstated imho (but this is something of a recurring sore point for me) - I think you can credit him with a substantial portion of the dialogue but beyond that I'm not so sure. Certainly suspicious that once Ditko and Kirby ditched him dude never did anything noteworthy thereafter.

otoh "Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth" is totally awesome

we'll soon get a chance to see if Batwoman's splendidness was down to JHW3 or Rucka! (but I was only buying for Williams)

Little Annie Fanny is a good thought but a very hard call, since there would be three to seven artists on any given strip, INCLUDING Kurtzman on all of them.

Yeah, more thinking of it being an amazing looking strip that doesn't read as well.

fwiw I agree with upthread poster who cited Kirby and Ditko as being better than Lee, but only insofar as I've never really believed that Stan actually did much that can be called "writing"

Actually, I wasn't necessarily stating they were better artists than Lee was a writer (though they probably were). I was re-considering the notion of a "comic run where the arist is the stronger half" as meaning a comic where the artist was clearly the guiding force behind the book; hence my inclusion of McCarthy vs. Milligan - I have no intention of downgrading Milligan in any sense (I mean, c'mon, the dude wrote ENIGMA: RESPECT).

For what it's worth, I consider Lee a tremendously charming writer, one who probably knew how to structure a story in a snap - credit where it's due. Paul Cornell recently said something to the effect that Lee was a master at how to convey a story to a child and I suspect he may have a point.

Marshall Law

If you stop reading ML after the first book then Mills and O'Neill are at about the same level; it's only after that Mills is replaced by his evil twin brother.

slightly off topic, but it's nice to see that I am not the only person in the world digging Bulletproof Coffin.

Promethea seems like an obvious example, especially after Moore ditched the plot and started his endless lecture on magic - I can't imagine any other artist being able to keep me reading wallow through page after page of mumbo jumbo exposition.

Also, Desolation Jones, and probably most other things J.H. Williams III has done, except for Seven Soldiers #0. And speaking of Warren Ellis, Planetary was like this most of the time. Ellis is not a bad writer, and occasionally he might even come up with a truly memorable story or two, but no other ongoing series by him has kept me as interested as Planetary, and that's all because of Cassaday's art.

yeah I re-read Promethea recently and Moore's writing really does kinda bog it down, the art keeps it interesting for the most part.

I think I agree about Planetary, though that's still one of the few Ellis series I have time for (maybe the only one). Cassaday was really the star there though.

STARMAN

Stay classy, James Robinson!

I think the, er, badness of Lee's scripting -- let's be respectful and call it "naivete" -- is exactly what makes them so charming. The script for the first Spider-Man story is actually pretty terrific.

wrt Planetary, my beloved has advanced the rather tendentious argument that the art in the early issues is not very good. For all that I reckon the art is better than the story throughout Planetary, I agree that it is one of Ellis' best work.

I actually liked Desolation Jones too, both story and art. well, the first series anyway.

The intrinsic Art vs Writing argument in Warren Ellis' career is Ministry Of Space, surely?

(Actually, everything Chris Weston has been involved belongs in this thread?)

Actual real, real, real answer - the Trigan Empire.

The intrinsic Art vs Writing argument in Warren Ellis' career is Ministry Of Space, surely?

Oh god, that's a good one. MoS is a great looking book that has nothing going on upstairs.

The Judd Winick/Doug Mahnke run on Batman...Mahnke's excellent lines class up a story (Return of Jason Todd) that reads okay beat-by-beat but totally craps out in the big picture--nevermind the fuckyoufuckfacerightinthefuckhole after-the-fact explanation for JT's existence.

Once DC pays me one million US dollars to bring the Twilight readers into Superman, I will pay Doug Mahnke to redraw the Tony Daniels issues of Batman RIP.

I think Final Crisis would've been better too if Mahnke had drawn the whole thing, those Superman Beyond 3D issues especially look gorgeous.

Actual real, real, real answer - the Trigan Empire.

BY ALL THE STARS!

off topic, but it really pisses me off that the Trigan Empire reprints are so expensive that you would need an IMF loan to buy them.

xp

the fuckyoufuckfacerightinthefuckhole after-the-fact explanation for JT's existence.

What was that, anyway? I recall Grant tossing it off as something Lazarus Pit-related back in Batman And Robin...

Ian, come to mine for the weekend and you can read them. Rener and Frances can do something that they think is fun.

I might take you up on that. The Trigan Empire is one of my all-time favourites, mainly because I remember reading it when I was small (reprinted in Vulcan) and have never really read that much of it since.

I think the, er, badness of Lee's scripting -- let's be respectful and call it "naivete" -- is exactly what makes them so charming. The script for the first Spider-Man story is actually pretty terrific

The first couple of years of Spidey are probably the best work Lee ever did, although who can say how much of that was purely down to Ditko's contributions. There's definitely an argument to be made that Smilin' Stan was only ever as good as his collaborators.