#144 Steven Weissman

Steven Weissman’s does great kid comics in an almost early Charles Schulz big-head style… however his kids are not the Peanuts gang. His heroes are Li’l Bloody, a young vampire, Pull-Apart Boy, Kid Medusa, and a gang of other young monstrous miscreants. Also like Schulz, Weissman is a master of character-based humor. So his comics are kind of like Peanuts, only with violent mayhem and death. So, basically, it isn’t like Peanuts at all. Never mind. You can find many excellent books by Mr. Weissman at Fantagraphics, buy original art from him at the Comic Art Collective. He also has a blog.

Click here to read the entry about Steven Weissman on lambiek.net.

#145 Bill Wray

Alas, Bill Wray has apparently decided to abandon the world of cartooning for landscape painting. His comics are hilarious, gleefully offensive and beautifully/crazily drawn. .. most notably in his Dark Horse comics Big Blown Baby and Hellboy Junior. He also is well known for his memorable work on Ren and Stimpy. You can still buy copies of Big Blown Baby and Hellboy Junior on the Dark Horse Comics site.

Click here to read the entry about Bill Wray on lambiek.net.

#146 Patrick Smith

I wrote about Mr. Smith the other week… he’s the man behind the flash site vectorpark.com. More relevant to our current post, he’s the fella behind the comics in The Ganzfeld Reader #1. Yes, I am including him based on that one book… he is that good. His comics are like nothing else I’ve ever seen. The closest comparison I can come up with is he’s kind of like a cross between Jim Woodring, Mat Brinkman and Pac Man, but that’s not really accurate. His comics are weird, simple and spooky… they feel like they take place in a vacuum. I really hope he makes more comics some day… I have a feeling he would be a lot higher on this ridiculous list pretty quickly.

Above image taken from The Ganzfeld website (which was also designed by Smith).

#147 Debbie Drechsler

After her impressive and highly disturbing debut Daddy’s Girl, Miss Drechsler went on to create an excellent, moody, duotone-colored comic book called Nowhere for Drawn and Quarterly. These comics have been collected in the book Summer of Love. Note that Summer of Love is currently available for a 50% discount on the Drawn and Quarterly website, including a softcover, hardcover and limited edition version.

Click here to read about Debbie Drechsler on lambiek.net.

#148 Alex Toth

Alex Toth had an amazing eye for simplification and composition. His streamlined character designs for television animation are legendary, and extremely influential. He’s the man who designed Space Ghost.

Click on the above image to see a larger version on comicartfans.com.

Click here to read about Alex Toth on lambiek.net.

#149 Art Adams

Art Adams got his start working at Marvel comics, notably creating the memorable character Longshot. Adams has a lush and detailed style won him a legion of fans from the beginning of his career. His masterpiece (so far) is probably Monkeyman and O’Brien, which was published and collected by Dark Horse Comics. He has also done a couple of wonderful Gumby comics with Bob Burden (the creator of Flaming Carrot), and did a recent pinup in this year’s Gumby Free Comic Book Day comic. He recently did a fun series called Jonni Future in the pages of Alan Moore’s Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales. You can find out more about Mr. Adams in his wikipedia entry.

Click the image above to see the full version at comicartfans.com.

Click here to read about Art Adams on lambiek.net.