Underrated comic book artists?

[MRP]

I mean here's 90s Herb Trimpe...



the same guy who produced stuff that looked like this...



and this...



earlier in his career, but did stuff in the Image style to try to be relevant in the 90s....

and Herb Trimpe doesn't get the love he deserves for his best stuff either.


But sometimes there is a lot of behind the curtain stuff going on that mandates how a talented artist goes about there work and why they make certain stylistic choices that affect how their work is perceived later on.

-M

[K7P5V]

Chris Sprouse




Jim Baikie




Adam Warren

[Kirby101]

Stephen Platt is a very underrated artist. Unfortunately, you are right, he did start as a Liefield imitator but he advanced by leaps and bounds. Many know him by his Marvel work, which I too am not very fond of, but his last book SOUL SAGA was a true masterpiece in art. Too bad it was canceled (and as far as I know #6 was only released in Poland). Here is what his art looked like in SOUL SAGA:

That is a total Frazetta rip off.

[Kirby101]

I mean here's 90s Herb Trimpe...


the same guy who produced stuff that looked like this...



and this...


earlier in his career, but did stuff in the Image style to try to be relevant in the 90s....

and Herb Trimpe doesn't get the love he deserves for his best stuff either.


But sometimes there is a lot of behind the curtain stuff going on that mandates how a talented artist goes about there work and why they make certain stylistic choices that affect how their work is perceived later on.

-M

I don't know if Trimpe is underrated. He has legions of fans who still see him as THE Hulk artist.

But as to that style change, he wasn't forced to, he did it on his own and enjoyed it.

https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-195/

Trimpe:

I've been asked that question before, with some fans going so far as to feel sorry for the way Marvel made me change my style. Unfortunately, these were misdirected sympathies.

Truth was, it was a lark--but a lark with a purpose, all devised by myself. No one at Marvel suggested I change the way I draw or ink. I looked at the new guys' stuff, and thought, hey, this is great. Very exciting. You can always learn from somebody else, no matter how long you've been doing a thing.

I did, however, think the style might lead to new work at a time when Marvel was already in trouble, and it did. FF Unlimited was my last series at Marvel, and contrary to what a lot of fans think, I think it was the best work I'd done--and, I had a whole lot of fun doing it. Very expressive. I think the newer influences in comic book art brought out a better me. Like I said, most of the fans of the earlier stuff would not agree. On one occasion, I inked a whole story with a brush, which is what I was raised on, and the editor objected asking me not to do that anymore. But in general, no one pressured me into a change.

[K7P5V]

A lot of artists get pigeon-holed because of their 90s Marvel output where they was an editorial mandate to ape the Image style. but whose work evolved after they were removed from that mandate, but that initial impresssion has affected how they are perceived in a lot of fandom. A prime example of that is Tom Grindberg-this is an example of his work in the 90s...

https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.ne...600/582737.jpg


and then his work from circa 2013 doing the Sunday Tarzan strips...



and a page he did for a Detective Comics Annual....



His later work is absolutely gorgeous stuff, but he doesn't get the acclaim he should, and I believe a lot of it stems from first impressions of his work when it got its widest exposure at Marvel inthe 90s, when he was aping an Image house style because you ha to do so to get work from some of the editors working at Marvel at the time.

Even veteran artists like Herb Trimpe adopted that Image House style for a time when working at Marvel at the time (examples in my next post)...

-M

In agreement with you about Grindberg's other works being far more impressive.

However, I may be the only one, but I really did like some of his '90s artwork for Marvel:

[MRP]

I don't know if Trimpe is underrated. He has legions of fans who still see him as THE Hulk artist.

But as to that style change, he wasn't forced to, he did it on his own and enjoyed it.

https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-195/

Trimpe:

I know he wasn't forced, I've read his comments before, but the simple fact was he wasn't (and hadn't been) getting any work from Marvel or anyone else until he adopted the new style, so while it was his choice, I do believe it was an attempt to stay relevant in the marketplace at the tail end of his career and he was putting a positive spin on it. The change wasn't forced upon him, but it did open up doors for him that had been closed for a while.

-M

[Kirby101]

Yeah, but then again Marvel in the 90s was pretty shitty to everyone.

[extra skater]

[center]Chris Sprouse

This is great.

[mogwen]

Duncan Fegredo, a great artist who happens to be colorblind!
fegredo enigma.jpg
lf.jpg

[K7P5V]

Michael Avon Oeming

[Englehart Humperdinck]

One that I always have loved that I never thought got the credit he was due is Pat Broderick. The man had a style that as soon as you saw it you knew it was him.

Broderick pencilled the interiors of Micronauts #20, but the cover was by Michael Golden

[Kirby101]

Beat me to it Englehart. You know your stuff.

[Zero Hunter]

Broderick pencilled the interiors of Micronauts #20, but the cover was by Michael Golden

You are correct my bad. Here are some better examples of Borderick's work.

[Timothy Hunter]

Is anyone here a fan of Chuck Wojtkiewicz?

He did a run on the final issues of the Justice League title before it was cancelled and relaunched as Morrison's JLA

[Iron Maiden]

Pat Broderick's work on Doom 2099 was stellar to me also. He later left the title when Warren Ellis became the writer. IIRC I read where he became annoyed that Ellis killed off a number of characters he co-created.