While I do not do a lot of comic reading I will say that Elephantmen visuals are pretty sick as they do come across my desk every once in a while. For me in my novice level of graphic novel reading, it really has to have visuals that are not too busy and easy on the eye to make the story easy to follow.

The one thing you can count on is that Starkings isn't going to allow bullshit art in his titles.

Can that sink a good graphic novel? I was wondering if you knew of any great story graphic novels that have just so so art therefore not allowing them to really get good traction in the market? More of a curiosity question then anything.

I can't say that I'm really art motivated as comic reader and in fact my first time reading a tpb or graphic novel I never even look at the art. It's only under extreme circumstances do I allow art to motivate me in any way. In this case specifically Bachalo, Moritat and Ladronn are all artist who are really in my top 20 current artists.

It also depends on what do you mean by graphic novel. If you mean a true OGN (original graphic novel) in the American market you better be bringing thunder on the art (or have one hell of a reputation) or you aren't making shit. If you mean a collected TPB that has the monthlies to act as advertisements for it than that may be a different matter entirely. You don't see a lot of true OGNS to begin with though.

But to answer the question, certainly there are OGNS and collected TPBS that have art that I don't think are outstanding that do very well, just as there is product with otustandign art that doesn't do well. That's just a matter of taste though, as I can say that there aren't very many artists who would make me NOT buy a book that Ithoguth was well written, and while certainly there are that handful of artists that significantly effect sales by their mere presence; we are in what I think is much more writer based market. Though I think Stuart Immonen is a fabulous artist, Ultimate Spiderman would sale as long as they grouped any reasonable artist with Bendis. They seem so confident in the writer's name they grouped Kevin Smith on a recent Batman story with a relative unknown (whom I gather Smith requested, knows, and actually employs). Same with Avengers - draw 20 names out of a hat and if you put them with Bendis, Avengers is going to move.

You switch that around and you have some crazy talent like Ashley Wood drawing books I'd never buy.

"Traction' is also an interesting word. It's sometime hard to compare as some books sale 20k and they are flying high, while others selling that much would be canceled. Success is different things to different publishers.

There is always what Todd McFarlane says though. You could have the best damn written book and art in the world, but if your cover sucks, nobody is going to know.

I want to add that I don't really pay attention to sales trends as I generally find the topic irrelevant to my enjoyment of comics.

Just wanted to add that the other two to round-out my top ten from this list can be found in our main Best Books list that came out yesterday!

http://www.bscreview.com/2008/12/ ... s-of-2008/