RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Comic book artists who did little work, but were most influential

The name that springs to mind when I think along these lines is Jim Steranko. He did only three CAPTAIN AMERICA issues, but his is still considered the definitive Captain America.
Plus a few Nick Fury backups in STRANGE TALES 151-168, Less than 5 issues of NICK FURY AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D., two X-MEN issues, a mystery story in TOWER OF SHADOWS 1, and a six-page romance comic story, I can't recall where. Plus two dozen or so covers and pin-ups for Marvel.
That's about it.

And yet he's still regarded as one of the grandmasters of the field.


What other artists would you place in the small output/ great influence category?

Although Steranko also did more work on the outside edge of comics that was more fan-oriented and small press, such as STERANKO'S HISTORY OF COMICS Volumes 1 and 2. With beautiful poster-worthy wraparound covers. (Announced as a six-volume project, he never got around to the other four. But I love the ones he produced.)

Steranko also created the fan magazine F.O.O.M. (Friends of Ol' Marvel) and did some very nice covers and pages for that series.

Steranko also did a lot of book covers, particularly a series of paperbacks reprinting The Shadow pulp stories.

And his COMICSCENE/MEDIASCENE/PREVUE magazine that ran from 1970-1994.



And some science fiction illustrations.
I especially like this illustration Steranko did for AMAZING STORIES in September 1969. Titled for publication as "Dogfight on 101", and later published under Ellison's selected title as "Along the Scenic Route" in Ellison's 1975 short story collection DEATHBIRD STORIES.



Poster-worthy, like the vast majority of Steranko's work.

A really nice gallery of Steranko's work over the last 45 years, both in and outside of comics:

http://www.thedrawingsofsteranko.com/aghp.html

Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. He's the guy whose drawings appear on almost all DC's merchandising. But I don't think he didn't do that much comic book art. Superman, Brave and Bold, New Teen Titans. Can't think of much else. Shame, as its beautiful.

He did the first six issues of the 1977 first Jonah Hex series. I liked him better on this series because he didn't take over a long-established character (like, say, Superman and Batman) and give the series a vastly different look.

The JOKER (1975-1977 series) issues 2 (Novick-Garcia-Lopez, 3 (Chua/Garcia-Lopez) and 4 (Garcia-Lopez/Colletta) also had early Garcia-Lopez art. Issue 3 in particular I enjoyed, a clash with the Creeper (one of my all-time favorite characters, and a Joker/Creeper combination really played well off both characters). All scripted by O'Neil.

I liked Garcia-Lopez's covers and promotional pages usually more than his interior work. Although he also did some very nice interior stories in the Superman titles, particularly DC COMICS PRESENTS.

I looked up Garcia-Lopez on GCD. Here's a list of his work:

www.comics.org




I recall best his covers for ACTION COMICS and SUPERMAN FAMILY in the late 70's/early 80's.

Particularly nice, I thought, are his 3 covers for UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN 1-3

And a series I'd like to check out, a 1992 three-issue TWILIGHT series he did, scripted by Chaykin, pencilled & inked by Garcia-Lopez.

And I'd forgotten that Garcia-Lopez did two big tabloid books:
LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION C-54 (Superman Vs. Wonder Woman, 82 pages!)
and
BATMAN VS THE HULK ( DC SPECIAL SERIES 27, 64 pages)

That's an interesting take. I always thought, at least with Superman, Lopez's art was perfect. It was similar to Swan's but more modern and, IMO, better rendered. Lopez is probably my favorite Superman artist.

Well, I did say I like Garcia-Lopez's covers on the Superman books, and his work on the DC COMICS PRESENTS books.

I was just looking at his covers on SUPERMAN FAMILY (Garcia-Lopez covers on issues 186-189, and 196-198) which are quite nice.
Particularly when he was preceded by several issues of Neal Adams covers. Garcia-Lopez's work then is certainly comparable to either Adams or Buckler who were doing series covers at the time. As you say, Lopez did nice layout and design, and detailed rendering on these covers. And while distinctly Garcia-Lopez, were consistent with the styles of other Superman cover artists of the period.

I guess it's just the purist grumpy old man in me, who has a deep affection for the Swan/Anderson art team, and theirs is the quintessential Superman for me. The one exception to that for me is Neal Adams' rendition.

But on closer examination, I have to agree Garcia-Lopez's version is more consistent with the visual standard of the time than I'd given him credit for. While also adding his own original twist, and that's a tough tightrope to walk.

