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Carey’s take on the X-Men is shaping up to be one of my favorites in years. I just wish they had given him more traditional aritsts.

I loved the Annual with Brooks for instance, even if nothing stood out artwise except for the cover.

You should have prefaced this with whether or not you like Ramos’s art normally. I’ve heard a lot of people say the same things about some of his best art (such as his recent run on Wolverine), but in a lot of cases it seems like their frustration just stems from his style not being to their liking. I’ll be picking up this issue today regardless, but I’m curious what your take on what Ramos normally puts out is.

Hey - I’m one of those people who doesn’t like Ramos’ artwork usually! Now I’m curious to see what BAD Ramos looks like, since I don’t even like GOOD Ramos!

oh God, that cover is horrendous. Did the inside-the-comic artist dude do the cover too? Because as soon as I saw the comic, I thought wow, that art sucked. And lo and behold if the review opens with that very sentiment.

I loved his art back in the Impulse and Milestone Comics days, but man it blows now.

I flipped through the issue during my lunch hour and I must say, it certainly isn’t Ramos’s best effort. I wouldn’t be quite as extreme as some, but he’s seen better days. There were a few panels that I thought looked great, but there was one in particular of the Omega Sentinel that did not sit well with me and the use of shadows in the first few pages did not seem right at all.

I kind of want to read Carey’s run. Seems like he’s doing a 90s style X-Men with better stories and characterization.

I can’t rile up much hate for Ramos. I don’t mind “cartoony” art but I know Cronin doesn’t mind it either (he loves Paul Grist for example) but if he says it’s bad it’s probably pretty bad.

What do you mean by traditional, Matt D?

You should have prefaced this with whether or not you like Ramos’s art normally. I’ve heard a lot of people say the same things about some of his best art (such as his recent run on Wolverine), but in a lot of cases it seems like their frustration just stems from his style not being to their liking. I’ll be picking up this issue today regardless, but I’m curious what your take on what Ramos normally puts out is.

Sorry, I should have specified that I meant his artwork in this book is bad, even if you like Ramos’ usual style.

His badness in this comic is not, like, a stylistic choice, I do not believe, but rather a choice to rush to get the book done on schedule.

There were a few panels that I thought looked great, but there was one in particular of the Omega Sentinel that did not sit well with me and the use of shadows in the first few pages did not seem right at all.

The Omega Sentinel - THAT’S her name! Yeah, that also, to me, was the lowlight of the comic. Like the epitome of amateurishness.

I like the art on the cover, there. Am I evil?

Mostly, I’m on the fence with Ramos– he can be very good and also fairly bad, so…

Yeah, Ramos’s artwork has been unusually terrible even by his standards on this arc. The faces especially are poorly drawn and wildly inconsistent from panel to panel. The whole thing gives off the feeling of doodles in some teenager’s high school notebook rather than professional art.

However, Carey’s writing is up to its usual standard on this issue, so even with the ugly art I still managed to enjoy it. This is definitely my favorite thing done with the franchise since Morrison left.

Honestly, as bad as the art was in this issue, I still think it was much clearer and more understandable than anything Bachalo would have done.

And I disagree, M Bloom. While Bachalo and Ramos have similar, freehandish styles, Bachalo has, especially with Carey of late, shown an ability to rein himself in for clarity’s sake that Ramos mostly lacks (he certainly lacks it here).

Ramos also has the “everyone has big tits” syndrome that seems to permeate most superhero comics. Not as egregious as, say, Michael Turner or Frank “I draw ONE female body type” Cho, but it’s annoyingly present in this issue.

I don’t know. The Bachalo art put me right off my attempt at reading the Carey run– the pages and panels were all very pretty, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about Carey’s work on this book, but, man, the art keeps turning me away. Bachalo hasn’t been my cup of tea since his early days on Generation X or thereabouts, and Ramos seems to have embraced his most, er, abstract impulses of late.

I don’t think Bachalo (or Ramos) needs to be replaced by a “traditional” (read: “bland”) artist, but I’d be more willing to give the series a shot if they found someone with a more clear, cohesive, and coherent style.

What’s Adrian Alphona doing? He’d be great.

What’s Adrian Alphona doing?

Great question.

What IS he doing after Runaways?

I’m pretty sure he’ll be drawing the Sister Grimm issue in the Mystic Arcana event this year.

After that, though? No clue.

Y’know I skimmed through it and it didn’t look THAT bad. I was expecting Igor Kodovey on New X-Men based on Cronin’s description.

Grant - hallelujah holla back. I thought Igor Kordey’s art on Morrison’s New X-men was astonishingly bad. I’ve liked Ramos’ work so far, and I do like this cover too. I wonder what Mr. Cronin thinks of Kordey’s stuff. Could there be some inverse correlation between preference for these two artists?

I’ve been picking up this book since Northstar and Aurora appeared in it (I’m an old Alpha Flight fan), and stuck around after their appearence ended due to the writing of Carey, which has been solid, and the fact that I love Rogue.
But I’ll definitely agree that the art leaves something to be desired. There have been times when I’ve been okay with the manga-esque style, but I agree with the reviewer that this issue is particularly bad. Hopefully, it gets better, as it would be a shame if it turned people away from some decent stories.

Kordey’s art on New X-Men was bad because he drew it in about a week.

Kordey just had a new book out this week, which is absolutely beautiful. I’ll say no more until I post about it!

I absolutely love both how the story line has been going lately (Rogue is my favorite and I love how she’s been written in the last five or so issues) and the art is excellent. I think the characters are drawn awesome and I think the dark colors being used are great. I don’t know why everyone hates it so much the characters haven’t looked so good in a long time.

“Kordey’s art on New X-Men was bad because he drew it in about a week.”

Exactly. They overloaded him with fill-in work, with almost no time.

‘Course, I would have been fine waiting for Quitely to do the whole run. It might still be going, even, which would be cool.

“‘Course, I would have been fine waiting for Quitely to do the whole run. It might still be going, even, which would be cool.”

We’d be waiting a long time. Morrison’s run was 50 issues.

I know Paul Pope wanted to draw it and that guy can crank out quality pages pretty quickly.

I agree Kordey can be good but his New X-Men stuff was pretty bad and he was overloaded with work. I would buy another comic by him.

I think Kordey was quite bad on those New X-Men issues, but I actually don’t think they were as bad as these Ramos issues.

Kordey’s bad issues just stood out worse because they were following Quitely.

I don’t know. Kordey’s stuff made me sick to my stomach. Ramos just made me wince a little bit. I kind of cut him some slack since his stuff is suppose to be pretty loose and exagerrated. Even if he did go a too far this time around (which I agree he did and he was probably rushing this issue out).

Flicked through it in the shop, and oh God, awful, awful stuff. Theres a drawing of someone - Rogue? no idea - and one of her eyeballs is popping out of her head and her mouth looks like she’s doing a guy smiley impression. nasty, awful, horrendous stuff.

I think you got too caught up in trying to make yourself look smart while dishing out cliched insults about the art.

It really was not that bad at all.