I've heard only raves about Jose Luis Garcia Lopez' DC style guide.  I've been looking online for copies, since I've heard that it circulated in fan circles as well as editorial. But no luck. They should do a Showcase presents of that stuff (I know they were going to release Who's Who as a Showcase, but that looks like one of the permanently delayed volumes)

I read that Perez was supposed to head up the job of making a new style guide for the comics division of DC, but I don't suppose that'll get published.

Found this a while back posted comicartwork.com or something.

Why wouldn't this work as well as any "modern" artist representation? If a new reader doesn't know Garcia-Lopez from Jennifer Lopez, what diff does it make? The only thing that clues me in that this is an "old" representation is that it's anatomically beautiful, the hero is smiling, and the art is clean and spare instead of scratchy and overtly over-detailed.

In my (albeit limited) experience, kids love it when they catch just a quick glimpse of a cartoon or animation show and immediately know what they're watching.

I've got a 6 year old nephew who will take one look at a black and white  Curt Swan drawing of a 19 year old Clark Kent and know that's Superman or take one look at a black and white drawing of The Hulk, by Sal Buscema, inked by Gerry Talaoc, wearing a suit and trenchcoat and sitting down and say "That's the Hulk".

That's the kind of recognizability you want in a no-attention-span media world. So what do they do? Either try to make everything look like the last hot thing or mix up the styles until nobody recognizes them anymore.

The Batman Adventures Cartoon looked like somebody took Dick Sprang, added a bit of Neal Adams,Jim Aparo and , strangely, Frank Robbins and wrapped it all up in Alex Toth.  Instant Iconic Batman.

The old Fleischer Superman Cartoons were clearly based on the artwork of Joe Shuster and his crew. Instant Iconic Superman. Superman Adventures? It should have evoked Shuster, Boring, Swan and Schaffenberger and then had some slickness to it for the Cartoonish line. Instead it just looked like something new to Superman. Not bad at all , but it could have been more "Iconic" I guess.