sigh.

8P ::)

Whatever.

We’re living in an age that values timeliness over artistic integrity. I blame the internet.

Actually the pre-Internet era valued timeliness over artistic integrity far more than today. That’s why in the past we used to have the inventory fill-in issue, the issue that was kept in storage in case of the regular team missing its deadline. There also were lots of fill-in artists back in the day too. Long delays like we see with Kevin Smith’s Daredevil and Black Cat books, Allan Heinberg’s Wonder Woman and Millar and Hitch’s Ultimates were rare to nonexistent. The idea that we care more about timeliness and the internet is to blame or that the past eras cared less about timeliness is ridiculous.

The main difference is that in the past artists were better at hitting deadlines. And if an artist couldn’t hit monthly deadlines, like say Art Adams who is great but known to be slow, he would be kept as a cover artist or an artist used only on annuals and specials. Nowadays we have artists who are not only slow but keep getting hired to do monthly gigs.

Then again, it seems like he’s making a career out of dismissing DC and Marvel of late, so why not dismiss others?

on the opposite end of the spectrum is robinson’s starman run, which used fill-in artists in a wonderful way (and often had fantastic artists doing the work).

For the most part, I agree with him. I’d rather wait for a great, cohesive final product than have a compromised one on time. Can you imagine if they’d subbed in a different artist for, say, Watchmen #8, because Gibbons fell behind. It would have diminished the whole thing.

But if the comics industry is set on producing on-time monthly comics come hell or high water, then subbing out artists is what they have to do. It’s product first, art second.

The middle ground is to have rotating artists, so each story arc is at least consistent. Or to have the non-regular artist handling a very specific part of a story (a flashback, for instance).