ProtoformAl favorite comic book artist

During my years in high school, I’ve had a lot of contact with comics, specially Marvel. This was due to the fact that our main source, a supermarket nearby, mostly stocked in French “Semic” titles. Semic, at the time, published French official translations from DC comics, Marvel, Dark Horse and so on. For some reason, the Marvel comics’ translations were the ones that made their way to our store.

One of my first official original Marvel graphic novel was “Marvels” written by Kurt Busiek and painted by Alex Ross. Coming from the world of serial comic issues, with their basic yet entertaining art, I was blown away by Mr. Ross’s work. I was novel to the concept of painting comic panes instead of drawing. He gave life to an already interesting story. At places, there was a sense of scope and beauty difficult to have been possible to convey with regular drawings.

The part that was the most of interest to me was the little “making-of” section at the end of the Trade Paperback (TPB). I could totally understand how he did so well, he used live models for his characters, even used carton cut for Galactus’ helmet. His depiction of Gwen Stacy simply made me fall in love with the character, and the person he used as model was just as gorgeous.

No more were there crude depictions of the characters living in this world. This was a work done with a lot of attention to detail, and a love of realism. It is still my favorite book in all the titles I’ve collected.

Around the same period I got this book, I also obtained a copy of Universe X. Although he was not the main artist, Alex Ross’s name was on the cover and that motivated me. Looking at screenshots I could readily see that his influence on the design and direction of the TPB was quite sufficient to satisfy me. Other examples of his work are “Kingdom Come” and “Batman: War on Crime” both from DC Comics. These last two can serve to further show the particular style of this artist. The beautiful details, the impression of realism in a world of wonders and dreams.

Anyone can recognize these classic icons of American pop culture, yet there aren’t so many drawers/painters out there to have produced work of such vibrant and indelible interpretations collected or not into full albums.

Alex Ross is my favorite comic book artist of all time. It is of course a matter of opinion, but who can truthfully argue against me that he isn’t one of the best?