Saturday, November 29, 2003

Animal Man is a title that I've never read in any significant measure, despite my admiration for Morrison's scripting, because the artist that they got to illustrate the majority of it was one Chas Truog, whose work is, in my own unworthy opinion, some of the worst to ever grace any works of sequential fiction. Flat, unimaginatively laid out, awkwardly posed, poor perspective shots, you name it. Maybe I just got off on the wrong foot with the guy because he was the artist they chose to follow Steve Leialoha in Epic's long-ago Coyote ongoing, and he stunk on ice...and I've never seen anything from him since that has changed my opinion. I'm sure he's a nice fella, and is loved by his friends and family, tithes often, and is a pillar of his community...but Jesus Mary and Joseph I hated his artwork.

That was what I said, when commenting on the then-new Animal Man trade that DC released a month or so ago. I got several responses in my comments section, some of which agreed with me. I also, about a week ago, got a comment from none other than one Chaz Truog. Yes, that Chaz Truog. Fortunately, he didn't seem to take umbrage or offense, and I respect that. I still don't care for his work on those series, but I appreciate that he came here and stood up for himself. I hadn't checked my edit comments site in a long time, so that's why I hadn't noticed it before.

He also provides a link to his website, which features a lot of his newer stuff. I haven't seen everything there yet, but what I have seen is much better than what I remember from his 80s and 90s days. In particular, there's a humor strip there named Scorch which shows he has a deft hand for that sort of cartooning. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself!

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