As a comic book reader, I have a trust and a faith in certain artists and certain writers to put out good books on a regular basis, and I am very partial to specific artists that I will pick up anything they work on. What my problem is with this is simple, companies like Marvel Comics will tell you that certain artists are the "NEW REGULAR ARTIST" on a title, when in fact, they'll be on the book for 3-6 issues, and then someone else will be on it.
Here are a few instances recently that have really irked me.
Marc Silvestri was announced as the new HULK artist when Indestructible Hulk started, along with writer, Jason Aaron. In this situation, it was noted that Marc was leaving the title after a family matter prevented him from being able to complete his six issue run. Six issues. Half a year. I'm not mad at Silvestri for having family problems that prevented the completion, but shouldn't he have come back for a few issues afterwords just really be the "regular artist?"
Joe Madureira has TWO instances on this list, with his Spider-man story last year, which then went on to become rotating artists and a team up book of sorts. The second, is his "new regular artist" on Savage Wolverine, which we now see to be 3-4 issues, and I'm sure his "run" on Inhuman will be nothing more than 3 issues and a bunch of future covers, as they let someone like Andrea DiVito take over after because of his strong line work.
Steve McNiven, probably my favorite artist out there today, had the same thing happen when he was the "regular artist" on Ed Brubaker's restart of Captain America, and how long did that last? 4 Issues? Maybe 6?
He then followed this up with a run of 2.5 issues of Guardians of the Galaxy (okay, 3.5, he did the preview issue, too).He was the REGULAR artist on these titles, and didn't make it a year on them.
I understand that their art takes longer to produce, but what happened to where artists would be able to complete 10 issues a year? These artists don't even produce as many pages, since most books are down to 20 pages now, and they typically have 3-4 splash pages in each, which yes, take a little longer to compose, but it's less work than the 19 panels that used to go into Chris Claremont scripts.
Is it fair that Ivan Reis, Brett Booth, Ryan Stegman, or any number of other guys produce quality work month in and month out, but they have to put out the regular work because they don't have the same name recognition?
I am already worried that DC Comics, who has not typically had this problem, like with Greg Capullo just signing a contract that let's him, "Draw Batman as long as I want to," will begin doing this as well, because I'm afraid that Jim Lee's commitments as publisher will prevent him from finishing 12 issues of Superman Unchained, the final page of issue two looks less like Lee, and more like Carlos D'anda with the Lex Luthor computer looking like the only piece drawn by Lee.
So here's my argument: They aren't REGULAR artists if they are getting a #1 issue out to drive sales and leaving by issue 4. It is cheating the reader, unless you rotate like Amazing Spider-man did, by keeping the quantity AND quality up with the artists you have on it. But that's a regular TEAM of artists, not one guy. I'm okay with that, but it bugs me that these guys can barely get three issues done before they either move them to something else, or they only do a quick snapshot story, which should be a MINISERIES, NOT an ongoing that we believe they are long hauling it.
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