Greg Land

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Greg Land

Born
Nationality American
Area(s) Penciller

Greg Land is an American comic book artist best known for his work on X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong and Ultimate Fantastic Four. He is also known for his comic book cover art.

Contents

[edit] Biography

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

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

[edit] Career

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

Arwyn on the cover to Sojourn #6, with art by Greg Land.
Arwyn on the cover to Sojourn #6, with art by Greg Land.

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

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. He did the artwork for a crossover between Marvel's Supremeverse and the Ultimate Universe, entitled Ultimate Power, which was written by Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski and Jeph Loeb.

[edit] Controversy

Sketches from the interior artwork of Uncanny X-Men, merging almost seamlessly with artwork from other comics drawn by Land, such as Hyperion, Ultimate Cyclops, and Ultimate Scarlet Witch from Ultimate Power. Art by Greg Land.
Sketches from the interior artwork of Uncanny X-Men, merging almost seamlessly with artwork from other comics drawn by Land, such as Hyperion, Ultimate Cyclops, and Ultimate Scarlet Witch from Ultimate Power. Art by Greg Land.

Land's fans regard his work as ultra-realistic and commend the beauty of his work.[1] His critics charge that his poses and facial expressions are stiff, unrealistic and bad at conveying appropriate emotion[2], depending too heavily on photo-referencing and tracing[3] (often from pornography, often featuring well-known, easily recognized porn stars), that he recycles the exact same poses in different comics[4][5], and that the faces and bodies of his female characters look generic, unrealistic, and inconsistent [6].

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 using Hugh Jackman for Wolverine[7] or Famke Janssen for Jean Grey or Jessica Alba for Sue Storm[8], an image of Mr. Fantastic merges well with an image of Topher Grace, and an image of Magneto putting on his helmet is a close match for an image of Brad Pitt doing the same.[9] For the cover to Ultimate Power #1, a picture of Spider-Man follows a similar drawing by Travis Charest.[10]

Land acknowledges that he does Google searches for references, but denies that he has ever done any digital manipulations, and says he doesn't have the computer skills to perform them. [11]

This[1] forum page compares many of Lands doodles with those of actual pictures, and even other drawings, some by other artists

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ From Polygon to Paper: Resident Evil, by Richard George.
  2. ^ Greg Land Guessing Game (image intensive)
  3. ^ My Greg Land Experiment, Pt. 1
  4. ^ X-Men with O-Faces, 4thletter.net
  5. ^ Animated GIF from 4thletter.net
  6. ^ davidthompson: Superhero Pornface
  7. ^ forum.newsaram.com: THE REAL GREG LAND on X-MEN
  8. ^ forum.newsaram.com: Greg Land Guessing Game (image intensive), post #326
  9. ^ Johnston, Rich (August 15, 2005). Swipe File. Lying in the Gutters. Comic Book Resources. Retrieved on 2006-11-04.
  10. ^ Greg Land Question. Talk@Newsarama (October 8, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-11-04.
  11. ^ CN Expo Tie-In: The Mechanics of Greg Land: An Introduction. Silver Bullet Comics (August 17, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-04.

[edit] External links

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