Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #55 - Lou Fine!

Lou Fine is one of the gods of comic book artists -- a Golden Age great who was head and shoulders above nearly all of his competition. There's an elegance to Fine's work, combined with the necessary energy any comic book needs to succeed. Like so many of his generation he saw comic books as a stepping stone and for Fine it succeeded as he went to do slick magazine illustration.  You look at one of Fine's early covers and you can see the seeds of influence with so many comic artists who came after him, he's one of those guys who defined what comic book art was going to be.

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Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #56 - Mike Kaluta!

Mike Kaluta was a member of the esteemed The Studio, a quartet of up and coming comic book talents who at the time were eager to move beyond the limits of the comic book biz. To my mind, Mike Kaluta's work was perhaps the most elegant of the bunch. Barry Windsor-Smith was more baroque, Berni Wrightson was more lurid, and Jeff (Catherine) Jones was more mystical, but Kaluta brought a distinctive fairy tale quality to all his work, even that which dealt with the dark streets of the modern world. Such was the case in the early issues of The Shadow where Kaluta made his mark most memorably. Although his work on select issues of other Bronze Age DC books are notable.

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Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #57 - Steve Rude!

Steve "The Dude" Rude might well the finest artist of his generation. I am always amazed at the elegance and craftsmanship of his work, whether it's on his co-creation Nexus or on some simply amazing interpretation of a DC character such as Superman or Batman or whomever. Rude has an uncanny talent for making seem at once real and making feel dramatically exciting at the same time. He is the finest interpreter of the work of Jack Kirby alive today and that's because he doesn't ape Kirby's style but rather attempts to evoke the spirit and potency of Kirby. I cannot thing of a single Steve Rude book I haven't enjoyed and that makes me think he should be higher on this list.

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Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #58 - Bob Oksner!

I have less Bob Oksner art than I'd like. His delightful and often funny material appeared in DC Comics. Oksner won me over with the way he portrayed women, which at once idealized them and made them feel  real. They were gorgeous and yet had that girl next door vibe making them appear accessible to even a comic book nebbish like myself. Oksner work on Shazam, Supergirl, and especially Lois Lane stands out for me. Alas I was not savvy enough to scarf up his work on stuff like Angel and the Ape His Lois Lane covers in particular were clever and sexy and one wondered how they ever got by the Comics Code. It took a blend of skill and wit indeed.

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Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #59 - Warren Sattler!

Warren Sattler was a mainstay at Charlton Comics in the Bronze Age, a master of the western genre, he was tapped to bring those skills to Yang, the really only sort of legitimate tie-in to the vintage TV show Kung Fu. Sattler's style was warm and comfortable with lush soft lines which blended with the colors to create a delightfully attractive whole. Sattler's compositions were always clear and reading a comic drawn by him and likely written by the inimitable Joe Gill was a comfortable treat, easy to get down and delicious all the way. He did some really fine work for National Lampoon later too, bringing a soft style to some sharp satire. Sattler moved away from comic books and into newspaper strips before and after his turn at Charlton, but it will always be those handsome Billy the Kid and Yang comics which linger in my memory.

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Favorite Comic Artist Countdown #60 - Mike Ploog!

Mike Ploog came to my attention with his debut as artist on Marvel Spotlight's The Ghost Rider. His slick smoothly textured drawing was unlike anything I'd really seen at the time. Ploog was a devotee of the late great Will Eisner, but at the time, I had not really seen any of Eisner's best work and so I got a glimpse through his influence on Ploog. Ploog was the maven of horror for Marvel, drawing the earliest issues of Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider, and The Monster of Frankenstein. It's hard to pick a fave, but if forced, I'd have to say his vintage images in the Frankenstein comic are the ones which linger most. Ploog went on to design for films, most notably The Lord of the Rings movie from Ralph Bashki as evidenced by the poster above.

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The Favorite Comic Book Artist Countdown!

This month begins the largest project at the Dojo since the one hundred day countdown to Jack Kirby's centennial, and not surprisingly, Kirby will be part of it. Back in the fall of last year I did a countdown of my favorite superheroes and this month-long project generated more than the usual amount of comment. It was recommended by someone along the way that I might try the same thing with my favorite artists and I thought that was a dandy idea. But when I sat down to actually try to come up with a list of my "favorite" comic book artists. 

I couldn't limit it to a single month. I first started with a top fifteen, then a top twenty-five, then I upped it to fifty and finally it became sixty when I kept thinking of names I just could not leave off. So I'm going with sixty as the magic number (one for each year of my life) and the countdown will begin tomorrow and stretch through the ides of March and beyond. There likely will be other matters discussed and presented here during the countdown, but that will be job one for sure. I'm eager to see what kind of response I get to some of my choices, because the list did not end up like I expected it to. 

Remember that this is a list of my "favorite" artists and so will not necessarily reflect on the particular artist's significance. You likely already know all the names, or maybe not. For the record, I'm not including talent primarily known for comic strips (Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, etc.), only comic books, so maybe some day that's another countdown. This should be fun, or at least I hope so. 

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