Yeah I audibly yelled "WHAAATT?!" at Jim Lee's placement, but I get your reasoning. Jim Lee got me into wanting to draw though so he holds a special place. Anytime I think of X Men I think of that huge relaunch cover and still think the costumes at that time were the best due to his artwork. Saying his art is corporate I think disses his talent a bit...he was just so super crisp, super clean and super dynamic that you couldn't not pay attention.

Glad to see Silverstri ranked so highly. I'd say out of all these artists, he's the one who's managed to improve his already titanic skills the most throughout the years. For example, his work in the 2012 Incredible Hulk run and especially his recent Batman & Joker - Deadly Duo series is pure, artgasmic Heaven.

From a pure technical standpoint, Silvestri was the better artist of the bunch. He had the best combination of style, draftsmanship and panel to panel storytelling out of all the Image 7. McFarlane was the most visually striking out of all of them. Creatively I would say Portacio had the most creative page layouts out of all of them. And his style was equally as kinetic as Liefeld. Jim Lee was a more polished version of Portacio but also had the better fight choreography out of all the artists. Liefeld has unfocused energy. That's as best as I can describe his art. If he had applied himself better he could have been a way more better visual storyteller. Larsen and Valentino never appealed to me.

Most absurd shit I’ve ever seen is putting rob before Jim Lee

The Todd Father undefeated once again.

There has to be some kind of criminal offense that applies here having Liefeld not only higher than last but higher than Lee. Absolutely absurd

Most of those names I remember, but all of them were behind Jim Lee. His lines, anatomy, clean, & as he said a good inker can make you look even better, as he praised his inker at Marvel, I believe. Jim Lee best hands down.

McFarlane was easily the greatest Spider-Man artist. And he drew the best Mary Jane. He influenced my drawing quite a bit.

not mad at this list. Todd is LITERALLY the reason I started collecting comics in 89.

Jim Lee has always been my favorite artist when it came to drawing the X-Men and Batman.

Looking back on it all and where they have come since, I'd have to say: 3. McFarlene 2. Lee 1. Silvestri With all of that said, Lee is the one who's set the standard for all pencilers that have followed and really changed a generation of up and coming artist. The best pencilers that were basically bred from Image comics though: Finch, Silvestri and Travis Charest. I know Silvestri was popular before Image, but he came into Image as very good, he then became an icon with the style he defined there.

Would love to see a video about the extremely underrated Kubert brothers and their legendary father.

I honestly think Josh might be the biggest Rob Liefeld fan in the world.

For me: 1) Jim Lee 2)Todd McFarlane 3)Marc Silvestri You can give me any reason to interchange anyone in that list and I'd have a hard time disagreeing. But Rob Liefeld over Jim Lee...LOL

I was always a Wilce Portacio fan. I loved the Wetwork series.

I'd say Silvestri is the flat out Best Arist. His Wolverine and Cyber Force is mind-blowingly good Comic Art. Valentino's "Shadowhawk" was always my favorite Image title though. Like you mentioned, it felt like you were reading a gritty, R-Rated early 90''s action movie. It's a fun group of unique Artists to rank as I'm sure everyone has their favorites!

Marc Silvestri had a grit and compositional style that was able to be adapted to the flashy “Image” style but it remained grounded and my favorite since his X-men run. Not as SleeK as Lee, Bombastic as Liefeld, or Flashy/Edgy as McFarlane but it was the best.

Jim Lee. It's just Jim Lee hands down. Even as a kid, I always gravitated towards comics where he was the penciller. The others are also great (even Rob Liefeld... at times) but he's always been my favorite.

Todd McFarlane blew my mind in the 80s. He has my vote hands down. I loved how he modernized Peter and MJ. It was like every issue of Amazing Spiderman by Todd was a work of art. Jim Lee #2.

