Up-And-Coming Comic Artists

goldman
Inspired primarily by Kramer's Ergot 5, I decided to write this post on promising new (or unknown) comic artists. First off, I doubt that these guys will succeed, but they do represent a new form of comic art that has been blooming recently. They all share a very loose interpretation of what a comicbook is, and because of this, they are bent on using interesting drawing materials, strange narratives, and a handfull of other original and unique story-telling devices and techniques.

My favorite arists on this "list" are Leif Goldberg and Mat Brinkman, but all of them are superb.

brinkmanLeif Goldberg's work is so full of joy and emotion, that I am sort of glad that he only draws one panel per page, that the pages are small, and that the stories are short and not wordy. The colors and themes of the tales are so full of life that I cannot help but love them to death.

Mat Brinkman works with a similar aesthetic, although his pieces tend to be darker. His work is similar to Gary Panter's stuff, but more comic-oriented (I have always thought of Panter as the first generation of grafitti-aristst-come-comic-artist).
Both Brinkman and Goldberg's work is unhindered by the usual narrative story telling style incorporated into most comicbooks. Because of this, it is difficult to consider either of the artists' work to be purely comic in nature. But whatever, I like them a lot.

Next on the list is Dan Zettwoch who is more of a traditional comic artist. He has interesting coloring themes and layouts, but he is not bursting with creativity. Lastly, we have Helge Reumann who is just plain weird. He also has a style similar to Panter's, but again, his is more refined and constrained.

There is a problem with working in such an obscure subcategory of comics like the four above mentioned artists do. When you disregard traditional storytelling techniques, you lose a tremendous number of potential readers. Also, since these artists have such unique artistic talents, they do not appeal to normal "underground" or "alternative" comic readers. Instead, they are more appealing to avant-garde/artsy types, which further limits their readership. Whatever ... talent is talent ...