Inventors & Refiners
by Jeet Heer
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Onion’s AV Club did a list of the 21 most influential mainstream comics artists (mainstream being a slightly inadequate term to designate contemporary commercial superhero comics).
It’s not a bad list, as these things go:
1. Jack Kirby 2. Steve Ditko 3. George Pérez 4. Alex Ross 5. Mike Mignola . 6. Carmine Infantino 7. Greg Land 8. George Tuska 9. Jim Lee 10. Carl Barks 11. Dan DeCarlo 12. Steve Rude 13. Will Eisner 14. Joe Kubert 15. Rob Liefeld 16. Todd McFarlane 17. Chris Ware 18. Basil Wolverton 19. Harvey Kurtzman 20. Neal Adams 21. Bill Sienkiewicz.
The people who did this list are much better versed in contemporary mainstream comics than I am, so I think they have a fair sense of who the large, living influences are right now. Even so, I think they made a mistake not to include Alex Toth, who continues to shape all sorts of artists (like Darwyn Cooke, Mazzuchelli, Michael Cho).
And I’m not sure that Chris Ware belongs on the list: I wish he did have a big impact on mainstream comics art but I don’t see it, aside from a few design licks that get stolen time and again. Nobody in the mainstream has learned to copy Ware’s delicate color sense or his ability to think freshly about inherited cartooning conventions, not to mention the emotional range and sensitivity of his work.
Aside from Toth, who else should be on the list bud didn’t make it? I’d say (for a start): 1. Jesse Marsh 2. Bernie Krigstein. 3. Wally Wood 4. Russ Manning. 5. Jack Cole. 6. Gil Kane. 7. Bernie Wrightson 8. Johnny Craig. 6. Al Williamson. 7. Gene Colan. 8. Reed Crandall. 9. Lou Fine. 9. John Romita.
What’s interesting about the artists that didn’t make the AV Club list (Toth to Romita on my list) is that they tend to come out of the illustrational tradition. They’re not, for the most part, master-innovators like Kirby, Kurtzman, or Eisner. Rather, their skill was in refining and extending already existing styles. It’s like the difference between Buster Keaton and Sergei Eisenstein (on the one hand) compared to Howard Hawks and John Ford on the other. The question is, are artists of this sort – refiners rather than inventors – worth remembering? Or are they simply part of the flotsam of history?
We could also have an interesting list of people who should be influential but aren’t: 1. Fletcher Hanks 2. Milt Gross. 3. Boody Rodgers. 4. John Stanley.
What all these lists demonstrate, I think, is the narrow artistic range of the mainstream. The gene-pool here is shallow and hasn’t been replenished by outside influences for a long time. To find a more inbred group, you’d have to go back to ancient Egypt when Pharaohs often married their own sisters.
Labels: lists, The A.V. Club, The Onion
Jeet,
I'd argue that Gross influenced people like Will Elder and Al Jaffee with the frenzied nature of his style and the layering of gags. And Elder and Jaffee influenced a lot of people in humor.
(I'd also argue that Opper was Elder's direct influence, and probably influenced Elder & Jaffee as well).
I thought the Onion's selections didn't really cohere, for some of the reasons you mention. The main reason is that their definition of "mainstream" seems to be a moving target. There's no sense in which Chris Ware has influenced artists from Marvel or DC. He's certainly a huge influence on a generation of alt-comics people, but that's not what that article purported to be.
The single biggest influence on mainstream comics at the moment is Bryan Hitch–"widescreen" graphics, heavy use of photo reference, decompressed storytelling style, a reliance on color for the coherency of the page. Hitch is good at these things, but his imitators (which is basically half of the Marvel artists) aren't.
It's funny that no manga-oriented creators were mentioned. If it weren't for those original pioneers (who were written off as "stylized") there would be no scott pilgrim today (is there anything more mainstream?) I'm thinking of Joe Madureira and Adam Warren, among others. Perhaps this is recent enough that we are still embarrassed by them?
how could Steve Rude be on that list without Toth?
that's retarded.
One big reason for writing this post is that I knew Frank would have a response to the list.
You've put a double 'http' in the link. Confuses Safari.
I'm really biting my tongue, haha.
Infantino and no Buscema?
Thanks, Anonymous. I fixed the link.
Wait, the more I look at this list, the more it is totally off. No Miller? And who the f**k did George Tuska ever influence? And I like Tuska, but honestly can think of no one who branches from him.
They explain the reasoning behind the Tuska pick at the site, Frank, but yeah, it doesn't really make much sense.
Tuska " helped establish the Marvel house style"
true. but to leave off Buscema then, who literally wrote the book on the Marvel house style, is, uh, irresponsible.
so it's artists who changed mainstreme comics?
then Katsuhiro Otomo really should be on this list. not only for being the author of the first Manga to hit big in the west. I don't think Image would have happened if all it's founders hadn't read Akira, or at least the parts available at the time.
the absence of Frank Miller is pretty Glaring,I can see no argument for how Greg land has influenced comics More than Miller.
I wrote about this article when it first appeared; I thought it would be nice and well within the spirit of their article if they had mentioned the late Mike Parobeck, the first of those guys to really make that mainstream animated style work on the page as effectively as it did on the screen.
Didn't DC house style for years owe itself to Dan Barry? I think Gil Kane said that. Or am I remembering that wrong?
I also can't think of anyone who George Tuska influenced, although when I heard stories about him punching out other cartoonists I always imagined he looked like Black Jack Tarr from Master of Kung Fu.
Also, Romita Sr. literally showed artists how to work the Marvel way, having absorbed lessons from both Kirby and Maneely in how to work powerfully and economically, so he'd need to be on any list.
holy shit, wait, Romita isn't on the list?
Kirby+Toth+Romita = Steve Rude
I mean, who has Rude really influenced?
Besides Chris Ware, the other one on the list that puzzled me was Basil Wolverton. I can see the huge impact he had in influencing underground and alternative comics artists, but mainstream? Not so much.
Romita Sr. was also the guy who did a lot of the initial modeling work for Marvel's major licensing projects in the 1970s, from the Electric Company to the Macy's Parade balloon, so he pretty much was the public face of Marvel there during their pull-ahead decade.
Romita and Miller definitely belong, and a case could certainly be made for Byrne and Kubert as well.
And Liefeld has no business being on the same list as Kirby, Ditko and the others. That's like putting Sinbad on a list of the most influential comedians!
Jeet –
Interesting stuff to mull over. In the spirit of inquiry (and not pedantic nitpicking), wouldn't John Ford be on the same kind of list you'd put Jack Kirby on? (a) Kirby and Ford are both associated with one particular genre, though they mastered most of the popular ones. (b) Kirby and Ford are the towering figures in their respective "home genres". (c) Kirby and Ford rewrote the conventions of these genres to allow for work that spoke more directly to their personal themes/interests, without ever completely dismantling the conventions or changing them beuond recognition. Ford belongs on the short list of the most influential American filmmakers ever, especially since his influence extends not only through American popular cinema, but to World and avant-garde cinema (i.e. Jean-Marie Straub is a big Ford fan; Donovan's Reef is playing at Anthology Film Archives this week).
Speaking as a reader/member of the audience and not a historian, I'm not sure that "innovation", by itself, is that interesting. Especially if we're talking about "technical innovation" (which sometimes feels more like trivia). For instance, most of the techniques deployed by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane were first used in other people's movies. What's innovative, then, about Kane has more to do with it being a film with independent vision made with the resources of a Hollywood studio than it has to do with how Welles & Toland use deep focus. Kurtzman's greatest innovation, for example, is probably one of attitude rather than anything to do with his drawing style.
"Top ___" lists are boring. The reason that they are always boring is the same reason why they are always "wrong."
The "most influential" practicioners of an artform is a canon; something that moves at a glacial pace, if it moves at all. It's not about current likes, it's about things in the past that created the present. While the past may be continually examined to deepen our understanding of the present, we aren't going to see something radically different like the omission of Kirby from an "influential comics people" list.
These lists are boring because people dare to keep remaking them which basically means, people continue to rewrite the same information. So perhaps it is a good thing that the lists seem to omit or miss out on things here and there–that gives the poor souls who read these lists something to discuss and thus, a reason for the list itself to exist.
Existing to be hated is still a reason to exist. I talk about the lessons that observers can learn from errors and mistakes of others, and that certainly applies to the sort of discussion that pops up with each and every one of these "most influential _____" lists.
Liefeld and Lee without Art Adams?
I could do this for days, so I'll stop.
Who did George Tuska influence? Pete Morisi ("PAM"). His work owes a lot to the work Tuska did for Lev Gleason/Charles Biro ("Crime Does Not Pay").
(Not that Tuska's inclusion in that list makes any sense.)
I agree with Jon Hastings that artistic innovation really isn't all that interesting. Alfred Hitchcock was a refiner (although I prefer the term "synthesizer"), and I'd rather watch his work than that of D.W. Griffith anytime.
Innovation is important for marking milestones along the way, but to my mind the work of innovators tends to be rather shallow–aside from the actual innovation, the work itself usually offers very little depth. Refiners (or synthesizers), on the other hand, are better at fleshing out superficial ideas combining them and making them sing (other refiners in addition to Hitchcock would be Shakespeare, Mozart, Gershwin, and Fitzgerald).
I think another way of looking at this is as "Ideas" vs. "Craft." Ideas are important, but once they've been superceded their interest is often of historical value only. Craft, on the other hand, is relevant no matter what the context. If something is well-made then it's well-made.
The famous Volkswagen "Think Small" ad campaign from the 1960s was undeniably clever and innovative, but I wouldn't want any of those ads hanging on my wall, because after awhile it's cleverness wears thin and the ads aren't all that attractive. The recent United Airlines campaign (which featured the work of scores of illustrators), on the other hand, wasn't innovative at all, but it was nevertheless very beautiful and I wouldn't mind having a few of those ads framed in my office.
I think my bias is clear and it's obvious that I fall into the "refiners" and "craft" camp. I love Toth's work (he's my favorite cartoonist by a mile) but Kirby's work has always left me cold.
The AV clubs article were artists who changed the industry for better or worse. They give explicit reasons for who they picked and why they picked them. Greg Land is on the list for God's sake, and he almost makes it appear that Liefeld has a clue. So calm down everyone, great artists weren't snubbed on purpose.
Land was added for his blatant porno tracing, Tuska because of his adequacy and speed, (not pure talent), Liefeld well I will take the quote from the aritcle:
"He had legions of fans, even though he couldn’t actually draw; when he—along with Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and other controversial artists—helped form the creator-owned Image Comics in 1992, the world learned that he couldn’t write, either. Since then, it’s been revealed that he can’t do much of anything else. Still, there’s no denying that the guy owned the 1990s. It was a strange decade."
Again from the point of the article it made sense, if we were dealing with influence, then you're all correct it missed the mark.
I'd definitely pick Jack Cole over Basil Wolverton for mainstream influence. Also, Greg Land? No. I can see Jim Lee and even Liefeld (not saying I liked him, but he sure was influential for a while there). If you want someone who helped bring manga to mainstream America AND whose books on comics likely influenced a ton of artists, how 'bout Scott McCloud?
We're calm. It's just fun to bat all this around. The list and the AV crew aren't bad; it's all cool. Yay comics.
Yeah, I think part of the function of CC is to react to these kind of comic-related mainstream press articles, and the function of the Onion article is to start a debate for their "comments" section and have people link to it. it's a symbiotic relationship.
What about Barry Smith and Steranko? Any 'shifts' in Bronze age comics are surely very influenced by them.
You know we could debate it all day, and then we would go to sleep and then wakeup and then start again. Methinks that it brings up a more important point. That we need to establish, or debate(pull out your hair) a canon for comics. Or maybe different ones for different kinds of comics. Or you know whatever strikes your fancy. But a real live zip zapping between the many people here as well as possibly others from beyond the shores of comic comics?
When it starts, inform me so that I can get popcorn. I hate popcorn but for this, anything.