Man it's a close call, silvestri and Jim Lee are just god level art, I like them both. But if you ask me my favourite artist of all time, it would be BARRY WINDSOR SMITH, as a kid his art baffled me, it wasn't easy, it wasn't conventional but it was fluid and moved, as I grew older I just gravitated to his work, and today I think he is a true challenger for what defines movement on a page.

I was ready to be mad about your list, and while I would have switched your 1 & 2 spots, your reasonings and breakdown are undeniably well-drawn (yoink!). Good video!

Agree to disagree but respect that this is your opinion. Jim Lee is a personal favorite. Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

Another banging episode,Josh,like the way you state what you and how you like it.WELL SAID,I like how you-EXPRESS-yourself.Your video on Rob Liefeld is-GREAT-I go back and watch that video often. Keep'em coming hoss.

I can't judge solely on art styles. If I go strictly by the phrase "Who is the Best Image artist?" I would say unquestionably SAM KIETH! Every page of THE MAXX series was a BLISSFUL experience to behold! However, THE Image comic I would return to repeatedly is THE SAVAGE DRAGON! ERIK LARSEN loves the comic strip medium and it shows!

I'm gonna have to agree with alot of the commentors here, your presentation is so enjoyable to watch. It's equivalent to a Saturday Morning cartoon with all my fav shows and this being up there with the rest of them.

Easily Marc Silvestri was the best artist

Incredible video, Josh. I love how whenever you talk about comics you focus a lot on the artists, which is something a lot of other comic book KZfaqrs don't do as much imo. I can't get enough of this style of content. Keep it up!

I watched this video and really appreciated the showcases, breakdowns and reasons for why you liked or didn’t like certain artists. Great video All I could think about the whole time is “He really put Jim Lee at 5?! Jim gotta be 2 at least”

Marc silvestri and Jim Lee are he 2 best comic book illustrators in he industry.👍🏻 Now the Best Artist, thats another thing. Probably out of a few 1 is alex Ross. 2 Bill Sienkiewicz. But this is all my opinion, I'm bias 😅 but the thing is the illustrators are just drawing what's on the script, so it's the writer (s) fault if a page is daft, or boring.

My fav is still Todd McFarlane, but I like them all, each one for a different reason. Even Rob Liefeld for better or worse.

I share your love of '90s comics and really enjoy these videos. My list would probably go something like: 1.) Jim Lee 2.) Mark Silvestri 3.) Rob Liefeld 4.) Todd McFarlane 5.) Jim Valentino 6.) Whilce Portacio 7.) Erik Larsen

Solid descriptive rundown of an influential set of artists that wholly changed the art game!

I grabbed every first issue of many Image Comics title...these artists all bring something 2 the table. I love them all!

All 7 are fairly close but seeing the various artists on display reveals the importance of inking and colouring.

1. Todd McFarlane 2. Erik Larsen 3. Jim Lee

My two favorite artists, swapping depending on the day of the week, have to be Sam Kieth and Keith Giffen. I know they weren't founders, but very early grabs for Image. Kieth has an otherworldly style made famous by Sandman 1-5 that works beautifully for the world of The Maxx. Giffen's Trencher was one of my favorite books for it's bizarre and detailed style. Each image was almost like a Tetris puzzle of crazy shapes that made one ultimate picture.

Great list. I like how you took into account the dynamic quality of Rob Liefeld's art to rank him, because his technical flaws in anatomy, perspective, etc. lead most artists to just trash his work. I got into reading comics just before Image Comics was created. In fact, the Uncanny X-Men run that introduced Bishop and was drawn by Whilce Portacio was one of the first stories I read. I was known from grade school through high school as the kid that drew superheroes, and even did some art for school t-shirt designs (my middle school mascot was the Gator, so our t-shirt had a hyper-muscular overly cross-hatched anthropomorphic alligator that I just ripped off of a Stephen Platt-drawn Prophet cover). By the end of high school it was the late 90s and I had transitioned my drawing style to more realism, highly influenced by Alex Ross. When I minored in Art Studio in college, I honed my realistic style on still lifes and nude models, but the Image artists were the ones who really got me into drawing. I still have a picture somewhere of myself with Jim Valentino, when he came to a small comic convention in my hometown in 1999.

