There are a ton of the Usual Gang of Idiots who probably deserve consideration at least. Aragones, Davis, and Wood are up there already, but Don Martin, Mort Drucker and Al Jaffee belong, too. Jaffee deserves entry for the Fold-Ins alone.
No Japanese artists? Huh.
Get Bill Seinkewicz off that list! Lord, I can’t stand his stuff. Those issues of New Mutants (I have a complete run up until around issue # 70) that you all keep mentioning look like the artistic equivalent of the infinite typewriter monkeys.
I definitely preferred the Bob McCleod art in issues # 1-11 that LordVor misattributed to him.
Let Tony (Starman) Harris have his spot instead. That, my friends, is beautiful artwork. A fantastic blend of stylistic and narrative.
p. 21 from Sandman #50. neener neener neener. 
Although a piece with his characteristic P. Craig Russell[sup]TM[/sup] elaborate water/clouds/fire would have been nice, I do like his rendition of Dream. There’s a page from Hothouse that I’ve got my eye on, too, but it’s in a museum for the next five years. He’s started putting his stuff up on ebay recently, and if you check out his message board you can find out when he puts new stuff up, or just say hi.
Not yet. Seen the art at his website and it’s breathtaking, but finances preclude me from buying too many new comics right now. I figure I’ll wait until the series is done and get them all at one–saves me the frustration of waiting, too.
Oh, yes, definitely Barry Windsor-Smith. His Conan was great; his work had a certain otherworldliness that made the book special. The later Romita work was so pedestrian by comparison.
And why not Mike Ploog? I really loved his Werewolf By Night and The Frankenstein Monster work. Cut out Colan, whose work is sloppy and imprecise, with poorly proportioned figures, to make room…
I’m not a hard-core comics guy. (I only buy 4 or 5 titles a month). So I don’t recognize half the people on the list. But I gotta chime in a bit to mention Sam Kieth. His art continually blows my mind with its inventiveness and emotional impact.
I agree with Fiver about Scott McCloud. I love Understanding/Reinventing comics, but not because of the art. Zot leaves me cold, but I’ve only read the online version.
Matt Wagner gets a cheer, too.
Golden Age through EC era:
Mac Raboy (Captain Marvel, Jr.)
Frank Frazetta
Walt Kelly
Silver Age:
The OP list is pretty good. I’m with Fiver, though; we can nix Infantino. Maybe replace him with Russ Heath for some of his good work on DC war comics.
Bronze Age
Jeff Jones
Mike Kaluta
Nestor Redondo (I loved his stuff in the DC horror mags.)
Also, I realize your list is limited to comic book artists, but I also want to give a nod to the early influence of Winsor McCay and his work on Little Nemo in Slumberland. I think the first generation of comic book artists got most of their good ideas from those strips.
Phil Foglio! I just ordered the second issue of Girl Genius as well as the D’arc Tangent works.
His XXXenophile is the only porn worth reading.
Alex Ross is an amazing artist but is an absolute shit of a human being.
Jack Kirby’s work impressed me so much, I named myself after one of his characters.
I don’t know much about much, but I’d also nominate Todd McFarlane and Adam Hughes. Yeah, they’re mainstream, but they’ve both got a great grasp of their craft.
Single-panel newspaper comics don’t count? What about Dan Pirraro?
Never much liked Phil Foglio, though.
I’ll put in a plug for Walt Simonson. And, if you like your figures even blockier than that, Mike Mignola.
How come Jim Lee isn’t on the list yet?
Then again, I’m one of those John Byrne / Neal Adams mainstream-type fans.
My vote for biggest bozo among all comics artists: Herb Trimpe! Bleagh!
spoke-, since you seem to understand we’re not including comic strip artists I don’t see why you’re including Walt Kelly. You can’t mean his work in the juvenile comic book Pogo’s Comics and Stories which presaged the comic strip, do you? Because I don’t think it’s a large enough oeuvre, nor was Kelly good enough at the time, to merit his inclusion here.
And if you nominate McCay, then I nominate the artist of the Bayeaux Tapestry.
Fenris, you may as well give up on our posting 50-name lists of our own. Most of us don’t have the time or inclination for that kind of time investment.
What’s magic about fifty, anyway? Just because the guy on Usenet had fifty? Let me clue you in to something you probably already know anyway: the people on Usenet are idiots! Take your cues from there only at your peril.
