Eyedrawthings

The most underrated illustrator of the last 30 years gets his due.

A lot of illustrators shot up the ranks of Marvel and DC in the late 80’s – early 90’s to become brand names in their own right. In many cases, well deserved, in other cases, not at all.

Despite strong runs on good titles (Cloak & Dagger, Spiderman 2099, Nightwing), Rick Leonardi never did.

And that’s total bullshit. He’s like Children of Men at the 2006 Oscars.

I could go into a history here, but I’m just not that versed. For that, I highly recommend reading Will Shyne’s translation of a spanish interview done with Rick at his blog Sunny Day Indoors. Good reading.

What I will go into is the quality of the man’s work. I’ve cherry picked a bit, mainly because the man is maked or breaked by his inkers and colorists (his Uncanny X-Men run looks like ass colored, a muddy, disgraceful mess). Regardless, these examples illustrate what Leonardi has consistently done best throughout his career.

First and foremost – LINE! His line work blows me away. There are no wasted lines at all; they convey form, depth and texture with economical choices of weight and curve. Check out the scans from Batgirl below, noting Poison Ivy’s knees and collar in the first panel, and the vet’s hands in the proceeding panel:

What else has he got? The ability to capture motion and convey the feeling and mood of it. His silhouettes express character perfectly. Check out joy:

Anger:

Violence:

Threat:

Heros on the move!:

On the storytelling front, his sequentials have a strong sense of pacing. There is a momentum. These next two are some of my favorite little bits from his sequentials. It takes us from a lull to a strong reveal:

And now for some full pagers. Talk about pacing:

Check out the composition of the pages below from Cloak & Dagger. First, a long vertical serene panel of a church scene, crosscut with another scene that changes angle panel to panel. A sense of urgency all over it. (love page 2, panel 1, makes you feel like you’re dollying in and tilting up at the priest.):

This is from my own collection of original art, which actually is only one piece of art and this is it. Have it hanging next to my art desk as inspiration.

Go back and dig for this guy’s work. I think his Cloak & Dagger run with inker Terry Austin is one of the most important of the 80’s. (And why the fuck can’t Marvel reprint those in black and white phonebook style?)

Currently he’s working as a fill-in at DC, and has been primary penciller on their Vigilante series.

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