I think what some acually mean by " his old stuff was better " is his old stuff was MORE ATTRACTIVE, and it might be true in some areas of JB's work. I've been a JB fan for 30 years and except for the very early stuff, I like all his decades. When I was 15 I thought nothing could be better than JB and Terry Austin's X-Men. Now, many years later, and an artist myself, I can see how much JB has improved over the years. His story-telling, his faces, his camera angles, etc. But it is often said that as an artist keeps moving on the path to perfection, he loses some of his charm. It is often said about guitarists, for instance, who get more and more technical mastery but lose some of their emotional impact.

In JB's case, as I said I'm a huge fan and please fellow fans, do not be scandalized if I offer some criticism. I think JB's current work is amazing, but some elements of it are less attractive than some of his older stuff. His women, for example, have become more realistic, so in a way they are better, but the word better means nothing, because to me, the " best " women he ever drew were those from his Namor run. Namorita, Shanna, all of them. They were more attractive, whether they were super-heroines or more common women , and of course made the comics more attractive and magical. The superheroes looked more powerful too, with broader shoulders . JB has made them look a bit more realistic over the years too. So, to sum up, JB sure is a better artist, more personal and less conventional, but heck, were his conventional heroes and heroines grand ! And I'm not referring to the Namor period because I grew up with it, I read that run when I was 30. So, goodness in art is a tough question and it's not just about drawing well. If I judge artists by their mastery of anatomy, inking, etc, there are many artists I will consider better than JB: Alex Raymond, John Buscema, Moebius and others, but JB's work, even if it looks a bit less attractive than before to me , will always look more attractive (to me, again ) than the works of the guys I mentioned.

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That's a matter of personal taste, and I have no problem with it. However, it does serve to illustrate a real problem I DO have with the "his old stuff was better" criticism, and that is that the "old stuff" varies depending on who is making the claim. As I have noted many times before, it often seems to be a sliding scale, so that I will see work praised as the Best of the Best -- my run on FF for instance -- which AT THE TIME was dismissed as inferior to the "old stuff".

So, "his old stuff was better" becomes meaningless when the "old stuff" is anything I'm not working on NOW!