Make you want to punch yourself in the eyes?

I was recently re-reading some of my Sandman TPBs and realised that now, after a few years away from them, that I really REALLY hate the art.
I don't understand why Gaiman couldn't have gotten a few of the better artists to do all the work instead of relying on so many people that you can be reading one chapter an dbe enthralled by the writing and art, only for the next chapter to be so badly drawn that you want to vomit blood. Or at least tear out the speech balloons so you can just read them instead of witnessing the horror that is(nt) the artwork.

Should I even care though? I mean the writing is amazing, can't I just ignore it? Youd think so huh?
However I want a comic to BE a comic, not just a book with awful pictures.

Should have gone the same route as 1602 Neil. Stick with one artist if theres a next time.

END RANT

He probably didn't get to pick who the artists were. :) He was writing Sandman but he doesn't own the characters or any of the rights to the property. That was back when he was just getting into comics. He's a huge name now but he wasn't back then.

Art can be all personal preference and current fashion too. Personally, the art in 'New X-men' (the series from the late nineties, not the new 'new x-men' that's about the students) strikes me as terrible, but somebody must think, or have thought it's good for it to have run an entire series without changing artist. Heck, in the eighties, everybody thought Rob Liefield was a really awesome artist, and few people will agree with that now.
Lots of terrible artists get work through connections or being around in the right place at the right time. Sad, but true.

Oh Gods yes, the Marvel art in the "edgy" era of the 90s made me quite ill. All those pecs and bewbs flying everywhere, shameful.

dont forget chicks with spines that angled at like 75 degrees whilst standing still....and legs so far apart a 747 could taxi between them. God Bless Ya Rob.

Personally I dont have any beef's with the art of The Sandman. I think it works as it is. If Jae Lee took a stab at it, wouldn't be THE sandman. If Duncan Fegredo took a swing, wouldn't work either (it'd look nice, but ultimately wouldn't feel the same) I'm in favour of dodgy 80's art.. And I'll agree with what skoolmunkee said. I doubt Neil got to sit around his mighty steed, cigar in hand demadning Pat Lee draw his title.

Although....if he did. hello instant classic!

I can deal with Sandman's changing art because the entire comic is kind of an experiment. What I find really weird about the comic industry these days is I see all these artists with really great styles that I like a lot online or on deviantART, and yet Marvel and DC keep publishing guys whose work just looks generic "superhero"-ish. It's gotten to the point where there's only a handful or artists whose work I will buy on the art alone. I mean, I would think that in such a competetive business that would be less common.

X-Men = pain now (except the movies, which make considerable more sense than the comics and not surprisingly, look better visually too.)

I gave up on print comics in about 1994 because between the ever-worsening art and the less and less sensical (is that a word?) stories, especially X-Men, coupled with the strange desire to recreate the Marvel (or DC) universe whenever they wrote themselves into a plot sinkhole, I just couldn't stomach it all.

Does Professor Xavier walk because we give him a cloned body because he was taken over by an egg from the evil Brood "Alien rip-offs" -- sure! Why not? No! He's supposed to be disabled, crush his spine while fighting the Shadow King! Ohhhhhhkay!?

(And that was the last of the "good" plotlines. Don't get me started on the many lives and deaths of Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix/Madeline Pryor/Goblin Queen/Rachel-Phoenix/Jean Corpse, etc... :( )

I don't buy comics anymore but I love webcomics!

Darth Mongoose
Art can be all personal preference and current fashion too. Personally, the art in 'New X-men' (the series from the late nineties, not the new 'new x-men' that's about the students) strikes me as terrible, but somebody must think, or have thought it's good for it to have run an entire series without changing artist. Heck, in the eighties, everybody thought Rob Liefield was a really awesome artist, and few people will agree with that now.
Lots of terrible artists get work through connections or being around in the right place at the right time. Sad, but true.

dueeast
I don't buy comics anymore but I love webcomics!

Comics are a lot better than they were in 1994 now. Marvel and DC still have their share of f-ed up stuff, but if you want good solid comics with good art and story check out Invincible, The Walking Dead, Hellboy, Ex Machina, Promethea, Y: The Last Man, Pride of Baghdad, and Fear Agent. All of those rock.

Oh, and Nextwave, which is hilarious and has fantastic art.

Peter Melvin
Oh Gods yes, the Marvel art in the "edgy" era of the 90s made me quite ill. All those pecs and bewbs flying everywhere, shameful.

If you feel that bad about Marvel's horrible art, you should see Image or Top Cow. Practically all of it is and always has been, big tits, demons (or demon related things), and terrible text bubble placement.

