You know what’s the hardest thing to draw? The ordinary. True story: I wanted to be a comic book artist when I was growing up. That resulted in me spending scores of hours and reams of paper practising the craft, imitating my artistic heroes and attempting to put my own spin on famous characters. And after a while, I think I got sort of slightly less crap at drawing dynamic heroes and villains punching one another.
One thing I did learn however, once I managed to expand my reading and study, was that comic books are about more than just splash pages and pretty panels. There’s a subtle art to creating art, to translating words to visuals and making a script flow on a page. That requires a practical knowledge that can only be earned from countless hours of effort, even with today’s access to any reference material that an artist could possibly ever need.
It’s the artists who can take an ordinary scene of characters sitting in a diner or a villain plotting in the shadows, that I adore. The men and women who make the ordinary feel extraordinary and draw your eyes to follow the story without you even realising it. Now that’s what I call real talent! Just like the art below, from some of the finest artists in the industry:
Elric: The White Wolf #1 by Julian Telo
Green Arrow #44 by Kaare Andrews
Black Science #38 by Creature Box
Ghostbusters: Crossing Over #6 by Tim Lattie
Spawn #289 by Jason Shawn Alexander
Thanos Legacy #1 by Clayton Crain
Invader Zim #34 by Fred Stresing
The Dreaming #1 by Jae Lee
Quicksilver: No Surrender #5 by Martin Simmonds
Eclipse #10 by Giovanni Timpano
The Seeds #2 by David Aja
Leviathan #2 by Nick Pitarra
Vampironica #3 by Audrey Mok
The Dead Hand #6 by Stephen Mooney
Relay #3 by Andy Clarke
United States Vs. Murder, Inc. #1 by Michael Avon Oeming
Paradiso #7 by Mukesh Singh
Pestilence: A Story of Satan #4 by Tim Bradstreet
James Bond: Origin #1 by John Cassaday
Captain America #3 by Alex Ross
Last Updated: September 3, 2018
LegionZA
September 3, 2018 at 18:29
The cover for The Dreaming is really cool. But I wanna read the Invader Zim comic, that’s gotta be a fun read
The D
September 4, 2018 at 12:04
Dude, it’s so good! Most of the original creative staff from the Invader Zim cartoon is involved, so the comic gets very quickly mental.