Yeah, to me, Lopez was the bridge between Swan and guys like Adams and Byrne.

Swan's biggest problem in the 70s and 80s was the succession of truly terrible inkers they foisted on him after Anderson and Oskner: Hunt, McLaughlin, Blaisdell, pretty much everyone but Al Williamson and the occasional guest gig by Shaffenberger or Perez.

I love Al Williamson inking Al Williamson. I never liked his inking on anyone else though.




Williamson qualifies as a "little work/great influence" comics artist.

Williamson's work on the E.C. books in the 1950's (I have the E.C. Library boxed sets of WEIRD SCIENCE, WEIRD FANTASY, and WEIRD SCIENCE-FANTASY, collecting the complete science fiction line from 1950-1956) is phenomenal. Although in an 80's interview he was very modest about it, describing himself as an artist who "didn't know much about drawing at that time, but had a lot of fun."

I'd also recommend Williamson's FLASH GORDON work in the mid-1960's, and his STAR WARS work for Marvel. Particularly the Marvel Super Special adaptations of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, REVENGE OF THE JEDI, and in between a BLADE-RUNNER adaptation.
And his STAR WARS comic strip work.
All collected in either trade or hardcover editions now.

obituary tribute, from when Williamson recently passed away

My first sample of Williamson's work was in HOUSE OF MYSTERY 185, and in that era of the 60's and 70's he did very little comics work until the STAR WARS material.
He did an early 70's story in WITCHING HOUR too. And in the early 80's a few stories for Pacific's ALIEN WORLDS series, and EPIC ILLUSTRATED.

There was also a FLASH GORDON movie adaptation released in 1980, which I purchased as three issues of the FLASH GORDON comic book (issues 31-33) that I bought as a promotional bagged set. Before I later learned there was an 8" X 11" collected trade and hardcover version of it. I later bought it in the hardcover edition on ebay years ago, for a piddly $4.75! I've seen it elsewhere even then for 40 or 50 dollars in hc. And to have it in this format is like the digitally re-mastered full-Technicolor stereo surround-sound version of the previous version I had. Actually more enjoyable than the movie version.

Williamson is one of the cornerstone figures I see as a "comic book fine art" sect in the comics field. Williamson along with Frazetta was the inspiration for guys like Berni Wrightson and Mike Kaluta, that brought an upscale book-illustration approach to their comics work.
Neal Adams as well said in an interview that he started out reading E.C. books, and began in his early teens redrawing Williamson pages from the stories he read. He described it as his training ground, where he learned the basics of illustration.

many more great images of Williamson's work

I got a few good laughs reading this tribute to Al Williamson by artist Ty Templeton, who recounts both his love for Williamson's work as well as his knowing Williamson personally and speaking with him on many occasions.

Dave Stevens is another artist in this category.

I'm hard pressed to think of any work by Stevens outside of his Rocketeer work, starting as a backup in STARSLAYER 2-3 and PACIFIC PRESENTS 1-2, and then after a long pause the ROCKETEER graphic novel in 1985.
Plus an Eclipse ROCKETEER SPECIAL one-shot.
And a very sporadically published ROCKETEER ADVENTURE MAGAZINE 1-3, that took the better part of ten years to see its third issue. (Shades of Neal Adams' MS MYSTIC!)

Another by Stevens ,doing both story and art, in ALIEN WORLDS 2.
Also issue 4, written and pencilled by Bruce Jones, inked by Stevens. Cheesecakey goodness!

And a 3-page story in ALIEN WORLDS 3-D #1 (and only), a Jim Sullivan/Dave Stevens collaboration.

Plus a handful of very memorable covers, many with Marilyn Monroe, Elvis or Bettie Page worked into the image.

Stevens' cover for DNAGENTS 24. Definitely well targeted to a male readership.

And the 1984 cover for SHEENA 3-D #1.



...and CROSSFIRE # 12.

I was just looking at Arthur Adams' wikipedia listing.
He is remarkable for his level of popularity, relative to the proportionately small amount of work he's done.

Pretty much right out of the starting gate, Arthur Adams rose to the very top of fan favorites.

Some early stuff Adams did were a 5-page story in ALIEN WORLDS 3-D # 1, and a pin-up page in DR STRANGE SPECIAL EDITION #2, both in 1984.

Adams rose to immediate popularity with a 6-issue LONGSHOT miniseries with Ann Nocenti.
Then escalated to super-stardom with his 1985 X-MEN ANNUAL 9 and NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL 1.

