Glenn Greenberg: thanks for being part of that great INCREDIBLE HULK VS SUPERMAN story.

That Rude work, and the fantastic (not kidding, THE MOTH is just great...complete with those Ditko/Kirby fight scenes both men excelled in, showing each instance of the fight along with background details showing the way the bodies are reacting in the fight from second to second...) MOTH are two of THE most fun comics I've read since "returning".

Steve Rude's one of the best artists of his generation, if not THE best. I love that guy...

"Rob Liefeld had the
distinction of having had the most books on the market (at that time)
featuring characters created by him (Cable, Deadpool, X-Force,
Youngblood, Team Youngblood, Supreme, Bloodstrike, Brigade and New
Men).
"

If you counted all the Liefeld-Image-Extreme Studios titles that were soliticited in the pages of Previews, he could have had more product than anyone else besides Marvel or DC.

Of course we know what happened to THOSE books.

This may be slightly off-topic (or maybe it isn't) but this leads into
something that's been a question of mine for a while now:

What is the deal with Steve Rude?

I know a lot of people like him, but I'm not familiar with him; all I've seen
is a few commissions that have been posted here. And all I see is Kirby
rip-off. Is he a decent artist in his own right, or is he just someone aping
Kirby for fun and profit?

***

Al, run to the comic shop and get yourself some Nexus! Steve Rude is one of the best in the industry right now.

I don't think Tom Scioli is a rat-bastard who doesn't understand the fundamentals of influence. He's a guy who sees Kirby Art as a genre IN AND OF ITSELF.

Some of you haven't read enough of the man's views on what he does. I don't like speaking for Scioli, but he sees CLEARLY that Kirby is a genre, a very important stylistic choice that he wishes (perhaps too ardently) to express. I'd think every artist begins to develop what they want the art to look like...they want to be Russ Manning, or Gene Colan, or Ditko, or John Buscema. And every artist in comics HAS a lineage that emerges with every stroke.

It'd be easy enough to write off Scioli as a hack and, worse, a pretentious hack. I think this is unfair and unwise. The very nature, the very CORE of GODLAND is that it is a Kirby Work...there's a universe in which Kirby's New York and its SF trappings contain Eternals, Cap and the Falcon slipping in and out of dimensions, Black Panther and Mr. Big chasing golden frogs, and Jason Blood shouting a rhyme while his face contorts with shadows from Hell. That universe is where Scioli's mind has chosen to inhabit, and he's operating within the visual landscape as if, indeed, he stepped through a Boom Tube and was himself transformed into a Kirby character, at once more handsome, dynamic, and distinct that at any other point in his life.

And I'm going to argue that, indeed, Scioli is not "aping" Kirby.

He's literalizing his concept of the Kirbyverse...not channeling, but wondering what would happen...just what would happen if Ben Boxer became the Silver Surfer, within the rules of the Kirbyverse. The air, as breathed from a Kirby pen. The sidewalk, poured and solidified from Kirby's pen. Cosmic tripwires and massive god-like accounting...as Kirby saw it and "lived" it.

I've read all of the GODLAND trades and I won't pretend that Scioli's work doesn't lack the decades and thousands of hours of experience and professionalism of Kirby...it's not even close. It's not even worth talking about.

But I won't blame Scioli for wanting to exist in the Kirbyverse. I won't take him apart and attribute to him a hack title, because he is trying to touch, even for an instant, the Monolith of Kirby's cosmic talent. In so doing, who's to say Scioli might not carry on from Neanderthal to Astronaut?