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the hottest men in American comics
Oct. 17th, 2008 03:34 pmI am amused and perfectly unsorry that this discussion doesn't really encompass superhero comics. Shaenon Garrity assembles a crack panel to identify which American cartoonists draw really hot men.
Of the ones mentioned, I can firmly endorse Carla Speed McNeil (who draws sexy, sexy people of both genders, but who is also talented and imaginative enough to draw a variety of physical types, including unsexy people--do not take this sort of thing for granted!) and Mike Mignola (I never got anywhere in Hellboy, but both the male protagonists and the poor women who got eaten by rats were extremely sexy in Migola's adaptation of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser), Wendy Pini (I agree about wanting to bone the elves. Hello, Rayek! Pini also gets props for that coveted ability to draw different physical types), Los Bros Hernandez (the mustaches of Palomar are not my thing, but the male characters have the same vibrant sexuality as the female characters; that extraordinary ability to convey the power and presence of sex and sexuality is one of the magnetic qualities of Love and Rockets), and Kyle Baker (you know the protagonist in You Are Here? The one who looks like a young Cary Grant? That's my type, and how).
I would also like to add Phil Foglio to this list. You can go look at the canon of Foglio's cheerful, sexy, funny, sci-fi porn comic XXXenophile if you don't believe me, but you really need look no further than his current work, Girl Genius, which contains two of the most smoulderingly hot men around in comics: Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, and his son, Gilgamesh. You know, Gil, the one I said I wanted to clone a thousand times so I could marry all the clones. In the context of Girl Genius, that's slightly less bizarre than it sounds. Really.)
Oh, and Adam Warren. It's easy to get distracted by Emp in Empowered, but Thugboy--wow.
Looking over this list, it occurs to me that with all of these artists--I think all or all but one of whom are both artists and writers--the sexy characters they've created aren't just physically good-looking, but are also dynamic, memorable, interesting personalities. It's that synthesis of a well-shaped physical form and a lively personality that makes them stand out as sexy. Superhero comics are filled with cookie-cutter character designs of ideal male and female bodies (sometimes idealized to the absurd or even to the point of being grotesque); it's all quite dull. I find some superhero characters very sexy, but only when they have such interesting personalities that they begin to stand out as people. For a variety of reasons, that doesn't happen much.
Anyway. Anybody else know of any American cartoonists who draw really hot men? Inquiring minds want to know, preferably before my next visit to Hub.
Of the ones mentioned, I can firmly endorse Carla Speed McNeil (who draws sexy, sexy people of both genders, but who is also talented and imaginative enough to draw a variety of physical types, including unsexy people--do not take this sort of thing for granted!) and Mike Mignola (I never got anywhere in Hellboy, but both the male protagonists and the poor women who got eaten by rats were extremely sexy in Migola's adaptation of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser), Wendy Pini (I agree about wanting to bone the elves. Hello, Rayek! Pini also gets props for that coveted ability to draw different physical types), Los Bros Hernandez (the mustaches of Palomar are not my thing, but the male characters have the same vibrant sexuality as the female characters; that extraordinary ability to convey the power and presence of sex and sexuality is one of the magnetic qualities of Love and Rockets), and Kyle Baker (you know the protagonist in You Are Here? The one who looks like a young Cary Grant? That's my type, and how).
I would also like to add Phil Foglio to this list. You can go look at the canon of Foglio's cheerful, sexy, funny, sci-fi porn comic XXXenophile if you don't believe me, but you really need look no further than his current work, Girl Genius, which contains two of the most smoulderingly hot men around in comics: Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, and his son, Gilgamesh. You know, Gil, the one I said I wanted to clone a thousand times so I could marry all the clones. In the context of Girl Genius, that's slightly less bizarre than it sounds. Really.)
Oh, and Adam Warren. It's easy to get distracted by Emp in Empowered, but Thugboy--wow.
Looking over this list, it occurs to me that with all of these artists--I think all or all but one of whom are both artists and writers--the sexy characters they've created aren't just physically good-looking, but are also dynamic, memorable, interesting personalities. It's that synthesis of a well-shaped physical form and a lively personality that makes them stand out as sexy. Superhero comics are filled with cookie-cutter character designs of ideal male and female bodies (sometimes idealized to the absurd or even to the point of being grotesque); it's all quite dull. I find some superhero characters very sexy, but only when they have such interesting personalities that they begin to stand out as people. For a variety of reasons, that doesn't happen much.
Anyway. Anybody else know of any American cartoonists who draw really hot men? Inquiring minds want to know, preferably before my next visit to Hub.
