We’re to our Final Four for our 2010 in Review segment, with Best Artist today, Best Writer tomorrow, Best Mini-Series on Thursday, and Christmas Eve bringing in the celebration with our look at the Best Ongoing Series of 2010.
But for now, we have the category of Best Artist, a category that features a ton of talent but also our biggest blow out in terms of the competition. Even with so much talent coming from the world of artists, one artist blew everyone else out. Who was it?
Find out after the jump. Also, note that we have 12 people on this list – this is simply because I am terrible at adding, but either way, all of these artists deserve to be recognized for their work.
Why He’s Awesome (Brandon): Not only has this guy been putting out some gorgeous covers he’s also been doing some phenomenal interior work. His work on Batman: Streets of Gotham and just recently Batgirl make a very big case for why this guy is one of the best in the industry at this time. I’ve been a big fan of his for some time now and especially love his Batman work.
I actually would really like to get an original Batman commission so I can get it tattooed opposite my Brian Bolland Joker. That’s how much I love this guy’s work. I think Nguyen’s attention to detail with Batman’s suit is what sets it apart from other artists. Even the smallest things like the slits on the side of the cowl help to add the depth that makes Nguyen, in my opinion, the go to Bat artist currently.
I’m excited to see what the New Year brings for Nguyen and you can bet your ass whatever is in store I’ll be buying it. If I get my way though he’ll still be doing Batman for some time. Though a Nguyen Wolverine could be pretty epic right?
11 (tie). Becky Cloonan
Why She’s Awesome (David): Becky Cloonan is one of my favorite artists for a lot of different reasons, but I think one of the most unique things about her has to be her ability to change her style for each situation. In the second volume of “Demo” this year with frequent collaborator Brian Wood, Cloonan was given the opportunity to do that constantly, as the six different issues gave her the opportunity to stretch her legs into all kinds of environments and types of moments.
While each was different slightly in terms of look, certain things remained constant. Her ability to imbue a certain level of humanity into every character and moment. Maintaining subtle nuances that heightened situations (also known as the entire third issue, as Cloonan took care to actually fill out every post-it note). Excelling at the little things, like making the water in issue four feel like a character in itself. Her ability to adjust her style based off situation, like taking harsher angles and lines on more intense moments like in issue six.
“Demo” ended up being one of my favorite mini-series of 2010, and it’s definitely thanks to Brian Wood’s scripts. But really, when you get down to it, “Demo” was far more a Becky Cloonan show than the first volume. She was given the spotlight and she took it and ran with it. Here’s hoping we see more from her sooner rather than later.
10. Alex Maleev
Why He’s Awesome (Walt): Scarlet was my #1 pick for our recent “Best New Series” list, and Alex Maleev’s art was a huge factor in making that decision. My first exposure to Maleev was in the first story of the massive No Man’s Land crossover in the late 90s’ Batman titles, and while his work was already leagues ahead of many of his contemporaries then it has only gotten better over time. What makes Maleev’s art great is that nearly all of the time he does everything. Pencils, inks, and even colors are all under his control. There are too many times where I see a good penciler’s work given the shaft by a sloppy inker, and — while it’s not as frequent as the former — a poor colorist can suck all the life out of an otherwise energetic page. Most of Maleev’s comics, though, are all Maleev, and as he is incredibly talented in all three fields the results are almost uniformly incredible. I love the gritty-yet-detailed look his art has, but his greatest gift, in my opinion, is his ability to capture emotion, which I find almost unmatched in the industry. Not only has he been kicking ass and taking names on Scarlet with Brian Michael Bendis, but his work on the unfortunately cancelled Spider-Woman book was very nice to look at, as well as his work on the sorely undiscussed Stephen King’s N. with Marc Guggenheim. I, for one, can’t wait to see what the rest of Scarlet looks like just as much as I can’t wait the see how it reads.
