I thought I'd use my posts here at the Artist Multi-Blog to spotlight some of the Star Wars artists that influenced me when I was just a player in the fan art world. I'm omitting any artists I now consider my peers among the "Lucasfilm-approved" artists, although there are certainly many people in that group that I admire and who continue to influence me and my work.

The third artist I want to talk about is one of my favorite comic books artists from the 1980s. He is perhaps best known for his work on Thor, but he had a brief stint as the penciller on the Marvel Comics Star Wars series. His name is . . .

Walt Simonson

Walt's interior comic artwork is usually something worth mentioning. His distinctive style made him stand out in the cookie-cutter look of the 80's. Jagged linework and stylized figures were his signature. Speaking of signatures, his is the most unique I've ever seen . . . it's meant to resemble a dinosaur (due to his early studies in science).

But his interior work on the Marvel series is not why I'm spotlighting him in this blog entry. The problem with Walt's pencil work on Star Wars is that someone else was inking it, giving it a more conventioal look and feel. It dilluted what made Walt's pencils so special and, for me, made his run on the series less than stellar.

But Walt did ink his own pencil work on the covers. And they show us what a Star Wars comic could have looked like if he were handling the art chores all by himself during his run on the series.

Check out these covers . . .

#52

#53

#54

#56

#58

#60

#61

#62

The element of Simonson's work that I most appreciated was his unique style . . . his work stood out during the early 1980s, when most comics looked the same, with most pencillers taking on a simple, illustrative style. Walt's comics were dynamic and stylized, they caught your eye immediately. You would never mistake his work for anyone else's.

More info on Simonson's Star Wars work can be found here at the Official Site. I wish he had a website or a readily accessible gallery to show off some of his non-Star Wars work, but even Google image search turns up limited results. But I recommend seeking out as many samples as you can, it's worth the search.

Thanks for reading.

-Otis

Previous Artistic Influences . . .

1 Cynthia Martin

2 Olivier Vatine