How can EVERYONE have forgotten John Totleben? His issues of Swamp Thing and Miracle Man were incredibly beautiful. Totleben and Alan Moore were such a great team, especially with Steve Bissett pencilling. It’s an absolute tragedy that he’s going blind.
He did some beautiful one-pagers for some of the Sandman gallery issues: one of Destiny that I’m trying to track down again, and one of Death. I’ve never seen any work of his that wasn’t absolutely stunning.
Fiver wrote:
You dare to challenge me? Foolish mortal!
Kelly did quite a bit of work for Dell in the Golden Age, including a regular feature in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories and most of the early covers of that title. Those covers, by the way (all of which feature Donald Duck, I believe) are brilliant.
His work in WDC&S is in addition to his work on the Pogo Possum comic (also a Dell publication) from 1946 to 1954.
Kelly and Barks are the acknowledged grand masters of the “funny animal” genre. (Tell me, would you also exclude Barks from the list because he worked on a “juvenile comic book?”)
(As if all Golden Age comics weren’t juvenile. Yes, I suppose Pogo just doesn’t have the gravity and social relevance of, say, Green Lantern and his sidekick Doiby Dickles.)
As for the Bayeaux Tapestry, it lacks depth and its characters are wooden and stiff. I hereby blackball your nomination.
I meant was a comic book for juveniles, spoke-; it was not a pejorative. Pardon me for not using the Latin equivalent to prevent confusion.
Walt Kelly’s comic book work was very good (I’ve got some of the Eclipse reprints), but he didn’t achieve greatness there. That came later, with the Pogo comic strip.
Barks did achieve greatness in comic books; I have no objection to his presence on Fenris’s list. Nor should anyone.
And the Green Lantern story arc where Doiby Dickles was shooting smack with wooden syringes (so the Lant’rin couldn’t stop him) was nothing short of brilliant.
Isn’t that the same arc where Winky, Blinky and Noddy (the Three Nitwits) sold “Goitrude” to support their speed habit and it ended with a drug-induced shoot-out with Percival Popp, Super Cop? Wasn’t there a subplot about Fatman’s ummm…interest in Peachy Pet?
[sub]This is Sooooo wrong. I’m going straight to Hell for that last one.[/sub]
Fenris
Dang! Ya sit out a few days, and look what comes up.
Well said on the late Mr. Barks, spoke-. I knew somebody would beat me there.
A couple of thoughts: In Jim Stereanko’s history of the comics series, he included a few Golden Age illustrations from Lou Fine that are pretty spectacular.
Under the Underground section, a couple of artists whose work I highly respected were Sheridan and P. Schrier, Check issues of “Mother’s Oats” or “Leather Nun” for some truly inspired work.
Then, of course,Dan O’Neill of semi-surreal newspaper strip Odd Bodkins fame, who was shut down by Disney for his “Dan O’Neill’s Comics & Stories” and “Air Pirate Funnies” underground issues for putting Disney characters in sex, drug and rock 'n roll situations. Great stuff, and I someday expect to sell my issues for big buck$
(Dan had help from Bobby London and a few others, but it was his name on the mag)
I think it’s Rogers, but I don’t even care. I had stayed out of this thread because I didn’t think anyone would mention him or even know who he was. And right there … on the OP and everything … sniff.
I’m sorry. I’m getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst y’selves.
Since we’re going international and including such paragons of spiff as Goscinny and Uderzo, how can we forget Katsuhiro Otomo, the man behind “Akira”? Granted, I can only spell his name by consulting my English translation of Book 1, but still …
Dragonblink
If we’re going to include Japanese artists, I wouldn’t include Otomo (I’ve never been terribly impressed by him…), but I WOULD include Osamu Tezuka (Tetsuwan Atom, Jungle Emperor Leo, Blackjack), Leiji Matsumoto (Galaxy Express 999, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Space Battleship Yomato), and Hayo Miyazaki (Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind).
But that’s just IMO…
Um…Miyazaki did MANGA??? I thought he was just one of the world’s greatest animators. (I just got an 8 DVD set of all his films, in letterbox format. With Chinese subtitles…) I didn’t know he did comics too!
If he did manga, I must get them.
Fenris