Favorite Batman Artist

[millernumber1]

I really liked Cameron Stewart and Frank Quitely during Morrison's run,
Capullo is amazing,
yet somehow the "lifetime award" would go to D.Cooke or D.Mazzucchelli

(can't stand Jim Lee's or Burnham's art)

Liking Quitely and hating Burnham really confuses me. I loathe both of them for the same reasons.

[KC]

Jim Lee, Neal Adams, Greg Capullo, Darwyn Cooke, Jason Fabok.

[dancj]

All great lists, exept maybe Greg Capullo.
No one mentionned Bernie Wrightson, Walter Simonson, Kelley Jones, and Lee Bermejo.

Kelly Jones was mentioned early on. The list you've posted are all great artists, but with the exception of Bermejo, I think they all did some of their weaker work (or were bad fits) on Batman.

[dancj]

Liking Quitely and hating Burnham really confuses me. I loathe both of them for the same reasons.

I like both, but I can't not see Burnham as a not-as-good Quitely clone.

[millernumber1]

I like both, but I can't not see Burnham as a not-as-good Quitely clone.

Exactly! Like them or hate them, Burnham's style is so very, very close to Quitely's that it's really hard for me to see someone making a sharp difference in appreciation.

[OBrianTallent]

Jim Aparo guys!! Jose Juis Garcia Lopez, Neal Adams, Kelly Jones, Greg Capullo...but for me, Jim Aparo is the tops of the list by a solid mile or twelve.

[batnbreakfast]

Gerry Conway, embarrased to forget about him

[GRIMGLAMFIRE]

paul pope and lee Bermejo are great. norm breyfogle. Rafael grampa did like what, one unpublished batman story and its still my #1 favorite fuckin batman art ever.


there's just so much going on in the way grampa characterizes batman. he doesn't fall into this weird fascist beat cop version of batman with too much money to spend on billion dollar supersuits to beat up purse snatchers - there's a sense of harkening back to the circus strongman and boxing/wrestler attire that superhero costumes had roots in. theres largely this sense I get from grampas batman as a guy who like...doesn't necessitate spending billions of dollars on armor or some ****. grampas batman has a textured costume with real weight to it that seems like its not made of anything the people batman puts himself up against couldn't acquire.


breyfogles batman always struck me as being better the less you see of him. he's a batman that should exist without pronounced humanizing characters.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wn4Qc3OLmL.../image5rog.jpg

also, breyfogle was always better at creative layouts and paneling than he ever fuckin was at drawing. this is a good page, but I hate everything about it because you can tell he spent a few hours pouring over pictures of a church. it works because It pulls back at the skyline and devolves into a kind of abstract impressionism.

I don't actually like jim aparo or lopez' batman that much. they just lack something in their weird era between 50's and 60's and later batman. Kelly jone art came at a perfect time for Kelly jones to draw batman and im really glad they never got to again afterwards.


david mazzuchelli's batman is of course great and sadly underrepresented at comic conventions when talks of favorite batman art is brought up. modern batman art tends to draw from a handful of references that don't go super far back unless the artist is trying to embrace some sort of retro kitschiness for storytelling purposes or because a fuckin editor wants a throwback to whatever "classic" batman is (usually batman that was still dark and gothic and colorful at the same time)

mazzuchelli's batman should be a study point for modern bat artists, cuz a bunch of drawings (basically any mazzuchelli drawing of him) goes straight to the most important sensibilities of the character today



dave taylors batman: death by design
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...95b88b6ace.jpg
doesn't exactly have the most interesting layouts or the best batman sensibilities but its interesting to see taylor conceptualize and draw a batman that probably only exists in the minds of pop culture: there was no batman in the 30's that this story is based out of who had modern noir and gothic sensibilities at the same time - no not even in the old forgotten film serials.


kind of cant close this post without bringing up dustin nguyen:

https://static.comicvine.com/uploads...-bmsog_cv1.jpg while he's obvious the best working with his own watercolors I much more prefer his vivid coloring techniques and playful lines and highlights to the way alex ross just fucking paints over his buff friends like he can get away with it

nguyens art is too expensive and too rich to animate or duplicate by artists that don't have the talent, and his lines don't often work well with digital coloring in the regular .psd variety. his batman work turned me into an instant fan and is one of the only modern batman artists I consider memorable at all

footnote: bruce timms B:TAS is fucking fantastic but everything he's done after that isn't as good because its not as inventive or as playful as anything in B:TAS. that's my "where's bruce timm" mention

capullo is great as heck and he leans the hardest on his influences when he's drawing batman. I don't remember a single panel he's done but maybe it's because I'm getting older and my sense of comic book aesthetics have changed a lot. he makes me sad when he leans into jim lee territory because capullo is a way better artist than that.

http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/dk...er-Capullo.jpg

the best capullo stuff is with plascencia / miki on colors and inks. they bring capullos art to life in a way that not a lot of other artists have his entire season. I think post year zero capullo immediately should have been taken off batman for a few years and replaced.

[Scott Taylor]

No love for Dick Sprang? Blasphemy!

[jb681131]

No love for Dick Sprang? Blasphemy!

How ashame of us. We forgot him.

[Chubistian]

Personally, I haven't checked too much material previous to O'neil. I know, shame on me

[dancj]

Good call on Paul Pope. I love his style.

[Great O.G.U.F.O.O.L.]

Dick Sprang, Marshall Rogers, Norm Breyfogle, Graham Nolan

Graham Nolan has a clean drawing style that would make him in my eyes more of a "Superman artist", yet for some reason I prefer his Batman so much more.

[Darkseid Is]

Dick Sprang, Marshall Rogers, Norm Breyfogle, Graham Nolan

Graham Nolan has a clean drawing style that would make him in my eyes more of a "Superman artist", yet for some reason I prefer his Batman so much more.

Breyfogle is so damn good. Nolan as well. When I first got into comics back in the early 2000's, I bought a lot of Knightfall era back issues. The Breyfogle and Nolan issues popped like nobody's business.

[HandofPrometheus]

Greg Capullo, Jim Aparo, Jim Lee, Frank Quietly, Jose Luis Garcia, and John Byrne drew some of my favorite Batman panels.