RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books 1980's/1990's artist Tom Artis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Artis


This 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:

• Tom Artis checklist

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.

Here's my own checklist of Artis' work, so you can see at a glance who he collaborated with.




Tom Artis CHECKLIST


AMAZING HIGH ADVENTURE (Dec 1986) Baron Artis/Beatty 13p

AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT 21 (Aug 1989) Gillis Artis/Rubinstein 11p

BLACKHAWK 12 (March 1990) Moench Artis/Burchett 24p

GREEN ARROW ANNUAL
1 (1988) O’Neil Artis/Dzon 41p
3(1990) O’Neil Artis/Wray 55p

GRIMJACK 31 (Feb 1987) Gillis Artis/Grainger 8p

HARD LOOKS
6 (Jan 1993) Barrett/Vachss Artis/Beatty 11p
7(Mar 1993) Colbert/Vachss Artis/Sheldon 9p

HAWK AND THE DOVE ANNUAL 1 (1990) K.Kesel D.Hoover, Artis/Blyberg,Wray 54p

JUDGE DREDD (May-Dec 1990) 44, 47-51 covers only

JUST IMAGINE COMICS
3 (Oct 1982) Judt Artis/Thorn 6p
5 (Spring 1983) Artis cover, 1p

JUSTICE LEAGUE 36 (Mar 1990) DeMatteis Giffen, Artis/Nichols 22p

JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY 2(Spring 1991)DeMatteis Giffen,Artis/Elliott 56p

JUSTICE SOCIETY
4 (July 1991) Strazewski Artis/McLaughlin 22p
6(Sept 1991) Strazewski Artis/McLaughlin 22p


NIGHT ZERO 1-4(Oct 1990-Jan 1991) covers only

SECRET ORIGINS 27 (Jun 1988) Fleming Artis/Russell 28p, cover

SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK
18(Aug 1990) Gerber Artis/SandersIII 22p
21(Nov 1990) Gerber Artis/SandersIII 22p
22(Dec 1990) Gerber Artis/SandersIII 22p
23(Jan 1991) Gerber Artis/SandersIII 22p

SOLO AVENGERS 15 (Feb 1989) cover only

SPECTRE
24 (Feb 1989) Moench Artis/Cabrera 24p, cover
25 (Apr 1989) Moench Artis/Cabrera 24p, cover
26 (May 1989) Moench Artis/Vey 24p, cover
27 (Jun 1989) Moench Artis/Gula 24p
28 (Jul 1989) Moench Artis/Gula 24p, cover
29 (Aug 1989) Moench Artis/Gula 24p, cover

TAILGUNNER JO
1 (Sept 1988) Gillis Artis/Templeton 24p, cover
2 (Oct 1988) Gillis Artis/Templeton 24p, cover
3 (Nov 1988) Gillis Artis/Eklund, Nyberg 24p, cover
4 (Dec 1988) Gillis Artis/Rubinstein 24p, cover
5 (Winter 1988) Gillis Artis/Rubinstein,Giordano 24p, cover
6 (Jan 1989) Gillis Artis/Demulder,Eklund,Vey 24p, cover

TEEN TITANS SPOTLIGHT 20 (Mar 1988) Gillis Artis/Tanghal 22p, cover

THE TERROR 1 (Aug 1991) Judt Artis/Brozman 22p, cover

2000 A.D. SHOWCASE (Feb-Dec 1990) 47, 49-54 covers only

WASTELAND 8 (Jul 1988) Ostrander Artis/Dzon 9p

THE WEB
1 (Sept 1991) Strezewski Artis/Wray 22p, cover
2 (Oct 1991) Strezewski Artis/Wray 22p, cover
3 (Nov 1991) Strezewski Artis/Wray 22p, cover
4 (Dec 1991) Strezewski, Artis/Wray 22p, cover
5 (Jan 1992) Strezewski, Artis/Wray 22p
6 (Feb 1992) Strezewski, Artis/Wray 22p, cover
7, 11 (Apr 1992, Jul 1992) covers only

WHO’S WHO IN IMPACT UNIVERSE
1 (Sept 1991) Artis/Wray 12p
2 (Oct 1991) Artis/Wray 12p

X-FACTOR ANNUAL 3 (1988) L.Simonson Artis/Rubinstein 10p

A few panels from SECRET ORIGINS 27:

SQ Productions did a 68-page 8 X 11" softcover book in 2003 collecting Artis' mostly
post-comics design work, titled MIDNIGHT HIGH.



I was frankly disappointed with the lack of description of the images shown. I get the impression that most are unsold character designs.
As well as some of his covers for Fleetway/Quality, on JUDGE DREDD, 2000 A.D. SHOWCASE, and NIGHT ZERO.
But still nice to see some of his more decorative pages, without the hand of another artist in the mix.

In a google search of Artis' work, most of the black-and-white images shown are from this book.

Cool. I liked Tom Artis' stuff whenever I saw it. His style was very distinctive, but also very much with the times. It would have been interesting to see how his style would have developed over the years, had he lived.

