Worst Artist of 2007


Doom DeLuise says: Michael Turner!

Sub-Mariner 6Just look at that awful cover to Sub-Mariner #6. I honestly don’t understand how he’s considered to be one of the current A-list of artists. I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it every single time somebody asks me. If Michael Turner is still drawing, and people are still paying for his garbage, the answer to the question, “Who is the worst artist alive?” will always, for me, be Michael Turner.

Jim Doom says: a whole lot of guys!

I tend to avoid art that I hate, which means I don’t know if I really stuck with any bad art long enough to give someone my top spot.

Billy Tan, Uncanny X-Men
Let me say, I absolutely do not understand ANY appreciation of Billy Tan. Not only does he not draw his own backgrounds, but his foregrounds are full of flat-faced, distorted-figured, expressionless UGLY PEOPLE! And judging by the anatomy he regularly uses for his women, Billy Tan has apparently never seen an actual female and he also apparently does not have internet access.

Joe Madureira, Ultimates 3
I’m starting to wonder if even Marvel realizes Joe Madureira sucks, considering how over-the-top their hyperbolic build up to his return was. Nobody could live up to that hype, so it instead reeked of “Goddang, this guy is crap; Let’s NEVER give people a chance to think that!”

As I wrote when it came out, “Joe Madureira’s storytelling is downright awful. You’ve either got to be awful or maliciously good to be able to make a well-trained human eye want to read right to left.”

And no list of the year’s worst artists would be complete without mentioning Michael Turner. This may have been his worst year yet, highlighted by that disgusting Justice League cover with Power Girl and her Impossible Breasts.

As our dear friend Paperghost said on Brad Meltzer’s blog, “What’s the point of making claims for sophistication, intelligence and all the other stuff that gets wheeled out for something like Identity Crisis, only to let your cover artist come up with something so amazingly insulting that it almost defies description?

On the one hand, you have people writing DC Nation columns wondering where all the women readers are.

On the other, you have garbage like this sitting on the cover of your all-grown-up-now comic. I’d love to know how many women working at DC have rolled their eyes at this one.”

Doominator says: Chris Bachalo!

I don’t hate Chris Bachalo. I just think it’s hard for him to do mainstream comics successfully. I’m sorry Chris – I love the “Death” mini-series so, so much. But you kind of made part of Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men hard to read a few years ago, and made me unable to read the Mike Carey X-Men.

Fin Fang Doom says: that one guy on Countdown!

The worst artist of the year is someone whose name I didn’t even bother to remember. This guy drew one of the issues in the first half of Countdonw, and man was he bad. The guy seemed to have trouble drawing two arms, two legs and a head on everybody, let alone making character proportionate or actually resemble the characters they were supposed to be. Hopefully our resident Countdown expert Doom DeLeuise can help me out with this guy’s name, because he was so bad he deserves to get credit for it, but I don’t care enough top go look it up.

Hey! Check out what we had to say about this category in 2006 and 2005!