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9. Rob Guillory
Why He’s Awesome (David): “Chew” is one of our absolute favorite books on the market, and a big reason is the art of Rob Guillory. While he was an unknown to us before “Chew,” he has quickly become one of our absolute favorite artists out there because of his highly entertaining style that turns every page into a scavenger hunt of details. One of my favorite things to do while reading “Chew” is to look around each page for fun adventures for my eyes, finding hints to future arcs or silly little Easter Eggs that make the reading experience that much better.
For an artist that is relatively new to the scene, it’s refreshing to see someone with such a keen eye for scene design and for telling the story visually with less flair and more subtlety. In many ways, his style is a perfect pairing with John Layman’s scripts, and together they’ve turned “Chew” into one of the best of the best. Expect to see Guillory making this list yearly until at least when that series ends, and then likely after that when he moves onto parts unknown. Let’s hope that isn’t too soon though.
8. Stuart Immonen
Why He’s Awesome (Gil): Now, I haven’t read Nextwave (before you bawwww, it’s one of the next things I’m picking up), and most of the work I’ve seen Immonen do is when he was working with Bendis on New Avengers, but there is just something special about his work. From the clean lines to his beautiful figure work to the way the colors help make his work jump on the page even more. He’s a really talented worker. He’s also something of a mentor from what I hear, helping younger artists in the Toronto area. Artists have told me about how awesome he is, but even though I can’t really speak on that, not knowing him personally, I can judge his art, which is some of my favorite.
People ask me what my favorite Avengers book is, and why. And up until now, the answer had easily been New Avengers, and not just because of the great story telling or the dialogue, but Immonen’s work was the clincher. Everyone has their own personality. From Steve Rogers to Peter Parker to even Mandrill, Immonen’s work is the epitome of fantastic, and reliable.
I’m relatively new to liking Stuart Immonen, but the point remains, he’s one of the best artists in the biz. And while I mourn his loss on New Avengers, I’m looking forward to what he has to do in the future.
6 (tie). Dale Eaglesham
Why He’s Awesome (Josh): There are a great many artists out there seeking to replicate the wonder and innovation concocted by the early greats of this medium we love. So while there are more than a few faux-Kirbys and Ditko-lites out there, so few of them have been able to master the techniques put forward like Dale Eaglesham has. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Eaglesham’s work over the past few years on books like Justice Society of America and Fantastic Four has been the most perfect marriage of old and new seen in a very long time (Romita Jr’s okay in this regard…but nowhere near this.) Despite being in the business for over 20 years and having nearly 75 years of comic book art as a guide, his work always seems fresh and innovative as it constantly evolves. However, everything from the character placement to shot composition to facial expressions to movement pays homage to everything that made this comic book so lovable and infectious so long ago. He is, in every way, the modern Jack Kirby, and with Marvel throwing him a myriad of different assignments, I can’t wait to see where he takes his style next.
6 (tie). Jeff Lemire
Why He’s Awesome (Brandon): Jeff Lemire over the course of this year has given us one of the most consistently great looking books on the market. Not only is the character work well done but the page layouts and specifically the panel flow is so fluid and fun that it’s almost like Lemire is putting on a how to clinic. It’s a book where experimentation with the art as a storytelling element is consistent in both its use and success rate.
Outside of all that, the thing I love most about Lemire’s art is that it’s unique. A lot of times when you have an artist who is providing quality work reviewers and industry folk tend to want to do some sort of comparison. They say things like, “so and so’s art has been so good. It reminds me of so and so’s art!”. The great thing about Lemire’s art is there is no one to compare him with. I mean I am at a loss to find one artist whose work looks similar. It’s refreshing to see such unique art that matches such a unique book.
So I guess the short of the long is that if I had to use one word to describe Lemire’s art it would simply be “unique” and I mean this in all the best uses of the word.