(On a side note, it's weird that the pic from the Zatanna issue of SECRET ORIGINS stated that Zatara had ever been a member of the Justice Society. They obviously meant to say All-Star Squadron, but the editor let that one slip by him... unless somehow Zatara was meant to have retroactively taken the place of one of the no-longer-in-continuity members, such as Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman. Though in a team that already had Doctor Fate and the Spectre, Zatara wasn't really needed.)

Constantine dekcuf Zatanna.

It took me a minute to figure that one out!

I guess if you say it backwards, it becomes a command not even Zatanna can resist.



I recall back in Alan Moore's SWAMP THING story up through issue 50, it was implied
Zatanna and Constantine had a hot wet pounding relationship sometime in the past.
Also alluded to in the above SECRET ORIGINS story.

I recall that Zatara began as a backup feature in DETECTIVE COMICS, going back to at least the time
Batman was introduced. So he could have been in the original Justice Society back in the 1940's,
but to my knowledge was never included in that series.
And as you say, was included in the ALL-STAR SQUADRON when Thomas wove the continuity together in the 1980's.

Close. Zatara appeared in ACTION COMICS from issue #1 in June 1938, so they might have briefly had plans for Zatara taking Superman's place as an occasional honorary member. They never really formally explained the JSA's history in the absence of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in those early days of Post-Crisis.

This was active for a hundred years? Wow!

Time travel is a more reasonable explanation. After making a splash in the early 1990s, Tom Artis took a time machine back to the 1890s and continued to hone his craft in a time when there were no comic-books, but instead mostly single-panel illustrations.

his real name is TARTIS, or Time and Relative Titor in Space.

Considering that pre-Crisis, Superman and Batman actually played in de minimus role in the JSA's adventures their absence in relation to JSA history wasn't that big a deal.

What the hell is with the anorexic Green Lantern in that picture? Does a space bug have the same effects on weight as a tapeworm?

That was during a flashback synopsis of Zatanna's time in the JLA.

Artistic license, I guess.
To me it's Superman in that drawing who looks a bit dorky and out of proportion.

Over the weekend, I was reading TAILGUNNER JO 1-6, that Artis did in collaboration with writer Peter Gillis. Interesting story
of dehumanizing corporate experiments, told with 80's-style testosterone, guns and action. Involving a cyborg experiment where a
father and daughter share a psychic link, and at times the same body, like a pilot and tailgunner (hence the name).
When the violence gets too dark, he tells his daughter to mentally leave to an Alice-in-wonderland-like place of
medieval chivalry and talking cuddly animals.
The story is a bit choppy and incoherent, with multiple characters narrating at different points, hardest to follow
in the first issue. With a better editor, it could have been more coherent and a far better story.

A story with far better storytelling along vaguely similar lines with robots, futuristic galactic war, and bits of
subtle humor is DYNAMO JOE by Doug Rice. Out in roughly the same late-1980's period.

It also shares elements with writer Peter Gillis' work on SHATTER, regarding the dehumanizing aspect of technologies,
and the protagonist characters being reduced to being just so much disposable product, whose personal agonies mean
nothing to executives looking for any ruthless way to raise the bottom line.

Tom Artis in the book MIDNIGHT HIGH described pouring a lot of work into TAILGUNNER JO, which was his first regular series.
And was furious about about his pencils being "mutilated" in the first two issues at the direction of the book's
editor, that improves with inking by others on the later issues.
But even though not the best sample of Artis' work (again, my choice is SECRET ORIGINS 27), it still
is a nice representative example of his work.

I just ran across a page from TAILGUNNER JO attached to a Ty Templeton creator workshop piece, that has some funny as hell Templeton
commentary on the stresses of being an inker (with an opening bit borrowed from Jason Lee in the opening sequence of Chasing Amy,
dealing with his station in life!)



( TALGUNNER JO issue 2, page 6, Artis pencils, Templeton inks.)
Some nice pages Templeton displays by other artists too.

The TAILGUNNER JO series kind of grew on me after the first time I read it. The others that rank among my favorites of his work are
SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK 18 and 21-23, and Artis' covers on 2000 A.D. SHOWCASE
issues 47 and 49-54.

Artis' covers for Fleetway were some of his best work. I like the humor in them, and the challenge he succeeds at,
telling a story in a single image (as compared to a full comic story).

I just noticed what you're referring to. Typo in the title corrected.
But at least it made for some good time-travel humor.

More like Tom ARTIST!

You're racist.

Artis.

That's his name.


Irony, the example of tolerance set by those on the Left.

Here's a tribute to Tom Artis at the time of his death in 2007, with commentary by a number of creators and editors who worked with him:

http://www.comicmix.com/news/2007/05/02/tom-artis-r-i-p/

Years before, he had fallen into a diabetic coma for a few weeks, and when he recovered, he had ongoing related health problems until
his death.
Just 51 years old.

Again, Artis' ability to tell a full story in a single image, with some playful humor.
I love the way Artis always manages to fit a sexy girl into the mix.