Artist canon

First entry in my personal (static) "visual storytelling" canon

I was commenting with my nephew his film tastes, and he made a point: there are the movies he considers brilliant, his favourite movies, and then the movies he has seen most. I would like to try his approach on “static visual storytelling” (comics and illustration) — to share my personal art&artist cannon. It might also be interesting to collect an “anti-canon”, from works that I like the least, or that I consider poor… though I believe constructive criticism should be discussed with the author — not in the open arena of Internet. That said, I recommend it as a personal recollection: which works do you like less? Why? Are they really that bad, or maybe one’s personal taste is involved?

My favourite artists

I am distributing my canon into a small set of articles. First, let me start with an appreciation of my favourite comic and illustration artist across the world (which I am afraid it will be biased towards the “western market”, in which I have had the chances to get to know the works of such artists…) Also, I will focus on “modern” visual storytelling (20th and 21st centuries)

(Alphabetical order, grouped by country — in some cases country may not be obvious, maybe an artist was born in a country but has developed her career in another)

Europe

Spain

• Paco Alcázar

• Pablo Auladell

• Azpiri

• Asun Balzola

• J.M. Beá

• Calpurnio

• Alex Fito

• Carlos Giménez

• Ibáñez

• Jan

• Kim

• Magius

• Max

• Albert Monteys

• Javier Olivares

• Puño

• David Ramirez

• Paco Roca

• Juanjo Sáez

• Antonio Santos

• Aitor Saraiba

• Carme Solé

• Aroha Travé

• Ulises Wensell

• Javier Zabala

Czech Republic

• Štěpán Zavřel

Poland

• Józef Wilkoń

Slovenia

• Maja Kastelic

France-Belgium

• David B.

• Émile Bravo

• Franquin

• Emmanuel Guibert

• Hergé

• Riad Sattouf

• Sempé

• Uderzo

Italy

• Beatrice Allemagna

• Igort

Germany

• Hans Jürgen-Press

• Ralf König

• Heinrich Kley

UK

• David McKee

Asia / Oceania

Japan

• Moto Hagio

• Shotaro Ishinomori

• Satoshi Kitamura

• Kentaro Miura

• Kabi Nagata

• Katsuhiro Otomo

• Osamu Tezuka

• Akira Toriyama

Australia

• Shaun Tan

Americas

Argentina

• Horacio Altuna

• Liniers

• Mariana Ruiz Johnson

• Quino

Brazil

• Carybé

• Gabriel Bá

• José Francisco Borges

USA

• Linda Barry

• Allison Bechdel

• Ivan Brunetti

• Robert Crumb

• Jaime Hernandez

• Frank King

• James Kochalka

• Jeph Loebb

• Richard McGuire

• David Mazzuchelli

• Winsor McCay

• Frank Miller

• Ron Regé Jr

• Joe Sacco

• Tim Sale

• Charles Schultz

• Maurice Sendak

• Art Spiegelman

• Craig Thompson

• Chris Ware

• Bill Watterson

Canada

• Guy Delisle

• Jon Klassen