And on the heels of that he did GUMBY'S SUMMER FUN SPECIAL and (the one I liked even more) GUMBY'S WINTER FUN SPECIAL, and picked up some more accolades and awards.

Then a few more X-MEN ANNUAL stories, and FANTASTIC FOUR 247-249. And with this handful of stories, he was already a household name!

This was a CAVEWOMAN variant cover by Arthur Adams (CAVEWOMAN: PANGAEAN SEA # 0), also released as an 11" X 17" poster, and I have both.



I have special affection for this one, because as drawn, she looks a heck of a lot like my former girlfriend!

I got this book of his work recently.

As I said before he really was the bridge between Swan and the guys like Byrne. You can see what an excellent penciller he is/was.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten how, like a lot of DC's best artists in the 70s, the editors often saddled him with some of the worst inkers of the era: Frank Springer, Tex Blaisdell and Vince Colletta.

Still, in the stories he inked himself, or where he had a compatible inker like Adkins or Giordano (still the best inker the business ever saw), you can see just how good a Superman artist he was.

I looked at the contents of that Garcia-Lopez hardcover, and it pretty much collects all of my favorite work by him, from his covers on the Superman titles, to his work in DC PRESENTS, to his "SUPERMAN VS. WONDER WOMAN" story in LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION.

About the only things not included are his Marvel/DC crossover BATMAN vs THE HULK, and JONAH HEX stories. Depending on how it's formatted, I might have to pick that hardcover up.

Although DC has been pretty disappointing on many of their recent hardcover collections, such as the Marshall Rogers Batman hardcover, the Don Newton Batman hardcover, the BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS hardcovers, the recent Levitz/Giffen LEGION hardcovers, and the KAMANDI OMNIBUS hardcovers.
Marvel does a better job with the quality and format of their hardcovers, and gives you much more for your money. Which is sad for me to say, because I'm primarily a DC guy, and would love if I could rave about how great these books are, rather than how disappointing they are.

One of my favorite pages from Steranko's CAPTAIN AMERICA 111, that is definitive Steranko:



This drugged hallucination scene (from 1969) has similarities to Steranko's 1978 version of "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" in THE ILLUSTRATED HARLAN ELLISON, which I consider the single best work Steranko has done. Although there's a lot of contenders for Steranko's best.

I still wish they'd release the 10-page story Steranko did in SUPERMAN 400 as a 10-page portfolio (the same 5 double page spreads, in both black-and-white, and in color)

More Steranko goodness...

I cited Jim Steranko in this category before.

But this blog post does an excellent job of explaining the exceptional visuals Steranko brought when he entered the comics field, what a jolt they were relative to the current fare of the time, and how Steranko's influence has endured, for 50 years now.

Just a few artists I can think of that manifest a clear Steranko influence include Paul Gulacy, the late Gene Day (and brothers Dan Day and David Day), and Scott McDaniel. Even Neal Adams manifests a Steranko influence in some of his more psychedelic moments.

STRANGE ADVENTURES 216, Feb 1969, page 13:
"Hey, a Jim Steranko effect"
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Strange-Adventures-1950/Issue-216?id=47153#17

Some playful rivalry and tribute between Adams and Steranko.

I'm going to add Steve Rude to this category. He did very little mainstream work (that is, work other than Nexus) but you can see his influence in a lot of later Batman artists and even on the Dini-Timm animated series.

Aside from his NEXUS run, I mostly have an affection for Rude's work for several tributes he's done to Kirby's 1970's DC work, including this cover for LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE that expands on Kirby's JIMMY OLSEN series (with interior story by L'Officier and Ladronn).



What are some representative pages of Rude's influence on Batman artists?


Here are some pages from WORLD'S FINEST 1-3, from 1990, a series I previously didn't know Rude had done.

Did you cite Mxy's Tumblr intentionally or was that a coincidence?

It's intentional, because they are lovers.

I had no idea it was Mxy's page. I guess I could have figured that out from the user name Maxwell Yezpitelok, or at least the possibility.

But not necessarily. As I said to you prior, I've run across a G-man or two on the internet that weren't you.

Oh no! Our secret's out!

Judging from our exchanges when we've crossed posts, I don't know how much a fan of mine Mxy is. Maybe he has a fetish for (his perception of me) goose-stepping right wing fascists.

.


Comic Tropes: Few Comics, Huge Influence