Best Artist of 2009
Jim Doom: Ivan Reis!
Blackest Night is as good as it is because of him. He makes everything as huge, horrific or heroic as it needs to be. He can handle zombies, superheroes, different faces, gorgeous superheroines, realistic or creepy landscapes, scenes on Earth or on some other planet, intimate conversations, massive battles and basically anything Geoff Johns asks of him and makes it look beautiful and effortless. The guy is at the top of his game.
Honorable Mention: Paul Pelletier. I was sad to see him leave Guardians of the Galaxy, but I’m glad he ended up on War of Kings. He’s got that soft expressive charm of an Alan Davis or Hulk-era Dale Keown, but he packs in a lot of modern fist-fighting, bomb-exploding energy.
Honorable mention: Doug Mahnke. He was the one good thing about Superman: Beyond. I’m enjoying his work on Green Lantern, but DC needs to do a better job of putting consistent inkers on his pencils. It’s clearly no fault of his, but the two or three inkers they put on each issue of Green Lantern sure screws up some otherwise fantastic art.
Fin Fang Doom: Charlie Adlard!
Best artist- Charlie Adlard. There are a lot of really good comic book artists out there: Ivan Reis, Ryan Ottley, John Cassaday, Carlos Pacheco… I could go on and on. But no one really leaps out at me as the very best in the field.
So how did I settle on Charlie Adlard? It’s simple. He was able to draw twelve issues of the best comic book on the stands (The Walking Dead) in the span of twelve months. Aside from Mark Bagley, my best artist pick for 2008, I can’t think of anyone else who was able to do produce high quality art and keep to a schedule.
Here’s who we’ve picked for Best Artist in previous years:
2008:
Doom DeLuise: Sean Phillips
Fin Fang Doom: Mark Bagley
Jim Doom: Eric Powell2007:
Jim Doom: (tie) Ivan Reis & Leinil Yu
Doominator: Jaime Hernandez
Fin Fang Doom: George Perez
Doom DeLuise: Sean Phillips2006:
Jim Doom: (tie) Michael Lark and Steve Epting
Doom DeLuise: (tie) Pete Woods, Ivan Reis and Steve McNiven
Doominator: Bryan Hitch
Fin Fang Doom: John Cassaday2005:
Fin Fang Doom: Charlie Adlard
Colonel Doom: Alex Maleev
Jim Doom: Alex Maleev, Eric Powell, Bryan Hitch and Leinil Yu
Jean-Claude Van Doom: Bryan Hitch