Note: This page should not be credited to uncited issues.

Overview

In comics, interior art is most commonly divided into pencils, inks and colors but there are many variations possible in both art-style and individual roles as a singular individual could perform all or at least multiple roles in creating a comic. Painted art, black-and-white art or photographic art are common variations from the standard American style.

Artist Roles

Ghost Artists

Dozens of artists/writers during the Golden-Age of comics went uncredited for their work in print form. Their names were completely left out of the issues they worked on. In a lot of cases they would actually sign the name of the artist they worked for/under and would have to mimic the style of another artist. A good example of this is Bob Kane. Dozens of artists worked as Bob Kane. Bob Kane got all the credit while the actual artist for the issue got none.

Some have referred to "Ghosting" as an assistant who works under another artist or writer and merely assists in writing stories/drawing panels etc. But many of these known artists and writers were doing 100% of the work while someone else took credit. This isn't to say that the person getting all the credit was bad or did it on purpose. This was just how things were in the Golden Age of comics. It was common practice.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster even had many writers work as "Ghosts" penning scripts for Action Comics!

Inkers were not seen as a vital art form at the time. It took years before people noticed the true art form behind inking and inkers like Joe Sinnott (who was an excellent penciler in his own right) began getting their due credit!

A List of known "Ghost Artists"

• Chic Stone
• George Papp
• Marvin Stein
• Dick Dillin
• Curt Swan
• Win Mortimer
• Chic Stone
• Jerry Robinson
• Jim Mooney
• Dick Sprang
• Jack Kirby
• Sheldon Moldoff
• Lew Sayre Schwartz
• Jack Burnley
• George Roussos
• Frank Springer
• Joe Giella
• Joe Simon
• Irwin Hasen
• Fred Ray
• Bill Finger
• Charles Nicholas
• William Woolfolk
• Dave Wood
• Alvin Schwartz

One result of so many people not getting their due credit in comics is the Bill Finger Award: which recognizes artists/writers who never got their due credit while working in the industry. (This award was started by Jerry Robinson: who never got his due credit for his Batman creations, but who recognized Bill Finger who never got his due credit as the co-creator of Batman).

Art Techniques

Kirby Krackle

Also referred to as "Kirby Dots", Kirby Krackle is an art technique that consists of small black dots that are typically used to convey great energy. The dots are arranged in close proximity to one another and often overlap, creating fractal-like patterns. In this way they convey the negative space surrounding the energy. Conventional wisdom holds that Kirby krackle was created in the 1960s by artist Jack Kirby, who lends the technique his name. It has been suggested that Kirby or his inker Joe Simon used similar dots to convey energy as early as 1940. Regardless, the use of the krackle became popular amongst artists, who use it to represent energy in many forms, including cosmic energy, explosions, energy fields and fire

Ben-Day Dots

A colouring technique used in many artistic mediums, including in the comic industry. Dots are superimposed across a field to create different colours.

Animated Panels

Animated panels are single panels that feature a character multiple times in that one panel. This is a method comic artists use a lot in comics to demonstrate agility and speed. In this method a character is drawn several times in one panel in different poses. They do this a lot in comics like the Flash, Quicksilver, or Spider-Man. It is also used to show transformations, like Banner turning into the Hulk or Hulk turning back to Banner, or Ben Grimm becoming the Thing, or Giant Man or the Atom growing. Animated Panels can also be used to show a character's combat skills, like in Iron Fist or Captain America.

Art Movements

Good Girl Art

A popular genre of comic book art, aimed primarily at male readers, that features attractive and often provocatively-dressed female characters in alluring poses. Good Girl Art in comics is understood to depict characters of the sweet or heroic variety, as opposed to Bad Girl Art, which features edgier and more violent female characters.

The term "good girl art" was first coined in the 1930's and at the time simply referred to published illustrations of attractively-drawn female characters, be they heroines, villainesses, or anything in between. Comparable terms include "pinup art" and "cheesecake art." In more specific comic book terms, Good Girl Art now refers to art featuring attractively-drawn female characters who are sweet or heroic in nature, i.e. "good girls." This narrower definition of Good Girl Art gained relevance after the term Bad Girl Art (referring to attractively-drawn female characters who are dark and violent in nature) was coined in the 1990's, resulting in the need for greater distinction between the two genres.

