"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
Jim Lee, Neal Adams, Greg Capullo, Darwyn Cooke, Jason Fabok.
Last edited by KC; 08-02-2017 at 05:41 PM.
“Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down.”
- Grant Morrison on Superman
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
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.
Gerry Conway, embarrased to forget about him
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 Rafael grampa did like what, one unpublished batman story and its still my #1 favorite fuckin batman art ever.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.
No love for Dick Sprang? Blasphemy!
Every day is a gift, not a given right.
Personally, I haven't checked too much material previous to O'neil. I know, shame on me
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.
Greg Capullo, Jim Aparo, Jim Lee, Frank Quietly, Jose Luis Garcia, and John Byrne drew some of my favorite Batman panels.