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Rank & Phile #1: Wonder Woman Artists

This is an idea that spawned out of a recent discussion in the 2017 Reading Thread, where some of us were ranking the artists of an Epic Collection: Captain America volume. Everyone around here seems to like lists like this, so I thought I'd come up with some more. I figure I'll do one a week, and to try to prevent topic confusion and having to sift through pages of posts (assuming people play along), I'll start a new thread for each new list.

Since Wonder Woman is all the rage this week, I thought we could start with Wonder Woman Artists. Rank them by your personal preference, their historical importance, or simply who you think was the best at drawing Wonder Woman. While I would prefer if everyone gave at least a little explanation as to their choices, don’t feel obligated. So here are five of the artists (in chronological order) who drew Wonder Woman the longest:

H. G. Peter, Ross Andru, George Pérez, John Byrne, Cliff Chiang

Comments

  • HexHex Posts: 944
    Great list...

    1. John Byrne - Because I love all things Byrne
    2. George Pérez - Because he gave Diana the best hair (so curly!)
    3. Ross Andru - Because this is the Wonder Woman of my youth.
    3. H. G. Peter - Love that star-spangled skirt!
    3. Cliff Chiang - like how he makes Diana more of an Amazon.

    But my all time favourite is still Darwyn Cooke's version of WW in New Frontier.
    image
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,748
    Hex said:

    But my all time favourite is still Darwyn Cooke's version of WW in New Frontier.
    image

    Likewise. But then, I could probably say that about almost every DC character Darwyn drew.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,748
    1. Cliff Chiang — I really like his original design for WW, which he didn’t get to use until issue #8. But I also like his simplified take on the Jim Lee/Cully Hamner design. And I like how he made her more of a physical presence.
    2. George Pérez — Mainly because he tried to make her look more Greek than anyone had previously.
    3. H. G. Peter — His work looked antiquated, but it gave Wonder Woman a fairy tale quality that fit pretty well with the more whimsical stories of the Golden Age.
    4. John Byrne — I didn’t care for his run all that much, but it was certainly well drawn.
    5. Ross Andru — Andru’s Wonder Woman was a little too bland for my taste.
  • Mr_CosmicMr_Cosmic Posts: 3,200
    I always liked Alex Ross' interpretation. He seems to add a bit of Lynda Carter into his version which I appreciate.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,637
    1) Perez
    2) Chiang
    3) Byrne
    4) Peter
    5) Andru

  • ChrisBeckettChrisBeckett Posts: 535
    1. George Perez -- The guy is my favorite superhero artist. Love his work. Add to the fact that I started collecting comics in 1984, and this is "my" Wonder Woman, the run where I first encountered Diana, and the one that epitomizes her character, for me.

    2. Cliff Chiang -- I love how clean Chiang's artwork is, and I really enjoyed the modification of Wonder Woman's costume, for this series. Beautiful work.

    3. John Byrne -- I remember being stoked Byrne was taking over WW. But, like Eric above, I fell off rather quickly. Something about his take didn't click with me. The art, thought, was what you'd expect from Byrne--good, solid stuff.

    4. H.G. Peter -- This was the only artist with whom I was unfamiliar, by name, but doing a Google search, I immediately recognized many iconic images from Wonder Woman's early days. I haven't read any of these comics, but I like Eric's description of the art being "fairy tale" like, which is spot on, and something that intrigues me. Might have to seek out reprints of these someday.

    5. Ross Andru -- Fairly certain I've not read any Andru WW issues either, though I'm familiar with his work, which I would describe as solid but not overly appealing, to me.

    Thank you @nweathington for starting this. As far as I'm concerned, you are correct--I do "like lists," and I look forward to future threads.

    -chris
  • TorchsongTorchsong Posts: 2,794
    1) Perez - because you got the impression looking at his run on the book that this was his dream gig, and he got it. He loved drawing Diana and that came through in his books. Nobody did the Gods like he did.

    2) John Byrne - I'm a Byrne fan, so there's bias here, but I liked how he re-did her costume, made her fun and yeah, I'll say it, sexy but an ass-kicker at the same time as only Byrne can. He was a great fit for the book, even though I know many didn't care for his take on her.

    3) Ross Andru - had the most "evolution" of the character over his career on her book.

    4) Cliff Chiang - He gets props and a shake of the fist for stealing a page from me and Flint on this book. :)

    5) H.G. Peter - sacrilege I know to say it, but classic Wondy never did much for me as far as the look and artwork.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,748
    No prob, @ChrisBeckett. I'm interested in seeing the responses.
    Torchsong said:

    5) H.G. Peter - sacrilege I know to say it, but classic Wondy never did much for me as far as the look and artwork.

