Classic Marvel Art

I saw this on eBay:
Mike-Zeck CAPTAIN-AMERICA #330 Cover

I remember seeing this comic racked new at the 7-11 by my house. I thought the top character looked like a Wolverine rip-off, so I purposely did not buy the comic, even though the cover art struck me enough to notice it and pick it up for a flip-thru.

Even though I bought most of the issues from the original Punisher mini-series drawn by Mike Zeck, I had not really figured out that I liked his art. Really, the only artist I only knew was the best shit ever, was Art Adams and also that John Byrne was once *it* but I was not sure he still had *it*.

I look at this art now (hit Enlarge on eBay for a bigger preview) and am impressed by the elegance in the flow of anatomy and the foreshortening that makes these guys look as if they are occupying space. The use of blacks make the characters forms pop and read easy. Weak backgrounds, shield and cap eagle wings. Rendering-wise, some of the hatching / tick lines communicate great suggested shape and texture, but others just come off as formulaic half tone. Nice diversity in the line weights shifting along the forms.

Lastly, I like the sub-dued, implied chain-mail in Cap's costume. Especially in contrast to the weird shit they've had him in the last few years.

Funny/weird that Mike Zeck went from near-Byrne level of popular penciler to a guy who just dropped off the map. Once the Image guys hit big, still working at Marvel, his profile dwindled and he may have been at DC. JRJr did the right thing by staying at Marvel, even after the Image guys left, and he's slowly gotten more popular over the years from the Cable mini-series, to the Heroes Return Thor, and then another Uncanny X-Men run, etc, etc, etc.

Zeck is arguably at least as good or better than JRJr but kinda faded away. Like John Byrne, I wonder if he was also disgusted, surprised and boggled that Rob Liefeld became a top-3 fan favorite.

But what the fuck did us kids know about it...? We liked Art Adams who was fast enough to only draw 1 X-Men annual per year at his the height of his magic art powers. I suppose that mediocre traced Art Adams was better than no Art Adams.

One career waned as another launched... and the talent of the individual was not why one succeeded and the other no longer did.

Popular Arts and the taste of its audience is a weird thing. It crosses over and applies with music too.

Nice thing about athletics (as long as no Ref fucks it up) is that the best guy (or team) will prevail and be proven to be the best. The audience's taste comes down to how beloved the champion is ...or will be... but not whether or not he earned the spot of number 1, in that moment.