From: maguire@copland.jpl.nasa.gov (Kevin Maguire)
Subject: Re: CYBER FORCE #1
Followup-To: rec.arts.comics.misc
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 02:19:23 GMT

In article <1bfsteINNdve@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, intruder@cats.ucsc.edu (Sheila
Rani Gurtu) wrote:
> 
> [my list of artists I wanted people who love the Image boys to comment on
>  deleted.  Most of these artists do no draw power-fest punchemups        ]
>
> NONE of the artists you've mentioned could effectively draw CYBERFORCE.  Every
> time someone comes on here and says they like XYZ artist, someone else has
> to come on and say "Why do you think XYZ is god?!  What about Will Eisner, who
> truly IS god?  Or ZZX or YXZ or blah blah blah."  None of that is the point.
> Beside the fact that I haven't heard anybody on here refer to Marc Silvestri
> as an "art god" but yourself, we are talking about CYBERFORCE here -- not 
> THE SPIRIT, not SWAMP THING, not GRENDEL, etc. etc.  We are talking about a
> specific comic book, which, for my money, delivered its purpose very well on
> most counts.  Whatever you think of CYBERFORCE as an artistic statement, or
> whatever, if you had Will Eisner draw it it would REALLY suck.  You just
> can't make blanket judegments of artistic ability.  Rembrandt couldn't draw
> THE SPIRIT.  Lay off this stupid comparative stuff.  Did you like CYBERFORCE
> or not??

1.  I never made any statements about Cyberforce.  I won't even see it 
until Thursday or Friday when my latest mail-order shipment arrives.  What
happened was that someone said Cyberforce #1 was the best comic ever, and
got flamed to death by lots of people, most of whom were holding Lee and
McFarlane up as examples of places to find better art than that in 
Cyberforce.
    I found this discussion odd in that it consisted entirely of 
comparisons of artists with extremely similar art styles yet also featured
lavish praise for some and extreme criticism for others.  So, I asked the
participants what they thought of some of my other favorite artists, or
if they had even heard of these artists, to see what people who thought
Lee, McFarlane and Silvestri had substantially different art styles thought
of those other artists who draw funny.

2.  I never said any of the people on that list could do a better job
on Cyberforce than Silvestri - most of them definitely could not, although
I'll bet Ben Dunn could give it a hell of a try (as could Masamune Shirow,
or...).  I also made a point of stressing that different artists are better
for different stories, and that saying that "X is better than Y" is stupid
without saying what the story they're to draw is.  I did all that
specifically
to prevent posts like yours - did you miss that paragraph?

3.  Rembrandt would do a killer job on the Spirit (or Sandman), but would
have
been the WRONG choice to help out on Appleseed vol. 6.  DaVinci, on the
other
hand.....      :)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Maguire                         No, not THAT Kevin Maguire
maguire@copland.jpl.nasa.gov          I'm a rocket scientist, not an artist
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,rec.arts.comics.typical