The good girl art concept first began at the onset of World War II, during the Golden Age of Comics. Servicemen sought out diversions from their duties on the battlefield and at sea by reading comic strips and books featuring women drawn in the "good girl" style. These women were portrayed in an attractive and visually appealing manner, and were often scantily-clad in bathing suits and bikinis, or in mildly suggestive attire such as tight dresses. One of the earliest masters of the art form was artist Matt Baker, who became famous for his sexy renditions of Phantom Lady and other female superheroes of the era.

Bad Girl Art

Bad Girl Art is an edgier version of Good Girl Art, focusing on sexy and scantily-clad female characters who are known for morally ambiguous and violent behavior. Its earliest precursor, Vampirella, has been around since the late 1960's, though the Bad Girl term was not coined until the 1990's when the popularity of the genre reached its peak.

Bad Girl Art, despite what the name might imply, is not the opposite of Good Girl Art. In fact the two are closely related. While Good Girl Art features attractively-drawn (and usually under-dressed) female characters who are sweet or heroic in nature, Bad Girl Art features attractively-drawn (and equally under-dressed) female characters who have dark, scandalous, and violent edges to their personas. Unlike the term Good Girl Art, which once broadly described any form of comic book pinup art featuring sexy girls, the term Bad Girl Art is not as widely used and tends to pertain more specifically to certain characters and publishers. The art form was at its most prevalent during the initial explosion of Bad Girl characters, which reached its peak in the 1990's.

Common visual characteristics of Bad Girls include elongated and exaggerated physiques, well-endowed busts, long flowing hair, and revealing yet busy costumes resembling bikinis in design. They also tend to carry oversized melee weapons, sometimes bloodied by their defeated enemies. Most, though not all, also possess powers of a supernatural nature.

It should be noted that most Bad Girl characters are not truly "bad" -- that is, villainous and evil in alignment. In fact, the majority of Bad Girls are presented as protagonists who are opposed to true evil. However, in contrast to traditional female superheroes, the personalities and methods of the Bad Girls can be nearly as dark and violent as the evil opponents they battle against. Unlike traditional superheroines, Bad Girls exhibit little or no compunction about maiming or killing enemies.

Precursors

The first precursor to the modern Bad Girl appeared more than two decades before the term was coined: The vampire-powered vixen Vampirella, who premiered in Warren Comics in 1969. Another Bad Girl precursor was the barbarian swordswoman Red Sonja, created by Marvel Comics in 1973, who became famous for wearing sexy bikini-like armor while slicing up her opponents. A third precursor to the genre was the Marvel character Elektra, an alluring yet deadly female assassin who first appeared in 1981. With their skimpy costumes, long flowing hair, edgy personalities, and propensity for violence, these women provided a template for the wave of Bad Girl characters that appeared a decade later.

Heyday: the 1990's

In 1989, just before the turn of the decade, Joseph Michael Linsner's supernatural femme fatale character Dawn made her first appearance, setting the stage for an explosion of Bad Girls in the 90's. One of the biggest promoters of the modern genre of Bad Girls was Brian Pulido, the founder and writer of Chaos! Comics, which published a roster that leaned heavily on strong anti-heroine leads. The earliest and most prominent of these was Lady Death (created by Pulido and artist Steven Hughes), who made her debut in 1992 and is often considered to be the first 'official' Bad Girl in comics. Other popular Chaos Bad Girls were Purgatori (created in 1994) and Chastity (created in 1995). Despite Chaos Comics going bankrupt at the start of 2000, their Bad Girl legacy has continued, with other publishers snapping up the characters and continuing their stories.

Another early exponent of Bad Girl art was Everette Hartsoe of London Night Studios. An independent comic book artist and writer, his Bad Girls were ultra-violent and their costumes ultra-skimpy, sometimes appearing completely nude. His most significant characters were Razor (created in 1991), Stryke (created in 1991), and Poizon (created in 1995).