3 (tie). Charlie Adlard
Why He’s Awesome (Josh): If the work of Charlie Adlard can be summed up into one word, it would undeniably be “consistent.” After 74 issues of The Walking Dead and despite not being the original artist on the book, Adlard’s clean, consistently well constructed pencils have undeniably left their mark on easily the most successful and recognizable horror comic the industry has ever seen. The Walking Dead is undeniably a book completely driven by human emotion and interpersonal relationships, and without Adlard’s grasp of facial expression and body language I sincerely doubt writer Robert Kirkman’s motives would be as effective as they ultimately are. However, the impact and relevance of outright zombie gore on the book cannot be denied either, and Adlard handles that beautifully (and brutally) as well. Now plenty of people can do facial expressions and plenty can do gore, but the ability to do BOTH is almost entirely unique. The fact that Adlard’s name is mentioned along side Kirkman and (original series artist) Tony Moore is no accident or lip service. The Walking Dead would not be as much of a phenomenon without Adlard, and we are all grateful for it.
3 (tie). Cameron Stewart
Why He’s Awesome (Walt): Ever since I first read Seaguy I have been a huge Cameron Stewart fan. His technique is so finely detailed while remaining impeccably clean, serving as a real delight for the eyes. The man clearly puts a lot of time into his work, so those of you who still discredit him by simply saying “it’s too cartoony” can shove off. In the action-packed realm that most currently published comics reside in, two-page spreads with dynamic posing reign, but Stewart is one of the best artists in the industry at actually making his action dynamic rather than frozen like a photograph. Take a look at his recent work in Batman & Robin #16: those pages he had were so alive that I was literally tired out by reading them (in a good way). Everything moved from panel to panel so well that I almost felt like I was being pulled along with the events going on in the page. That, my friends, is how you illustrate a comic. His earlier arc on the title was fantastic, and his work on the Assassin’s Creed comic with Karl Kerschl has been beautiful. If only he had worked on The Return of Bruce Wayne #4 as originally planned…
3 (tie). Sean Murphy
Why He’s Awesome (David): Even though Ryan Ottley is my boy and is doing superheroics better than anyone has in a long, long time right now, my number one pick was an artist that I had never read anything of before 2010. That artist? Sean Murphy (aka Sean Gordon Murphy), a man who has taken a project mostly well known for the writer involved (“Joe the Barbarian” and Grant Morrison) and turned it into something that is the biggest visual tour de force of the year in my eyes.
Continued belowEvery page, from the very first issue on, is filled with so much detail that it’s fun just to run your eyes around every page and pick out the little things. While some artists choose to focus on the foreground and limit the level of work they put on the background, Murphy instead focuses on the image as a whole, escalating the power of every scene with the design he puts into each page.
Some of my favorite pages in this book so far have been the little things like the collections of toys that exist in the background whenever Joe is near them. Peaking around, finding a Batman toy here, and Optimus Prime there, and any number of other favorite childhood toys, that just makes this book that much more fun to read.
But he doesn’t just spend his time on the background, he’s also spent time turning this into one of the most well designed and visually cinematic books in comics ever. There are pages that just floor me, like one page in the fourth or fifth issue that finds Joe at the top of his stairs with water pouring down the staircase with the camera staring down. It’s a simple page, and something that in another artist’s hands wouldn’t have been worth much of anything. But with this page, Murphy adds to the thoughtfulness and troublesome nature of the situation and controls the pacing in a way most artists simply aren’t able to control.
If you’d asked me before the year who I thought my favorite artist of the year would be, I would have never even considered Sean Gordon Murphy. But now? There could be no other name that tops my list.
2. Francis Manapul
Why He’s Awesome (Gil): Francis Manapul is one of the hardest working and most consistent artists out there. And best of all, he’s also one of the most unique. Look at his art, and you’d be hard pressed to say his art looked like anyone’s in particular. Sure you could ask him his biggest inspirations, and there would be quite a few that you would love, but while you know those artists, and might see the influences, you still couldn’t peg him with any other artist.
And that’s what makes him so special. Where some artists are known for their beautiful character designs and others still get work for their tremendous eye for dynamics and movement, Francis here has it all. All of these traits made him the perfect person to draw Barry Allen’s exploits, in my opinion. Every issue of Flash, and Adventure Comics before it, has been utterly amazing, with heartfelt and easily distinguishable characters coupled with the kineticism that is required.
