While I was compiling last week’s posts, I thought it would be interesting to do some tables that showed the regular artist shift on each individual title during the Post-Crisis Era. It’s a great way to see all the comings and goings.
First up is SUPERMAN. One notable fact is that Jerry Ordway and Dan Jurgens both became the pencillers on this title after stints on ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN.
With ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, we have our only Grover Cleveland among Super-artists. Tom Grummett left his regular assignment to draw SUPERBOY, then returned later to replace Stuart Immonen. I’ve listed his terms separately to better illustrate this.
ACTION COMICS gets interesting. I’m skipping entirely over the ACTION COMICS WEEKLY period that ran from 601-642. George Perez and Kerry Gammill have an overlap because there was a period where Perez was only doing breakdowns and Gammill based his pencils off of those.
MAN OF STEEL has actually the fewest regular artists. Jon Bogdanove kicked off the book in 1991 and he’s on it almost all the way to the end of the Triangle Era. Doug Mahnke finishes out that era, and for completeness, I listed all his issues into the new regime too.
Part of my affection for this era doubtlessly comes from the consistency of the creators. Everyone I’ve discussed this week had substantial runs on the books. They might not have stayed on the same book their entire tenure, but their voice was a constant part of the tapestry woven during this era.
These sorts of long runs are less common now, and I feel like a consequence of that is when a new writer comes on to, say, Superman, they’re more aware that they’re telling a finite story. There’s less regard for continuing the vision of prior writers and more of an emphasis of doing “their run” on Superman. It plays out less like a decade-long story and more like a series of long, standalone storyarcs.
Drop in for a year, make your mark on Superman, move on.
But that wasn’t how it was in the 90s. These creators built a world, populated it with a vast supporting cast, and kept developing them forward. A lot of great comic books came from the understanding that these are essentially soap opera with capes. The stories about the characters that resonate, the ones that matter and are still talked about decades later, almost always have this in common.
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