I remember that Rich Buckler, one of DC's best artists from the 70s & 80s, used to swipe Neal Adams all of the time. These swipes were blantantly obvious to even a casual Adams fan. But I always thought that he was swiping from the best, and loved Buckler's artwork anyway.

What ever happened to Rich Buckler anyway? Here I go to Google and Wiki

Hmm? Has this already been featured? I'd like to hear more.

Land's big problem isn't that he swipes, it's that he often swipes from inappropriate sources in an obvious manner, and doesn't clean up after himself. Look at that full page of Cruz's swipes above. I wouldn't look at Cruz's page and think, "wow, what a hack" unless I knew those other panels, because at least Cruz is consistent with redrawing the characters. With Land, you see glaring page-to-page and even panel-to-panel differences in how characters appear, and "team" covers where everyone seems to be superimposed on each other. Give me the sort of blissful childhood ignorance in which I enjoyed Cruz's swipes any day over Land's jarring porno faces.

No kidding, Supprego. Say what you want, but those Cruz swipes are pitiful. It's pretty lame that his editors where even letting him get away with that.

And, NO...there are plenty of artists that don't resort to swiping other artists. Of course, you're influinced by people, and you adapt a lot of other people's stuff in your style, but that's outright tracing. I understand he was young and probably on a tight deadline, buuut.... c'mon.

I had a rivalry when I was a kid with the new kid in school who "could draw the best superheroes." He actually forced me to really push myself cause I always liked being the best (girlies thought it was cute and such). Then one day I stumbled upon his tracing setup and realized he'd just been tracing comics I'd never seen . I personally always felt it was like pimping out your wife or something. Just a really trashy thing to do with your talents. Like if you just draw dicks and boobs all day. Lame.

it's off-topic, but re: Golden's Avenger Annual in 82, haven't seen anyone reference this--it was Madelyne Pryor's appearance (yea, not a myth)

At the same time they do occasionally pushing stuff in a new direction. For better or which both artist redefined the look of the X-Men books from Lee's hypekinetic Neal Adamsesque style to Madureria's manga leanings. It is style over substance but it does have a certain amount of appeal. And they know how to lay out an exciting page which sadly is becoming a rarity these days.

Either way I take issue with the ineptness criticism. I wouldn't call either of them my favorite artists but both guys have a certain degree of skill and put a lot of effort in their work and to say they are inept is just lazy criticism. I think Alex Ross and George Perez is guilty of the same level of pandering and I wouldn't call them inept.

To Luis: Luke McDonnel is the artist for the Rhodey-as-IM era of the book, and he did it marvelously. He was an exceptional storyteller who managed to convey the emotions of a guy in full-body metal armor excellently ( note how he didn't even use the gimmick of having Tony or Rhodey's eyes bulge out of the mask ).

To Somebody: The homogeneity of 90's superhero art is such that Cruz is hardly the only perpetrator. Having a style based on Madureria may have been unusal, but aside from the speed lines and big manga eyes, those poses and expressions can be found easily in other examples of the sea of crap that defined the early-Image period.

To Anonymous: Lee and Madureria are not inept, but their art styles are so exaggerated and over-the-top that it's hard to take their work seriously. They both basically take the Lowest Common Denominator aspects of superhero art ( muscles, anger, contorted posing, women with large chests, etc. ) to the Nth Power; I personally think it would take more skill for an artist to find a new direction, as opposed to just taking what's there to its most ridiculous excess.

It´s funny that you bring the subject of those who swipes from Madureira. Just a couple of months ago in my country Uruguay we have a very serious case. In our annual convention, Montevideo Comics, they give awards to amateur illustrators. The winner gets important scholarships and his illustration became the poster of the convention.
And the winner of this year swipes one of Madureira´s concept art for the DragonKind videogame. They took the award from him, but it was too late for the posters and the convention magazine, and it was printed with MAD´s art...