Comic Art Now

Cover: Rian Hughes

Dez Skinn's Comic Art Now: The Very Best in Contemporary Comic Art and Illustration is a reminder of why many of us got into comics in the first place. Not the stories but the artwork.

For me it was black & white artwork in the traditional British anthology titles. I preferred adventure strips over humour strips and I preferred a more realistic approach to the artwork. So when I was growing up my favourites were artists like Jesus Blasco, Don Lawrence, Ron Embleton and half a dozen others who, I thought, were the best in the world.

The Crimson Todger by Dan Boultwood

I suspect that it was this preference for something a little more photo-realistic and because quite a few colour strips in the UK were painted colour rather than processed colour that I never took to American comics when I first saw them. I remember seeing early issues of Fantastic Four at a friend's house and thinking that they looked awful. The guy couldn't draw, the colours were awful and the story seemed ludicrous. I fled back to my Valiants—where there was a man who could turn invisible by sticking his metal hand in a light socket, kids who could talk to animals and a soldier who could take out an enemy battalion just by getting pissed off... Just as ludicrous, I'm the first to admit. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that I really started to look at American comics and, guess what... I still didn't think much of superhero comics. I've read many and some have been very good but, overall, they just don't rock my world.

The Pit and the Pendulum by Steve Pugh

Back at the book in hand, the first thing that strikes you is just how diverse comics can be. Yes, there are superheroes in traditional poses, fists clenched, teeth clenched—and no doubt their arseholes, too, are clenched—but there's a hell of a lot more on offer here. From the Fleischer-esque cartoon-style of Dan Boultwood to the digital photorealism of Dutch artist Rick Van Koert, Comic Art Now dips into a huge range of styles and media. Ink hasn't completely given way to Photoshop and Coral Painter I'm pleased to see although, used correctly, mixing the old and new can create incredible work (think Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland which threw everything into the mix).

Criminal by Sean Phillips

Looking through this collection of illustrations you begin to realise how far comics have come, and at a time when the mainstream market in the UK is so frustratingly limited to TV spin-offs and nursery comics. I spend a lot of time looking at old British comics for gems from the past but I'm not such a Luddite that I've not noticed that there is a thriving small press in the UK, an incredibly wide-ranging independent movement in the USA and (literally) a world of comics around the rest of the globe that are worth a look.

If you want to see what is happening outside the mainstream of British and American comics, Comic Art Now lets you dip your toe into the work of 90 different artists and I don't think you'll be disappointed at what you find. I've certainly found it an eye-opener and there are definitely a few comics that I wouldn't have otherwise spotted that I'll now make sure I get hold of.

The Rainbow Orchid by Garen Ewing

Comic Art Now: The Very Best in Contemporary Comic Art and Illustration. Ilex Books, ISBN 978-1905814251, 5 May 2008, 192pp, £20.00.