When you think of various decades of comics, which artist comes to mind first? My list is heavily biased toward Marvel, but I'd go with...

1960s - Jack Kirby

1970s - Dave Cockrum

1980s - John Byrne

1990s - Rob Liefeld

2000s - Bryan Hitch

I'm not really thinking in terms of who was the best of each decade, but whose work instantly comes to mind when you think of that decade.

I agree with the 60's, 80's and 00's, but Neal would be the 70's and Lee the 90's for me.

The 70's are tough because the most influential and innovative artists didn't have a ton of output in that decade.

Yeah, Jim Lee comes to mind for the 90's. I'd say Neal Adams for the 70's, he didn't have a large page output but he sure did alot of covers.

I agree with some of your list. I think Lee has, long term, proven to be the most successful artist of the 90s. Liefeld is mostly seen as a joke these days, even in retrospect when looking at his old, popular stuff.

60s: Kirby
70s: Neal Adams
80s: George Perez
90s: Jim Lee
00s: Hitch

1960s - Jack Kirby

1970s - John Buscema

1980s - John Byrne

1990s - Dan Jurgens

2000s - John Cassaday

That's my take on it.

2000s - Quitely

1960s - Jack Kirby

1970s - Neal Adams

1980s - Frank Miller

1990s - Jim Lee

2000s - Frank Quitely

Good one, Miller for the 80s. Hard to disagree with.

If I'm basing my list on quality (best of each decade) -

1960s - Jack Kirby

1970s - Neal Adams

1980s - Dave Mazzuchelli

1990s - JRjr

2000s - Darwyn Cooke

It's a funny one for me because I think I used to read a lot of comics yet my comic reading only spanned one decade, with reprints taking me into the earlier one: so for me it goes

60s - Kirby
70s - Adams
then
ummmm

This.

Frank Miller probably is THE 80's guy - but my personal 80's guy was Byrne. Same as Jurgens being "my" 90's artist, etc. Liefeld was probably THE 90's guy in general terms, but I avoided his stuff like the plague in those days, just as I avoided Miller's work until Sin City grabbed my attention.

It's a little different for me than for those who lived through the 60s and 70s and those who paid attention to the creators in the 80s.

In the 80s, I was a little kid and just bought whatever book looked best... I didn't really learn who the creators were until I was 11 or 12. I didn't really even know much about Byrne beyond a Dark Phoenix TPB until I got on AOL and checked out the Byrne Ward. His hey-day had long passed by the time I was seriously collecting.

I would also say Darwyn Cooke for the 2000s.

In the 70's, I was little, and got reprints of 60's Marvel stuff from the newsagent, thinking they were new.

In the 80's, I was obsessed with collecting 70's Marvel stuff, and I first started to get into (then) current DC stuff, probably because of Watchmen having hit the fifteen year old me like a ton of bricks.

I was really into finding out who was who and what was what - I loved Ross Andru, John Buscema, Mike Ploog, Marie Severin, Jim Starlin, Steve Gerber, Val Mayerick, etc. All the 70's Marvel people.

I was less knowledgeable regarding DC, but got heavily into the original COIE, and then collected Superman comics until the end of the 'Electric Boogaloo' Superman era. Todd McFarlane killed my interest in Spidey, so I became mostly a DC person.

My greatest comic book love, though, is still 70's Marvel. I'm not sure why - I think it's because I saw this stuff in the newsagency, but was only allowed to get the cheaper B&W reprints. They were 20 cents, and the all-new all-colour stuff was 75 cents an issue. My parents felt they were being responsible, I guess.

Here I am, almost forty, still getting 70's Marvel stuff, though. I sold off my whole collection in about 2001, and have been selectively rebuilding certain parts of it.

1950s-Wayne Boring



+1

Todd McFarlane was THE '90s guy. Weren't you around in the '90s?

As popular as McFarlane was, I think both Lee and Liefeld were more influential at the time, and the X-Books were certainly more popular than Spider-Man.

The X-Men was big no matter who did it but Spider-Man exploded with Todd on it and Spider-Man #1 was a big stinkin' deal--as was Spawn #1. X-Men and WildCATS were both heavily ordered but didn't sell through whereas Todd's stuff was not only ordered high but sold big. Jim was the artist that retailers liked and they wanted fans to like them (and many did) whereas both Rob and Todd were artists that fans loved and retailers had their doubts about.

Has there ever been an artist as good as Cooke who can't work for one of the Big Two because of behavior?

If we are going by sales, we need to start this thread over.