Personally, my favorite artist is the most consistant I've ever seen. His name is Steve Dillin. Everything he draws, every person anyway, they have the same constipated face. I love it. I think its hilarious. I also love how Rob Liefield STILL gets work. Its like watching Uwe Boll films or listening to William Hung albums. Its just awful. Awful. Awful. Awful.

Steve Dillon-yes!

Preacher is easily one of the best stories ever told, comic or otherwise but Dillon's art makes it all the sweeter

It doesn't bother me...I think it was a stylistic choice...Something different.

I actually really liked the early Sandman comics. They were sort of cartoony but at least to me the characters felt...I don't know, real some how. I didn't care for the more photo-realistic look that the newer graphic novels had for some reason though.

I really liked most of the art in Sandman, but there were a few cases where it dipped, sometimes considerably. Usually I enjoyed the more "realistic" artists, when they got them; I feel like it made the fantastic even more fantasizing by having that "point of reference".

Some of the art in Sandman was good, some wasn't. Sam Kieth, the guy who drew the earliest ones, was an OK artist, but he definitely wasn't the right fit for it (though he drew Cain and Abel better than anyone). Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III produced what was the most solid stuff. Kelley Jones was OK, Jill Thompson wasn't so hot but acceptable, whoever did the "tavern" scenes in "World's End" pretty much sucked, and I originally didn't like Marc Hempel doing "The Kindly Ones" all angular but I've kind of warmed to it now. So it's all over the place.

My point being: No, not all of the art was good, but what the series was trying to do was provide a wide cross-section of comics artists (most of them still comparably young and hip at the time). They also wanted to differentiate, I guess, between the constant shifts in subject, context and personality the series took. If Sandman had been two thousand pages drawn by the same artist, I don't think it would have been as popular as it was (or is)-- it would have been too rigid, too monotonous, too normal.

Ian Jay
I originally didn't like Marc Hempel doing "The Kindly Ones" all angular but I've kind of warmed to it now.

That was probably my favorite. I loved how quirky and slightly unreal it made everything seem.

If I had my sandman books here I'd flip through and try and figure out which were the other ones I liked. I remember that I wasn't overly fond of the early super-detailed stuff but only because it all looked very heavy.

Edit: The art in the Kindly Ones also really complimented Lyta's journey into craziness too, just beacause it was appealingly 'off', it was quite easy to imagine things falling apart.

skoolmunkee
If I had my sandman books here I'd flip through and try and figure out which were the other ones I liked. I remember that I wasn't overly fond of the early super-detailed stuff but only because it all looked very heavy.

Like Michael Zulli's stuff in "The Wake"? I'd agree-- Zulli's hairy pencil thing looked good, but got irritating to read after a while, and his characters looked too stiff, like classical statues. That was true of some of Charles Vess's stuff, too. (I'm not a huge fan of Vess. I've never seen him do any work outside of the "faeries frolicking in the dells" fantasy genre. Plus, he does faces weird.)

I especially like the adjective you used: "heavy". From my (admittedly brief and naive) experiences, it seems to me that comics, in some respects, are like sandwiches-- you pile too much realistic visual stuff in there, and it sags and falls apart under all those condiments. You sort of have to pick and choose which are the most important details to put in. ...But then, I could be wrong.

*Also I forgot to note earlier that, while the art in Sandman rose and fell, Dave McKean's covers for the series remained consistently cool-looking throughout its run.

I liked it in the middle of Sandman where it briefly went pop.

I don't remember much of the specifics about Sandman's artists. It was basically a comic that you read because it's interesting and has serviceable artists. One good thing about the comic is that it's never about just the artists, but only the story and the art together which create the unique effect. I think we can all agree that the coloring was pretty bad universally though. I mean, before the advent of computers and photoshop and optimal scanning equipment, comic coloring was just bland and suckish. So maybe it's not about the lineart at all.

I do dislike some of these new photorealistic artists who've been popping up though. I mean, photorealistic art is nice for covers and for the occasional Alex Ross book, but guys like Adi Granov make the work inside the book look way too stiff and sort of like a video game render, complete with bland backgrounds. I'd much rather have some risks taken with styles.

Out of pure curiosity...

Do you think the comic would have been popular had it never come out in print form and was made on Drunk Duck?

I think I would fave it, donate to it and buy every shirt I could. :-)

marine
If you feel that bad about Marvel's horrible art, you should see Image or Top Cow. Practically all of it is and always has been, big tits, demons (or demon related things), and terrible text bubble placement.

Have you read Image comics lately? Almost none of their comics are that way anymore. I can't say the same for Top Cow though.

Also, D0m, I don't think Sandman would work on DD. It's too long and too complex. It needs to in a form you can sit down and read. I mean, I would personally hate reading it online.