In the end, I feel it is both the characters and the readers who are ill served when there is no attempt made by the various artists to keep Superman looking like Superman, Batman looking like Batman, etc. These books are not -- or at least, should not be -- canvases for self-indulgence. The characters should come first, always.

I agree with everything you've said here.

You'd be horrified by the various renderings of Ben Grimm these days....

JB, you shouldn't be looking at current comics for references. The other guys should be looking at yours. Please, I'm begging here.

'Preciate the thought, but until such time as DC editorial hands down such an edict, I feel my job is to go with the flow. As I commented in a Q&A I did recently, I am sick to death of the "personal expression" crap. 99% of the time it looks to me more like "personal laziness" than anything else -- crybaby artists who are too f****ing full of themselves to modify their "styles" to fit the characters. "I know this doesn't look like Superman, but that's the face I always draw!" feh

I'm tired of the other artists mucking with Superman's symbol.

I also think that Batman has to be the one character that is off-model the most at DC these days, as nearly every artist has his own take on the character. Sometimes he has long ears, other times they're short. Sometimes he has combat boots, other times he has standard issue superhero boots. And so on...

I remember reading a Spider-Man comic a couple years back, and realized that if it wasn't for the dialogue on the page, I wouldn't have been able to tell who Peter Parker was.  And if it wasn't for the color of her hair, I wouldn't have been able to tell who Mary Jane was either.

Sad.

Today, I am sure there would be plenty of artists and their fans who would decry this as "stifling artistic expression", but to me it falls under the heading of "being professional".



Side Note: When Neal Adams exploded on the scene, the Batman he drew looked much like the Carmine Infantino version that had become the house style by then -- but it was not long before Neal begcan to make his own impression, and not long after that before DC was (wisely) encouraging the other Bat-artists to draw Neal's version of the character. So, once more, even tho the character had undergone a fairly significant change, stylistically, he remained "on model" as that change became the standard.

Aaron Leach wrote: ...I don't know who was responsible for this change, but the look of Superman in the 50's became the model for how he was to be drawn for many years after...

From the late 1950s until JB's run on "Superman," the character's basic look was based on Curt Swan's version of Superman.

Edited to add: I think, editorially-speaking, that it was Mort Weisenger (sp.?) that was in charge of the "Superman" line of books, and dictated how the character should look.

Joe Hollon wrote: ...Another good modern example is the advertisement I saw for an upcoming (or recent?) issue of Superman where the artist has Superman and Captain Marvel side by side and they look EXACTLY THE SAME!!! Same person wearing two different costumes! Inexcuseable!!! I'm sure some of you reading this know the ad I'm referring to....maybe someone can post it here.

It's Ian Churchill's art. I usually like most of his work, but I totally agree with you on this point. I was actually looking at the ad and thinking the same thing you mentioned, about how the two characters look the same. Captain Marvel looks way too much like Superman in that picture. How can someone screw up one of the most unique-looking faces in comics?