    I don't think its sacrilege at all. His art style was antiquated looking even back in the Golden Age. There's an energy to it I like, but I can certainly understand people not caring for it.
  • aquatroyaquatroy Posts: 552

    1. Cliff Chiang — I really like his original design for WW, which he didn’t get to use until issue #8. But I also like his simplified take on the Jim Lee/Cully Hamner design. And I like how he made her more of a physical presence.
    2. George Pérez — Mainly because he tried to make her look more Greek than anyone had previously.
    3. H. G. Peter — His work looked antiquated, but it gave Wonder Woman a fairy tale quality that fit pretty well with the more whimsical stories of the Golden Age.
    4. John Byrne — I didn’t care for his run all that much, but it was certainly well drawn.
    5. Ross Andru — Andru’s Wonder Woman was a little too bland for my taste.

    I like this list a lot.
    However, I have to admit that my reading of Wonder Woman is limited to the One Year Later and New52 runs.
  • BrackBrack Posts: 868
    1. H. G. Peter - If it's not Peter and Marston, it's not Wonder Woman. Unlike Batman, Superman etc, WW is a surprisingly complex and personal concept for a Golden Age character. She's not a simple archetype to hang varied stories on, and so all subsequent incarnations are shadows of the original.
    2. George Pérez - But if you are going to have another artist work on it, a guy who is into bondage is probably a good choice. Seems bizarre that Claremont never got a long run writing the character.
    3. Cliff Chiang - Almost aggressively misunderstanding the character, but better than...
    4. Ross Andru and...
    5. John Byrne - Long off the boil at the point he did the book.

    While we're ranking the longest standing artists, I'd have said Sekowsky and possibly Jimenez are more important artistic contributors than Andru and Byrne.
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    To me, this list comes up just short due to the exclusion of the incomparable José Luis García-López who's art style basically become DC's "house style." To me, he is on the same level as Marvel's John Romita Sr and John Buscema for defining the characters they worked on. His greatest contribution to DC was the DC Comics Style Guide, a master class in how to portray DC Comics’ iconic characters. Of course it could be argued José didn't do enough material in the comics proper of Wonder Woman to qualify, and I think that's valid, but he has done issues of Adventure Comics, DC Comics Presents, Sensation Comics, a Wonder Woman annual, and the incredible All-New Collectors' Edition of Superman vs. Wonder Woman (1978) which all featured the 'Goddess of Truth.'.

    image

    Otherwise, my list is as follows:

    1) Perez
    2) Andru
    3) Chiang
    4) Byrne
    5) Peter
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,748
    I only had one qualifier in mind when I picked names for this particular list: longevity drawing the main Wonder Woman title. I love José’s work, and his take on Wonder Woman is second only to Darwyn Cooke’s for me. And I get to see José again this weekend at Heroes Con!
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    No, I get it, but José is still my favorite. Nonetheless, I included my list from the pre-selected artists at the end of my post. Thanks, Eric.
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,748

    No, I get it, but José is still my favorite. Nonetheless, I included my list from the pre-selected artists at the end of my post. Thanks, Eric.

    I thought you were a Byrne guy. I expected him to be a little higher on your list.
  • bralinatorbralinator Posts: 5,967
    edited June 2017

    No, I get it, but José is still my favorite. Nonetheless, I included my list from the pre-selected artists at the end of my post. Thanks, Eric.

    I thought you were a Byrne guy. I expected him to be a little higher on your list.
    Yeah. It felt like Byrne was "phoning it in" on Wonder Woman. I never cared for how he handled her hair. And Bryne's women never really look distinct from one another. I don't think I would've included him on a top 5 Wonder Woman artists without the limitations you outlined.

    image
  • nweathingtonnweathington Posts: 6,748

    I don't think I would've included him on a top 5 Wonder Woman artists without the limitations you outlined.

    That’s a big part of why I'm constructing the lists like I am, to get people talking about things they might not talk about otherwise. I mean, Harry Peter’s name doesn’t come up in this forum every day.
  • mwhitt80mwhitt80 Posts: 4,637
    edited June 2017

    I don't think I would've included him on a top 5 Wonder Woman artists without the limitations you outlined.

    Harry Peter’s name doesn’t come up in this forum every day.
    I'm pretty sure it didn't come up in the talk back to spotlight on WW in the golden age.
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