http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_ArtisThis is an obscure but talented comics artist I recently rediscovered.
The one issue I really love of his work is a 28-page Zatara and Zatanna origin, in SECRET ORIGINS 27 (June 1988).
Inked by Craig Russell, whose inks I think perfectly complement Artis' style.
And from there, I discovered the rest of his work.
Some others I liked were his SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK issues, and his six-part SPECRE run.
Here's the checklist of his work from Comics.org:
From 1982-1993, Artis did about 40 comics stories, and covers only on about 20 other books.
The inks over him often blunted his own style, but others complemented his work into some beautiful covers and pages.
He reminds me of Craig Russell the most, but I also see elements of Michael Golden, J.Scott Campbell, the better elements of Joe Staton, and others.
I like the whimsy and spontaneity of his work, that is cartoonish, but with just the right amount of detail.
He also has a degree of similarity with other 80's artists whose work I enjoy, such as Doug Rice, Hilary Barta, Doug Hazlewood, and Kelley Jones.
Jones, from what I've seen him say, had many of the same problems in his early work that Artis had. That editors didn't seem to like his work in the early
period, and tended to team him with inkers who overpowered his work.
Kelley Jones finally left Marvel for this reason, and his DEADMAN: LOVE AFTER DEATH finally allowed him to show his true colors.
My impression is that Artis got fed up and left the field before he was able to do work that showed his full potential. And that's a loss for all of us.
Artis was part of that small club of black comic book illustrators, and I was sad to see that he died at the very young age of 51.
Back in the late 1990's he fell into a 9-day diabetic coma and had chronic health problems after that affected his career. He died in 2007.
And though his career was brief, he still left behind some beautiful work that I still enjoy re-reading.