Really good video that sheds light on the people who formed Image Comics. Love that you went into great detail on each of their art. Such high quality stuff! Hope the algorithm blesses this one.

Stylistically I’ve always loved Todd McFarlane. His work was so dynamic and fluid. I love Jim Lee for his aesthetic physiques with nice proportions. You can see either one of these two on KZfaq doing live sketches and its amazing how naturally they are. Rob Liefield 🤮

I think your ranking is exactly mine rating as well. I have never heard anyone describe Lee’s art like this but it’s exactly how I feel too.

Excellent video!

Whoever was drawing wetworks was great

damn i havent watched one of your videos in a while, you lowkey had a glow up, big W

1- Todd McFarlane 2- Jim Lee 3- Marc Silvestri 4- Whilce Portacio 5- Eric Larsen 6- Rob Liefeld 7- Jim Valentino

Trying to be objective, my list would be: 1) Jim Lee 2) Todd McFarlane 3) Rob Liefeld 4) Marc Silvestri 5) Erik Larsen 6) Whilce Portacio 7) Jim Valentino I say this, given my favorites are 5 & 4

I'm gonna leave my comment in the spirit of your "saying one nice thing about...." Almost all their character designs, for Marvel and Image, were instant classics!! (This way I don't have to rank them, discuss actual rendering vs design, or sort out story quality from the episode's topic.) Thank you for everything, as always, Josh!

Hey, it’s Josh talking about 90s Image. Tubular. To the max!

It’s one thing to say I’m not a huge fan of Jim Lee. But anyone who claims Liefeld is a better artist than Jim Lee needs therapy

1. Jim Lee 2. Marc Silvestri 3. Whilce Portacio 4. Erik Larsen 5. Todd McFarlane 6. Jim Valentino ... 7. My 02 years old son ... Yeah, I guess this is it for me.

Lost me when with Liefield over Lee, but I get it, it’s your list. 1) Lee 2) Mcfarlane 3) Silverstri

Back in 1992, X-books were the rage, so it didn't get any bigger than Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. The kids back then LOVED those two artists. The second tier was: McFarlane, Silvestri, Stephen Platt, Whilce Portacio (though, you could easily argue that Whilce was third tier), The third tier were artists like: Brett Booth, J. Scott Campbell, Mark Teixeira ... and so on

John Buscema>John Byrne>Arthur Adams>Jim Lee>Others. Arthur Adams and Jim Lee were heralds and avant-gardes of a new era. It's obvious you don't understand comics. Of course, there were many other worthy artists in between, but the groundbreaking these two opened were like two suns rising on the shoulders of their great predecessors, such as John Buscema and later John Byrne.

1) Marc Silvestri (inner-circle all-time great), 2) Jim Lee (cleanest & most readable), 3) Todd McFarlane (incredibly dynamic without sacrificing too much anatomical coherence, the grittiness just doesn't play with me), 4) Whilce Portacio (pretty hit-or-miss, but with enough flashes of undeniable brilliance to juuuust edge out Larsen), 5) Erik Larsen (no real highs or lows, just extremely consistent & workmanlike), 6) Jim Valentino (his art being pretty clean but also indie af is just a weird uncanny valley for me), 7) Rob Liefeld (near McFarlane-level dynamism, but with the technical skill & attention to detail of small, ADHD-riddled child).

Jim Lee because that was my first exposure to learning an artist’s name and discovering their work in other titles.

Each of their styles displays great art in the comic industry. I want to be like them.😊

Besides the amazing video, the in depth analysis and palpable passion of what you're talking about, which make the video even more interesting and entertaining, I need to know one thing: WHAT'S THE INCREDIBLE PIECE OF MUSIC YOU CHOSE FOR MARK LETTIERI?! I NEED TO KNOW IT (which, btw, loved the music selection that describes exactly the artist you're talking about). PLEASE, LET ME KNOW!

