Comments on: 365 Reasons to Love Comics #213

By: JonRob

JonRob — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 23:22:50 +0000

I would love for a BW reprint of Bill S' New Mutants Run. Just to get a 'purer' look at his work.
Stary Toasters is a beautiful piece of work that will get its due praise someday.
Yet I feel that we have lost the Bill S who made Big Numbers forever. He's moved on in style. Less tight, more chaotic.
But it would be great to see that series finished under a variety of artists.

I have to say, I cant stand his overly photoshopped stuff. Theres a few great 'traditional' comic artists who use filters in the lweakest of ways, and blow low res art up too far till you can see the pixel cracks. Bill S is one of them. It just doesnt do it for me.

I still love his BW work past and present. He's the only artist I know that can distort anatomy so much yet still make it stunningly accurate

By: avengers63

avengers63 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:40:36 +0000

I think I'm the only person I know that liked his stuff on New Mutants. At the time, I didn't get it, but I liked it anyway. It was powerful, intense, and radically different than ANYTHING else. He's reigned it in over the years, but he's still awsome.

By: Michael G

Michael G — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:29:34 +0000

For a long time, I maintained a current checklist of Sienkiewicz's work at http://lsh.0catch.com/sienk/index.htm but in late 2000 I got lazy and stopped updating it.

In the late 90s I gave Bill a copy at San Diego and he thanked me, saying that (a) even he didn't have a complete list of stuff he did, and (b) there were things on the list that he didn't remember doing.

I'd love to see a Moench/Sienkiewicz reunion on Moon Knight.

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 01:28:55 +0000

Bill Sienkiewicz is so FUCKINGAWESOME!

His stuff always blows me away. It hits you on such a visceral level, and yet, can be so fragile when he wants it to.

I will read anything he does, and hope to have children someday, so I can blow their little baby minds with his stuff.

By: Graeme Burk

Graeme Burk — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:06:10 +0000

I'm a huge fan of Sienkiewicz. I've always thought the comparison of his early work with Adams was slightly unfair: many, many artists were influenced by Adams, and you could always see the unique Sienkiewicz style even in his earlier work, particularly the fluid but thin line. I think the departure happened the more he inked his own work.

Doing the art on New Mutants may well be one of the biggest risks Marvel has ever taken. Art on X-books was kind of like a bank in the '80s: safe and good value. Getting Sienkiewicz at that time was a huge departure from the Bob McLeod style that had permeated the run previously. I was astounded they did it. It's a complete 90-degree turn on the house style of a title-- like getting Tim Burton to start directing Law & Order.

He also did the artwork for one of my favourite Bruce Cockburn albums, The Charity of Night (and it's superb)

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:07:02 +0000

I'd buy a trade of all the completed art on 'Big Numbers', plus the scripts for the rest of the series. Anyone else?

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:55:20 +0000

Oh man, I loved the Richard K. Morgan/Sienkiewicz Black Widow run, even if Sienkiewicz was doing finishes over other artist's layouts for 11 of the 12 issues. It sucks that we never got to see the face-off between Black Widow and Elektra that Morgan had planned for the third volume.

Personally, I preferred Sienkiewicz working with Goran Parlov's layouts on Volume 1 to Sean Phillips on Volume 2.

By: Ben Herman

Ben Herman — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:49:16 +0000

That's a honking HUGE bear on the New Mutants cover!

When I was a kid Sienkiewicz's work freaked me out... which is why I liked it. His covers for Rom Spaceknight really made the issues eerie & atmospheric, and they were appropriate for a series whose villians were brain-eating black-magic-practicing shape-changing alien invaders.

Anyone here seen his recent work on Black Widow? Lovely stuff. Bill S has definitely still got it.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:39:26 +0000

I managed to get my hands on a trade of Stray Toasters at a used book store and pick up a copy of issue #2 of the series itself in a giveaway bin at a con earlier this year. It's really a fantastic series, and I'm always surprised that more people don't know about it. As I said in the comments on SDCC a few days ago, I'll usually buy almost anything as long as it has Sienkiewicz on interior art. He's one of the few cases for me where the art will totally override any merit or lack thereof in the writing.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:53:34 +0000

Oh, and how appropriate is ALF reading a comic called Stray Toasters?

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:52:59 +0000

Ha. Never knew Sienkiewicz did an ALF cover.

By: Tom Fitzpatrick

Tom Fitzpatrick — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 12:27:20 +0000

Way I heard it, Mr. Sienkiewicz (who's not only a legend, but a genius in art) had problems conforming to Mr. Moore's (who's not only a legend, but a genius in storytelling) meticulous and demanding script.

Apparently, Mr. Moore is very detailed in his scripting and is equally so on the artist(s).

Sometimes when you put two geniuses (and legends) together, well, it's probably like water and oil, or cats and dogs. They don't always get along.

"Why can't we all get along?"

By: J to the AAP

J to the AAP — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:07:55 +0000

Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix is also great.

I never heard of it until now, seems extremely promising. Is it still available? And who published it?

By: Mongoose

Mongoose — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:03:11 +0000

I would totally put some of this guy's interiors, framed, on my wall. Not even mentioning the covers! I'll have to track down this Elektra: Assassin thing, just for more of that artwork. It's beautiful.
Inspirational stuff.

By: Philip Ayres

Philip Ayres — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:01:09 +0000

When I was younger I read some of Bill S's (I know I'll spell it wrong !) New Mutants (that issue 19 pictured above was the 1st of his I read) and couldn't stand the artwork because it was hard to work out what was going on (b1973 so I was 9 or 10 at the time !!!).

Now I look at it, think it's fabulous and have a complete NM run of his in the loft.

*IF* Marvel continue releasing New Mutants Classic next year the next volume (3) should start collecting his issues.

By: Punch

Punch — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:26:40 +0000

Tom,it isn't Alan Moore who held up Big Numbers. He even tried to finish it with Bill's assistant. It just wasn't meant to be. Sienkiewicz's cover to the original paperback of Elektra:Asssasin remains one of the best covers I've seen simply because it somehow captures the tone of the book perfectly, and that's not an easy task.

By: JG

JG — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:41:59 +0000

Sienkiewicz. Quite possibly my favorite Bill of all time, barring Bill Murray and maybe the Bill of Rights. Great post.

By: Tom Fitzpatrick

Tom Fitzpatrick — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:48:03 +0000

Maybe we can get a petition going to pressure Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz to complete BIG NUMBERS. (or at least find a new artist like Ben Templesmith or Ashley Wood)

Never will happen though, so yeah, it's too bad.

Mr. Reed,

I cannot believe you've never read Stray Toasters!
Better get the tradepaperback or do some back issues hunting.

Either try e-bay or http://www.dougcomicworld.com/

Complete your set!

By: km

km — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 03:28:29 +0000

Ooo, pretty pictures! Liking Bill week a lot so far...oh, and by the way, belated happies yourself.

By: Alejandro

Alejandro — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:44:38 +0000

Damn... I'd really like to see Big Numbers finished. Too bad that's never ever going to happen or so says Alan Moore.

Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix is also great.