Since my
last WWC column, I've been getting plenty of e-mails and Tweets from people defending Mark Bagley's work and saying stuff like "while it's true that Bagley couldn't have drawn 'Promethea,' Williams III couldn't have drawn 'Ultimate Spider-Man.'" Yeah, that's just plain wrong.
Why is it hard for people to accept that drawing is a skill and some people are better at it than others? Sure, there are plenty of fuzzy areas, and I would have trouble saying that J. H. Williams III is better than Dan Clowes, for example, but Williams III vs. Bagley? Really, there's no contest.
Williams III:
Bagley:
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Jonah Hex #35, about which I write the following sentences: "This issue is a step above the average (if always dependably good) Jonah Hex stories. Darwyn Cooke's art received the spotlight a few issues ago in what I thought was a gorgeous, if overwritten, single issue, and here we get the sumptuous art of J. H. Williams III (as colored by Dave Stewart -- the best in the biz). Williams doesn't rely on as much heavy black in 'Jonah Hex' as he has in other recent work. Instead, his feathering and crosshatching recalls the work of Moebius on the 'Lt. Blueberry' comic -- a series sadly out of print these days, but a clear milestone in the western genre. Williams has a reputation for being a kind of artistic chameleon, adopting the styles of other artists for last year's 'Batman' arc or 'Seven Soldiers' #1, both done in collaboration with Grant Morrison. In 'Jonah Hex,' he's not doing his Moebius impression so much as evoking Moebius in the linework and inking. The layouts and storytelling is all his, though, and of all the mainstream artists working today, Williams is the most fearless when composing a page. It's beautiful stuff."