Who is the best comic book artist living today?

Cafe Society
1

Let me frame it this way: You have a foot in the door at Marvel or DC, you’ve got one story, and they say “Any future sales to us depend on how well this sells. If it sells great, come back and if it sells poorly, we never want to hear from you again. We’re not going to pay you very much this time, but we will pair you with any currently-working professional comics artist of your choice.”

Yeah, they won’t really offer you that deal, but they’ve made more Faustian pacts than that. It has to be somebody living, somebody active, somebody who can hit the ball out of the park. Also, tell me why you picked this artist.

2

John Cassaday. Check out the work he did on the Joss Whedon run of Astonishing X-Men.

3

Very fond of John Romita Jr. Maybe not the best, but very good.

4

Steranko’s still alive, so him.

5

I’ll note that Neil Gaiman says he writes stories for particular artists, to play to their strengths.

6

Me? I’d go for Frank Quitely, because Frank Quitely. Or Bryan Hitch.

Now, OP aside, who’s considered the best active comic book auteur, of any genre? Chris Ware, maybe.

The best comic book artist, as in just the art? The current flavour of the month is the amazing Fiona Staples.

Who’s the biggest, most successful draw as an artist? As of right now, I’d say Cassaday.

7

Jim Starlin. Because, decades of great material.

8

Alex Ross should be a contender.

9

Given the op’s user name,how about Steve Rude?

10

Esad Ribic.

11

It’s a toss-up between Barry Windsor-Smith and Bill Sienkiewicz.

12

I was also going to suggest Bill Sienkiewicz. And Bernie Wrightson still blows me away.

13

Fiona Staples gets my vote, as artist I’d most like to write for.

Or Romita, loved his work on Eternals with Gaiman, amongst other stuff.

14

I don’t know if George Perez is a Great Artist, but I think he is one of the best illustrators in the business.

For Great Artist, I guess Jim Steranko or Bill Sienkiewicz. Although I tend to like Sienkiewicz’s earlier work better than his more recent stuff. (I tend to prefer good craftsmanship to High Art. When artists develop their own unique style, they tend to lose me.)

15

I went looking through all of the little pouches on my bandolier to find my examples of Rob Liefeld’s greatness, but I think I lost them in the folds of my muscles.

16

Starlin would be my second choice, behind Steranko.

17

Did you look under your enormous and poorly rendered gun?

18

Or maybe you put them in your shoes? I know that sometimes I …

looks down at where Tom Tildrum’s feet should be

Oh. Sorry, man.

19

I’d ask to work with Amanda Conner for expressive-to-the-point-of-almost-cartoonish art, and okay-now-we’re-just-doing-cartoonish art; she’s fine at everything else, but her stuff is just plain enjoyable even when she’s drawing badasses.

20

That has the virtue that they could probably *get *Steve Rude. I would pick Jaime Hernandez as one of the best auteurs in my lifetime, but I don’t expect him to draw for Marvel or DC.

But I suppose the best for a new project today is someone a bit younger.
Stuart Immonen is very cool, and has an established reputation. Takeshi Miyazawa is pretty slick. David Lopez is amazing.

I can’t really argue with John Cassaday, named above.

The actual short list would depend on the book.

If I’m going on existing reputation, any of the following come with a decently sized fanbase already:
Alan Davis
Stuart Immonen
Cliff Chiang
Amanda Conner
Sophie Campbell

Leaving that aside, I might just pick David Lopez, and because I don’t know when to quit, see if I can get Jay Anacleto and Chris Achilleos to contribute extras. :smiley: