For the rest of us,

September 19, 2001 7:48 PM

For the rest of us, here's an up-and-coming artist who manages to blend the visual impact of graphitti with the frenetic energy of comic book art, creating a neat style all his own, but shared by others. It's like an american version of anime.
...please god... no more wtc links...
posted by jcterminal (14 comments total)

Just beautiful! I love graffiti art.

Thanks for sharing the link.
posted by misanthropy at 8:03 PM on September 19, 2001

reminds me of some recent marvel artists--chris bachalo, duncan rouleau and that guy who drew for x-factor a few years back. nice, thanks :)
posted by kliuless at 8:05 PM on September 19, 2001

Wow. Simply beautiful art.
posted by tomorama at 8:06 PM on September 19, 2001

Don't mean to be an ass, but this guy's style is the same anime-inspired stuff everyone's been doing for years now. Like someone said - Bachalo, Madureira, and Art God J. Scott Campbell did it first.

I'm still waiting for someone to come along and shake stuff up like McFarlane, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld did.
posted by owillis at 8:53 PM on September 19, 2001

i think they already came and went, stephen platt and richard bennett, for instance. there's also lionel francis yu!

i've never nerded out on comics on metafilter before :)
posted by kliuless at 9:09 PM on September 19, 2001

i can definitely see some anime influences... but i would liken this work more with sam kieth than akira toriyama or masakazu katsura.
posted by lotsofno at 9:31 PM on September 19, 2001

I'm still waiting for someone to come along and shake stuff up like McFarlane, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld did.


Each of those artists' styles owes a bit to anime also.
posted by skallas at 9:33 PM on September 19, 2001

oh, and owillis... though i'm sure you've already heard some people talk about him to death, try david mack if you haven't yet.

mcfarlane? sure, i bought it at first, but it couldn't hold my interest after the 13th issue. jim lee? Never really got too into the WildC.A.T.S. (or a lot of comic series that started with Image.). rob liefeld? i cannot find any way to like him. he is even worse than erik larsen (though he's not really bad.. i just think his comics are silly.), in that his whole career involved drawing and making character that looked like Cable. i must admit though, the idea behind blood strike, which was that they were brought back from the dead just so they could be soldiers for hire, sounded kind of cool at the time.
posted by lotsofno at 9:40 PM on September 19, 2001

Did this get MeFi'd already? Everything times out past the main interface for me.
posted by kevspace at 9:41 PM on September 19, 2001

oh and i was just thinking zen intergalactic ninja and goblin lord.

wildcats sucked compared to jim lee's earlier stuff on x-men, not to mention whilce portacio. yeah, i never understood rob liefeld, but he did bring in alan moore on supreme. the maxx rocked, tho.
posted by kliuless at 9:46 PM on September 19, 2001

damn whilce portracio. he made me wait years for wetworks, only so i could find that it sucked.
posted by lotsofno at 10:27 PM on September 19, 2001

All those artists did have anime influences, but it was very different from the Byrne/Perez style that seemed to dominate the 80s. I collected Spawn for about 5yrs and got bored with it. WildCats killed itself, Youngblood sucked huge. I was never a big collector, but I love Erik Larsen's "balls out" style. I've severly cut back in the past few years because the quality of superhero (my main focus) comics has suffered. The only cool stuff going is the revitalized Superman (I've got everything from 86-present)-- Ed McGuiness draws Superman the way he should be, Danger Girl (a new issue every 8-9 months it seems), Young Justice, JLA -- and that's about it.

I am fanboy, hear me drool.
posted by owillis at 10:41 PM on September 19, 2001

Too cool... Reminds me of Gorillaz....
posted by dawiz at 12:24 AM on September 20, 2001

Jamie Hewlett was responsible for the art for Gorillaz. One of his comics, Tank Girl was even made into a movie. Not exactly great, but a movie nonetheless. It's good to see him back in the limelight even though he's not receiving much direct recognition for it.

A few comics that I heartily recommend right now due to the creators working on them, are:

100 Bullets
writer: Brian Azzarello
artist: Eduardo Risso

Hellblazer
writer: Brian Azzarello
artist: Marcelo Frusin

New X-Men
writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Frank Quitely (Authority, Flex Mentallo)

Superman: The Man of Steel
writer: Mark Schultz (Xenozoic Tales)
artist: Doug Mahnke (Mask, Major Bummer)

Interesting note, most of these artists are from outside the United States. Therefore they likely have different influences which help prevent the incestuousness that spawned Liefeld and his ilk.

I tried to find decent links to all the various creators, some are better than others.
posted by the biscuit man at 6:33 PM on September 20, 2001