« Even as a youngster reading 2000 AD from its first issue in 1977, it was clear that Brian’s artwork was special. It was the perfect mixture of American-inspired dynamism, a British sense of the absurd, and avant-garde European SF imagery, rendered in meticulous, almost inhumanly perfect linework. It was a deeply seductive style… » — David Roach
As far as I can tell, everyone loves Brian Bolland‘s (b. 1951) work. It’s sophisticated in design yet direct, highly detailed yet clean as a whistle *and* neat as a pin, technically adept, varied but unfailingly his. As a sequential cartoonist, he can be a bit stiff, but as a cover artist, he’s pretty untouchable. For about a second and a half, I was tempted to spotlight his work in our Hot Streak! category, but that would have been absurd, such is Bolland’s high level of consistency and volume of work. So I’ll “merely” feature an even dozen of his Animal Man covers (out of a total of 64, 1988-1993).
After Alan Moore made an unexpected splash with his work on Swamp Thing, the folks at DC scrambled, in ‘have you got a sister?‘ fashion, to strip-mine the UK’s writerly talent pool. In came Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Pete Milligan, Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, and so on…
For the cockiest of these writers, the typical bravura move was to prove their commercial acumen by revamping the most obscure existing character they could think of* (typically, characters DC’s then-editors had never heard of); in Gaiman’s case, it was Sheldon Mayer’s Black Orchid**, and in Morrison’s, Animal Man. As minor characters (a lesson learned from Alan Moore’s Watchmen), these heroes could be subjected to numberless and unceasing torments and humiliations at the writer’s whim.
Created by writer Dave Wood and illustrator Carmine Infantino, Animal Man was introduced, sans costume at first, presumably as he was intended as a one-off, in DC’s long-running SF anthology Strange Adventures no. 180 (Sept. 1965). First known as A-Man, he gained his superhero togs in his third appearance, Strange Adventures no. 190 (July 1966). After a mere five appearances in SA, he virtually vanished… until the second ‘British Invasion‘.
-RG
*To be fair, their first eighty-five choices likely had proved unavailable.
**Mayer had asked that his 1970s creation, The Black Orchid, never be given an origin or have her mystery dispelled. Gaiman just aped what Mr. Moore had done (but brilliantly) with Swamp Thing… and made her a literal plant. Bah.
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I really, really, really like Bolland’s drawing style. If he had 10% of the potency/kineticism of Jack Kirby, I’d probably think he was one of the best DC-like artists ever!
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Hee. Being measured against Kirby is unfair to just about anyone, especially on the dynamism front! I think of Bolland as more of a Russ Manning type, whose work (also) seemed unfailingly tidy, controlled and classy.
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I did not intend to measure him against Kirby, just to state that Bolland’s art is rather placid.
The comparison with Russ Manning (whose work I also really, really, really like) is perfect and I have the same thing to say about it: If Manning had 10% of the potency/kineticism of Jack Kirby, I’d probably think he was one of the best DC-like artists ever!
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Hi Neal — Glad we’re in sync on the Manning-Bolland Convergence (sounds like a Dutch AOR band)!
I must confess I’m a tad puzzled as to what a “DC-like artist” represents. I mean, Tarzan reprints aside, Manning has never appeared in any DC Comics as far as I know, so it’s odd to cast him in that role. Is a DC-like artist the opposite of a Marvel-like artist? I can see Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Murphy Anderson and Russ Heath fitting in there, but where does that leave, say, Gil Kane, Ross Andru or Bob Brown? Are you positing that a DC-like artist fits within a tidy, definite range? The way I see it, there was far more range within the DC bullpen than Marvel’s, at least by the mid-60s (partly explained by their covering more genres in a greater number of books, controlled by distinct editorial fiefdoms). And what would possibly be a Charlton-like artist? (the very notion…)
In this context and by these standards, it occurs to me that you’re giving ol’ Wally a free pass. In ‘serious’ mode, he’s pretty damn placid himself; which is why, when it comes to action, I prefer his work inking Ditko’s pencils and layouts over his solos.
Which brings us to the burning question of who, Bolland and Manning having failed the Kirby Kinetics Test, *are* the best DC-like artists ever? (Kubert? Infantino?)
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How I perceived Marvel superhero art while buying comic books in the mid-’60s: Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
How I perceived DC superhero art while buying comic books in the mid-’60s: Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, and Murphy Anderson.
Kirby was arguably the most rambunctiously energetic comic book artist in history while Ditko had a more finessed kineticism for Spider-Man.
Swan, Schaffenberger, and Anderson (along with Gil Kane, Ross Andru, Bob Brown, and others) were placid in comparison.
No judgment of talent, just what appeared to be each company’s way of making comics.
A few years later and Kirby and Ditko were at DC and the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Spidey, Doc Strange, etc., were never the same.
At least, for me.
’Nuff said?
PS: I never thought of Wally Wood’s superhero art as a sort of ultimate DC-like superhero comic book art but now that you mention it, I can see it. In 1965, I started buying the Tower titles just for Wood’s gorgeous art. But even then, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Undersea Agent, and No-Man “felt” more like DC comics than Marvel.
Of course, at the same time, Wood was publishing Witzend, which I was also buying. Reading the stuff he did there—especially “The Wizard King” and my fave, “The Pipsqueak Papers”—and knowing what he had to do to pay the bills must have had him at wit’s end (and at bottle’s bottom) regularly.
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Thanks for fleshing out the context — it makes perfect sense to me, Neal!
As a kid (say, 6 or 7 years old), I adored the Fantastic Four. In 1972, the local company (Éditions Héritage) that published their adventures made an abrupt, unexplained leap: issue 11 had reprinted FF 97 and 98; then the following month, issue 12 contained FF 121 and 122. I was utterly baffled, I hated the non-Kirby art and plot, and they lost me for good.
“A few years later and Kirby and Ditko were at DC and the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Spidey, Doc Strange, etc., were never the same. At least, for me.”
Ditto for me. I have zero interest in anything done to Doctor Strange by anyone but Ditko. Same with Spidey. Post-Kirby and Ditko, Marvel’s characters are just going in circles, reportedly at Stan’s express request. If memory serves, he told Houseroy, in the early 70s, that he no longer wanted the Marvel Universe to change. Sounds about right.
I’m not surprised that Tower would feel more DC-ish than Marvel-style: given Wood’s painful encounters with Stan’s ‘Marvel Method’, he hardly would have opted to impose it at Tower. And yeah, we’ll never say it enough: poor Wally. He deserved so much better out of life.
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