Other notable Bad Girls to debut in the 1990's were Angela (created by Neil Gaiman in 1993), Shi (created by Billy Tucci in 1993), Glory and Avengelyne (created by Rob Liefeld in 1993 and 1995, respectively), Lady Rawhide (created by Don McGregor and Mike Mayhew in 1994), Red Monika (created by Joe Madureira in 1995), detective Sara Pezzini as the sexy wielder of the Witchblade (created by Michael Turner in 1995), Darkchylde (created by Randy Queen in 1996), and Magdalena (created by Joe Benitez in 1998). Though the popularity of Bad Girls declined towards the end of the 1990's, notable Bad Girls to debut in the 2000's were Tarot (created by Jim Balent in 2000) and Cassie Hack (created by Tim Seeley in 2004).

Teams and crossovers

The very nature of Bad Girl characters dictates that they generally do not 'play well' with others and prefer to operate solo. Hence team books featuring Bad Girls were rare, even at the height of their popularity when many of them had solo titles. One of the few high-profile 1990's team titles to promote Bad Girl Art was Danger Girl, created by J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnell in 1998, though the Danger Girls were too 'good' to be true Bad Girls (with the exception of Natalia Kassle, who was revealed to be a traitor to the team).

Despite the lack of team titles, Bad Girl crossover titles featuring two or more Bad Girl characters (Lady Death/Vampirella, Witchblade/Lady Death, Vampirella/Purgatori, Lady Death/Chastity/Bad Kitty, Glory/Avengelyne, etc) were very popular during this period. In most of these crossover stories the titular Bad Girls got along poorly at first and would often fight each other, until the threat of a common enemy forced them to work together.

Recent Era

The prominence of Bad Girl Art declined in the 2000's, but the art form continues to maintain a level of popularity and appears to be here to stay. Dynamite Entertainment has become known for purchasing and reviving many popular Bad Girl characters previously created by other publishers (Red Sonja, Vampirella, Lady Rawhide, and others). In 2010 Dynamite purchased every character in the former Chaos Comics inventory, with the notable exception of Lady Death, who remains the property of creator Brian Pulido (now with Coffin Comics). Dynamite hired Tim Seeley (creator of Cassie Hack) to create a new Bad Girl character, Lady Hel, to replace Lady Death in Dynamite's Chaos universe.

Another significant publisher carrying on the tradition of Bad Girl Art is Zenescope Entertainment (the publisher of Grimm Fairy Tales and its many spinoffs). Zenescope's heroines (the most notable of which are Sela, Belinda, Britney Waters, Liesel Van Helsing, Samantha Darren, and Robyn Hood), though ostensibly "good girls," are often portrayed in a Bad Girl style on Zenescope covers. Edgier Zenescope heroines who conform to the true Bad Girl model include Hellchild, Keres, and Mystere. Many of Zenescope's villains also tend to fit the Bad Girl archetype; they include Baba Yaga, Limbo Queen, Queen of Spades, Venus, Lynessa, and Goblin Queen (not to be confused with the Marvel character of the same name). These characters were featured together in a miniseries called Grimm Fairy Tales presents Bad Girls in 2012. Zenescope's cover art tends to blur the boundary between Good Girl and Bad Girl Art, depicting Bad Girls alongside (or in conflict with) Good Girls.

Unofficial "Bad Girls"

Though the terms 'Bad Girl' and Bad Girl Art are usually specific to the above characters and publishers, some mainstream comic book characters are thought of as unofficial 'bad girls' by fans due to their strong similarities, both in appearance and temperament -- especially if they are "drawn that way." Such characters include DC's Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman (collectively known as the "Gotham Girls"), Marvel's Elektra, Emma Frost, Goblin Queen, and Black Cat, and Dynamite's Red Sonja (formerly a Marvel character), though other characters can potentially fit the label as well. At the start of the Bad Girl explosion in 1991, Marvel even created a team called B.A.D. Girls Inc, comprised of three sexy former villainesses (Black Mamba, Asp, and Diamondback) turned good. Sexy pinups featuring any of the above characters (and others) could be considered either Good Girl Art or Bad Girl Art, depending mainly on the artist and how the character is presented.