Always glad to see Erik Larsen love.

Larsen is so underrated. He has the longest running western comic from a single writer/artist (even Gerhard joined Sim on Cerebus with #65). Larsen is on #268/9 all on his lonesome.

Jim Lee and Mcfarlane were alway my favorite. But I loved all them. When I was younger I use to just stare at their art in awe

Of course Todd is number one, he was always a big fish in a small pond. Creating some of the most iconic characters that defined an entire decade of comic books, innovating in his industry. He's a great draftsman with an unmistakable art style and tone to his work. He's not my favorite comic artist but I respect him for different reasons than I would respect other legends like Jack Kirby but Todd is up there just because he's such a driven and inspiring human.

Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, these two guys were generational talents. Wilce Portacio was just behind them but he was borrowing a lot of Jim's style right from the very beginning. Erik larsen's Savage Dragon though was by far the best written, best scripted, best stories of all the Image books.

Suddenly have a desire to read Shadow Hawk…

Whilce is so underrated. He may be my favroite of these guys. His Uncanny Xmen looked great, and kind of dark and weird

All were good. My favorite was Jim Lee, but Marc, Eric, and Rob are great as well. Todd is Todd, though nuff said. None of the early image artists were bad. Even Jae Lee was awesome.

How did we never get a Shadowhawk/TMNT crossover? That would have been such a great fit.

Hi, where did you get the shirt from?

It's wild to me that you've never even mentioned Sam Keith's work on the Maxx when you're talking about Image comics. Not even when you did the video about the Image Universe! He crossed over with multiple Image characters.

1.Lee,2. Mcfarlane,3. Silvestre, 4.Liefeld ,5. Whilce, 6. Larson, 7. Jimmy V

Dale Keown’s run on Pitt was phenomenal, though not all of the 20-issue run was published by Image Comics (some were published by Full Bleed). I also vote for Marc Silvestri as at one of the best.

Iwas floored with your placement of Lee, but your explanation, followed immediately by Liefeld made it work. I disagree, but that's how opinions work! Hell yeah!

Jim Lee brought me in. I liked comics but his work with the stories made me love it. I think it was the combination.

I'll definitely take Leifeld's style over the overly toony-looking and anime-looking styles so common today.

all the image founders are very interesting in my opinion.

I was outraged when hearing Jim Lee in 5th. Still gave the video a like. Thank you!

13:25 No argument on Todd. He was ranked #1 in WIZARD Magazine for years. However, he showed his weakness on his final issue of SPIDER-MAN, when he hastily drew the X-FORCE and JUGGERNAUT. McFarlane is great at cinematic looking, highly detailed scenes; but lacks the ability to draw group shots that JIM LEE, PORTACIO, and MARC SILVESTRI mastered in the X-Titles.

Agree, but absolutely shocked Larsen ranked so high. Love the guy.

Jim Lee's panels in the new x-men he did the gambit hitting Rouge with the kinetic charged basketball is better than anything the founders have done. I can't respect anyone who says Rob and Todd draw better than Jim Lee.

absolutly agree about Silvestri. I reread the first Cyberforce Miniseries and it is still (visual) amazing

Jim Lee / Todd McFarlane

while McFarlane's contribution to the industry is undisputed, my personal favorites are Lee & Silvestri. Jim Lee's art had a god balance of art & dynamic storytelling, while I loved to just hold a page open and admire Silvestri's understanding of the Human Form.

Although my list would differ slightly, I enjoyed your list with the explanations. 🤙🏼🤙🏼

Always tried to figure out the words for why I’ve never been in love with Jim Lee’s art, but “cold” really does perfectly sum it up.