And like Stuart Immonen, I haven’t seen as much as I should have, but I really want to go back and read his run on Witchblade as well as everything else he does. His unique hand needs to be supported, and while I don’t necessarily want to see him leave DC, a Spider-Man run seems perfect for his style as well.
Keep the man happy, DC Trinity (that’s Didio, Lee, and Johns!), you don’t want to lose your brightest star, do you?
1. Ryan Ottley
Why He’s Awesome (Matt): When it comes to art this year, we’ve had some huge names putting out some fantastic work in comics from the Big Two. However, there is one artist that has been so consistently amazing for 64 issues straight, and that man is Ryan Ottley. Since taking over Invincible with Robert Kirkman at issue #13, Ottley has been nothing short of fantastic issue after issue, yet for some reason he doesn’t get as much praise as he honestly should. We at MC seek to correct that, and with Invincible pretty much being the greatest superhero comic in the universe, it stands to reason that the artist behind the book is fairly responsible for doing such.
So let’s take a look back at this year. With this pas year, Ottley and Kirkman (writer of Invincible) have been presenting us with the build-up and pay-off to the Viltrumite War, a story now 7 years in the making. They’ve done so for several issue of big battle sequences and all you would expect from a global war told from Kirkman’s perspective, and with issue #75 they provided one of the single most explosive issues of the year. This issue proved one thing to everyone who purchased and read it: Ryan Ottley is a top talent in the industry if not THE top talent in the industry, especially to the point that fellow MC writer David and I were rather dumbfounded in how to accurately discuss it in our review of the book. Ottley fills the page like no others with tremendous splash sequences, and he never shorts you on the details. Part of the reason the Invincible book is facing delays at the moment is because of how much effort Ottley is putting into the pages, and it’s very visually apparent (did I mention that planet Viltrum has a ring of dead bodies around in it’s orbit? Or rather – it had).
Continued belowThere is no reason not to be buying Invincible, and one of the primary reasons to buy it is Ottley’s artistic talent. Ottley has a sense of style to h not many others do, and his pencils and inks are some of the finest in comics today. If you want to see the best of the best of the year, pick up any issue of Invincible that came out since January and you’ll find yourself in for quite the treat. It’s a feast for the eyes.
Individual Lists
David
1. Sean Murphy
2. Ryan Ottley
3. Darwyn Cooke
4. R.M. Guera
5. Mark Buckingham
6. Guy Davis
7. Rebekah Isaacs
8. Becky Cloonan
9. Rob Guillory
10. Jen Wang
Matt
1. Ryan Ottley
2. Cameron Stewart
3. Becky Cloonan
4. Francis Manapul
5. Adam Kubert
6. Sean Phillips
7. Steve Dillon
8. Charlie Adlard
9. Ivan Reis
10. Patrick Gleason
Gil
1. Francis Manapul
2. Gary Frank
3. Stuart Immonen
4. Doug Mahnke
5. Rob Guillory
6. Nicola Scott
7. Alex Maleev
8. Dale Eaglesham
9. Amanda Conner
Brandon
1. Ryan Ottley
2. Charlie Adlard
3. Scott Morse
4. Jeff Lemire
5. Dustin Nguyen
6. David Finch
7. Mike McKone
8. Dale Eaglesham
9. Rob Guillory
10. John Romita, Jr.
Josh
1. Ryan Ottley
2. Jeff Lemire
3. David Lafuente
4. Charlie Adlard
5. Dale Eaglesham
6. Rob Guillory
7. Chris Samnee
8. Salvador Larocca
9. Francis Manapul
10. Jamie McKelvie
Walt
1. Cameron Stewart
2. Sean Murphy
3. Alex Maleev
4. Stuart Immonen
5. Francis Manapul
6. Dustin Nguyen
7. Dale Eaglesham
8. Leinil Francis Yu
9. Roberto de la Torre
10. Pete Woods
