It's so difficult to say...even the style of "realism" doesn't seem realistic. David Mazzuchelli and Sean Phillips and the like, I'd call them "realistic" and yet they're highly stylized. Steve Epting, Steve Sadowski, Paul Pellitier, Alan Davis...

Then there's the Eric Powell, Mike Mignola, Jack Kirby, Darwyn Cooke types.

I think I'm drawn to a strong graphic style, with dynamism and a sure line, no matter which end of the spectrum. It's always best when the artists in question serve the characters instead of the other way around...it is after all the emphasis of a strong story and plot melded with an artist who can pull off that story in the best possible graphic manner, in the "language" of comic books.

Bottom line, I guess, I was always a Jack Kirby guy, so I'll always be on that end of the pool first, and take my dives into the other end while always returning to the starting point. So that's pretty ingrained.

I think there has to be some degree of balance between Cartoony and Realism - Real enough to give weight and seriousness to the story and Cartooned enough to make it Dynamic.  I'm less fond of the Abstracts since they seem to be the antithesis to Storytelling, which is the First goal of comic art.

Pitfalls of Extreme Realism are when characters wind up looking like dumpy real people dressed up LIKE superheroes, with wrinkles and shines and moving about like lumps of clay.

Cartoony goes to far, of course, when everything looks funny, even when it's not supposed to.

Thanks Brian!