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Greg Land

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Greg Land is an American comic book artist best known for his work on X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong and on Ultimate Fantastic Four. He is also known for his comic book cover art. His work has garnered criticism for relying on tracing of model photographs and other artists' work.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Jean Grey on the cover to X-Men:Phoenix: Endsong #1, with art by Greg Land.

[edit] Beginning

Land was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, eventually attending Indiana State University. During his junior year, Land began working at a screen printing company, and subsequently worked there for ten years.

Land created a comic art portfolio in the early 1990s. After impressing people with his art at the Mid-Ohio Con comic convention, Land got a job with an independent publisher as the artist for StormQuest.

[edit] DC Comics

With work on StormQuest completed, Greg Land went to Chicago and did his first major comic book convention. There he met with DC Comics' editor Pat Garrahy, who liked his work. In 1999, Greg Land was doing covers of Birds of Prey based on the sketches of Brian Stelfreeze.

[edit] CrossGen

Image:Sojourn-7.jpg

Later, Land began to work at CrossGen Comics, on a series called Sojourn. The series ran from July 2001 through May 2004, for a total of 34 issues. It could be best described as a classic fantasy epic. The story dealt with the resurrection of an Undead, sigil-bearing Mordath, who had nearly conquered the entire realm centuries before. A woman named Arwyn, an archer whose husband and child died in an onslaught of Mordath's troops, is in search of the 5 shards of a mystical arrow which killed Mordath the first time.

Greg was responsible for the art in all but a few of the issues, which were done by visiting guest artists, often during his annual vacation.

[edit] Marvel Comics

Greg Land was able to move on to Marvel Comics, along with his inker and colorist from Sojourn, after the fall of CrossGen. Originally at Marvel, Land did covers to various series. This led to a collaboration with Greg Pak as the main artist of X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong. Next, Land became the penciler for Ultimate Fantastic Four. His current project is a crossover between Marvel's Supremeverse and the Ultimate Universe, entitled Ultimate Power. Ultimate Power is being written by Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski and Jeph Loeb.

[edit] Controversy

Land's fans regard his work as ultra-realistic and commend the beauty of the women he draws. His critics charge that the faces of his female characters look generic and inconsistent, that his poses and facial expressions are stiff and unrealistic, and that he does too much photo-referencing and tracing.<ref name="scans_daily">Are you dissin'? I AM DISSIN'! Greg Land, Ult FF #23-25. scans_daily (December 12, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-04.</ref>

Beyond the photo referencing claims, he has been accused of simply tracing (or possibly digitally altering) photographs and even drawings by other comic artists. Aside from some obvious references such as Hugh Jackman for Wolverine, an image of Mr. Fantastic merges perfectly with an image of Topher Grace, and an image of Magneto putting on his helmet is an exact match for an image of Brad Pitt doing the same.<ref name="gutter">Johnston, Rich (August 15, 2005). Swipe File. Lying in the Gutters. Comic Book Resources. Retrieved on 2006-11-04.</ref> Land's work often differs so little from his references that they may be located independently.<ref name="scans_daily" /> For the cover to Ultimate Power #1, a picture of Spider-Man follows a similar drawing by Travis Charest line for line, with only a slight change in pose.<ref>Greg Land Question. Talk@Newsarama (October 8, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-11-04.</ref>

Greg Land has freely admitted to tracing or light boxing nearly all of his published material since the beginning of Crossgen, & that all credit he gets should be given to his colorist Justin Ponsor .<ref name="silverbullet">CN Expo Tie-In: The Mechanics of Greg Land: An Introduction. Silver Bullet Comics (August 17, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-04.</ref>

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

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[edit] External Links

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