You know, I totally agree with the take on Jim Lee. I just didn't find his work as interesting as most of the other Image guys. Liefeld is bad in an academic way, but his stuff was always interesting and exciting. Macfarlane was the best imo. The most idiosyncratic, weird, and the most fun. He had an amazing mix of high detail and cartooniness. And you just don't see that anymore.

I personally put Larsen at the number 1 for his consistency drawing and writing Savage Dragon for all these years.

Oh man that Shadohawk #1 takes me back.

This might be my favorite video of yours

5:49 Beautiful work and he created BISHOP, the first Black X-Man right when I was home on break from going to an HBCU! I still remember seeing the Uncanny X-MEN cover with MALCOLM and RANDALL on the cover with him. I saw it THROUGH THE WINDOW of a "convenience store" in the mall! You want the teens and coeds to come into your store, put the comics rack at the front window and the naughty mags in the back. What are naughty mags? Nevermind. It was 1992.

I admire Lee's technical masterery, he may be at the top, but he's clearly plateaued. Liefeld hating is trendy to do but teenage me couldn't get enough of his energetic almost goofy style

Oh boy, the question can be spoused so many ways. Even more so, if you ask questions beyond Image year one. With the comics medium who had the biggest impact? Who has the most iconic covers? Who created the most memorable characters? What characters have become known to the public at large? Or you could ask more technical questions like: Who draws the best anatomy? Who does the best storytelling from panel to panel? Who has the best pacing? Who draws backgrounds? Who can even draw feet? I’d rather ask who made you want to get the next issue? Who made you look for more of their work? Who made you stop on a page and just admire it? Did any of them make you not just a fan of theirs but were the gateway for you becoming a Comicbook fan? If you just ask me the boring who can draw what better I’m sure my answer would be totally different from: Who’s my favorite?

I would have put Jim Lee as either no.1 or no.2 and pushed everyone else down a slot.

Easily Jim Lee, then Marc Silvestri and probably Erik Larsen. McFarlane was okay and Liefeld wasn't worth the paper he drew on without an inker to clean up the mess.

Liefeld being any position above jim Lee is actually insane

Shadow hawk 1 was the one I couldn’t ever find!

Also that lightning in your intro, sounded from castlevania 64

I absolutely agree with this list but for a couple different reasons. I love Silvestri and his art is SO underrated and I love some of his writings too which is why I put him in that spot on the list. Rob Liefeld is on that part of the list because I love his explosive art style and cool proportions and movements and also he created the mercy with a mouth, but he also made that run of Captain America that I don't like, some of the body proportions are inconsistent but overall I love his work. Jim Lee is an AMAZING artist but I can see why you put him there and I would put him there too, His art feels cinematic and I love that, It just slightly follows the quote-en-quote "Marvel-Way" and it's a cool thing just a little overused. Todd McFarlane is definitely No.1, because The first of his work I read was "SPAWN" and I instantly fell in love with both the art and the story, still discovering new stuff to this day, when I found out he also did Spider-Man, I HAD TO READ IT and again I fell in love. I agree completely with this list. Keep up the awesome work (P.S. I managed to find the Rob Liefeld X-Force Omnibus today and it's coming and I am so stoked to read it)

1) Jim Lee 2) Marc Silvestri 3) Erik Larsen 4) Todd McFarlane 5) Rob Liefeld 6) Whilce Portacio (fyi inked UXM #201, with the great Rick Leonardi on pencils, and first appearance of Cable as a baby.) 7) Jim Valentino

Gary Frank and Dale Keown were my 2 favorites growing up.

Question for people from America, how can I download the DC app if I'm in Europe, will the app be available for us soon and how to buy DC comics, ebay, amazon or something else? Thank you

Jim Lee for me.

Without Rob Liefeld Image wouldn't exist... I've been collecting comics since 1977 at age 9... I also tried to work for Marvel and Image myself but never got the chance and I drew just as good... I've met so many great artist though my years and to me Joe Madureira is underrated and is one of the best Marvel, Image artist ever. Why I say this because his art work reminds me of myself.