was 90s art bad?

[CTTT]

So, I was looking at early Thor issues and seeing how colorful and bright he was, which I liked the design, and then I looked at issue 491 and wow....what happened? It's like they were going for either a Fabio look or a Fabio-as-surfer dude look.

[Alan2099]

Some 90s art was bad.

Some art from any decade you can pick is bad.

As a general rule, I liked 90s art better than I like most modern comic art. There's a lot more energy in it. The characters come off larger than life. I'll also take everyone is wearing metal and jkackets over their costumes over the modern "realistic tactical" costumes everyone wears these days.

[Snoop Dogg]

Yes, or rather, worse than the other decades.

[Rosebunse]

There is some 90s art that is great. But a lot of it simply isn't. It comes across as being too exaggerated while at the same being rather bland.

It also seems much more of the same compared with what we today. Today, most artists have very different styles and try and carve out their own niche. In the 90s, everyone was sort of doing the same look.

[JKtheMac]

It’s fashion. But essentially more than just fashion in comic art. There was also a fashion for art over writing. In many ways a recognition of artists that had perhaps been lacking previously. So when people criticise 90s art it is important to remember the market was driving this. Everyone seemed to want powerful, dynamic characters bursting out of the page at the same time they wanted the kind of colourful art that was becoming possible with new printing technology.

Many of the exponents of this new art became superstars. Some made a huge amount of money.

For those of us that enjoy story first and want the art to serve the story this was not a good era, and so we are tempted to say it was an awful era. For me it was an era where writing lost its way, and still casts a shadow over fandom and the market.

[Rosebunse]

It’s fashion. But essentially more than just fashion in comic art. There was also a fashion for art over writing. In many ways a recognition of artists that had perhaps been lacking previously. So when people criticise 90s art it is important to remember the market was driving this. Everyone seemed to want powerful, dynamic characters bursting out of the page at the same time they wanted the kind of colourful art that was becoming possible with new printing technology.

Many of the exponents of this new art became superstars. Some made a huge amount of money.

For those of us that enjoy story first and want the art to serve the story this was not a good era, and so we are tempted to say it was an awful era. For me it was an era where writing lost its way, and still casts a shadow over fandom and the market.

A lot of artists remembered what had happened to Kirby. They were doing everything they could to avoid that. And in many ways, who can blame them for wanting their cut? Especially as the industry was booming!

But the artists held too much sway and now we're back where the writers are key. The artists are getting paid more than they did, but probably never to the point we saw in the 90s.

[Personamanx]

There was definitely an emphasis on looking different rather than visual storytelling. Many artists were elevated because they had a distinct feel to them, that helped them stand out on the shelves. Briefly anyway, it didn't take long for artists to see the pattern so many copycats emerged. Thus creating an era of oddly proportioned, poorly dressed superhero comics that read more so as pin ups than linear stories.

When Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and Joe Mad are considered some of the greatest artists of a decade, I would say there's a problem.

It wasn't all bad, and you can always cherry pick good/bad from all eras. But the scale of the industry before the collapse produced an astonishing amount of garbage.

[Chris0013]

There were some great artists.....and others who were all pouches and shoulder pads.

It’s fashion. But essentially more than just fashion in comic art. There was also a fashion for art over writing. In many ways a recognition of artists that had perhaps been lacking previously. So when people criticise 90s art it is important to remember the market was driving this. Everyone seemed to want powerful, dynamic characters bursting out of the page at the same time they wanted the kind of colourful art that was becoming possible with new printing technology.

Many of the exponents of this new art became superstars. Some made a huge amount of money.

For those of us that enjoy story first and want the art to serve the story this was not a good era, and so we are tempted to say it was an awful era. For me it was an era where writing lost its way, and still casts a shadow over fandom and the market.

Why not both...I want good writing and good art.

[Rosebunse]

But plenty of books now have good art and good writing.

[Adset]

My lasting impression of 90s art was that artist depth was not... great. And by that I mean there was a lot of solid/top-notch art spread out across the Big Two, similar to other decades, but I recall dreading months where a book's regular artist took a break. It seemed like there was a lack of quality fill-in guys in the industry moreso than in other decades and a lot of books really took a hit when they needed to dip into the reserves.

[SuperiorIronman]

90's art had more energy to it. Everything was more expressive and with costume design it was more over the top.

Blame the "radical" trend of the 90's, but the thing is that this would've happened anyways and it had been building since the 80's and maybe earlier. It was essentially a period of time when not only more people could get into comics development and thus had to stand out, but also a period in which tastes had been changing. Then people latched onto the style of the era, and thus you gained a lot of bomber jackets, pouches, and massive shoulder pads (instead of standing out, people did what got you paid as usual). The muscular heroes was part of this art shift as well with physicality making visual shorthand for strength easier. Now this isn't a 1:1 ratio between the 90's and the 2000's to now, but the 90's had also been operating on a "art first" thought process. Basically making a costume first before moving on to how practical it was. It was a period in which the process of making a costume became first and foremost and then later giving a practical function to it. Remember that costumes are meant for the theatricality of the characters and the 90's was basically critical mass due to what I mentioned here, and the style of the day (the 90's had been kind of nuts).

There's a lot of bad art and this isn't an isolated incident to Marvel or DC and I'd argue there was more quality control over at the "big two" if you could believe it. But there definitely had been problems in character proportions, expressions being fairly one note or too far making ugly characters, or costume designs that while good in isolation didn't work in application. There is good 90's art and some did some did well with the style of the day, but there is just an overwhelming amount of it that it's not hard to see why it deters some readers if you didn't grow up with it.

[myownlittleusername]

Couldn't stand most of the anatomy that was used in the 90s. There's still awful art to this day of course, but that stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

[Lee Stone]

Most of it was bad.

Rob Liefeld and exaggerated anatomy was in vogue.
Computer coloring was in its infancy, and there was a lot of gaudy coloring.
Covers were a bloody mess, with huge logos and art that looked muddy and confusing. If you stood too far away, the covers looked like a blob with nothing really distinguishable sticking out, other than the logo.

[Anthony W]

Most of it was bad.
Rob Liefeld and exaggerated anatomy was in vogue.

"Was" in vogue? Have you seen the sales on his newest title?

[Chris0013]

Most of it was bad.

Rob Liefeld and exaggerated anatomy was in vogue.

I would go 1/2 and 1/2 as opposed to most was bad.

As far as the exaggerated anatomy...not all of them...I am going to use the art for Extinction Agenda as it had bot Liefeld and Jim Lee during the story. Liefield made Jubilee who was IIRC 13-15 y.o. a very well endowed young lady....however Lee made her look more normally proportioned for her age.