I admit it, I'm a fan of Pablo Picasso. I slightly prefer his montages to his cubist work, and I don't like his earliest work much, but I'm still a fan and as everyone who's seen much of Picasso's work knows, Picasso wasn't real big on super-realism in his art. And his art looks nothing like the stuff you see in the average comic book. But I like it. It's "good art".
However, I doubt very much that I would enjoy a comic book done in Picasso's style. Cubism would be hard to follow in a narrative, and though action can be portrayed in Cubism, I'm not sure it's suited to the average story you will see in a comic book. I've seen some pretty abstract art in comics, and I generally have found that I don't like it.
Is this a contradiction?
Of course not. Art isn't defined rigidly, and doesn't have to fit in a single mold at all times. If it did, artists who pushed the boundaries like Picasso wouldn't be considered great throughout the art world. Art shouldn't be judged by how well it conforms to a set of standards set by some overbearing art critic in New York. Art needs to be free to allow expression and experimentation.
However, in some cases art must fit a specific purpose, or accomplish a specific task. In those cases, some types of art are inappropriate. In those cases, it's possible to have "bad art" that otherwise might be considered good. And, in my opinion, that's something that has happened throughout the world of comics. We're getting a lot of examples, beyond the genuinely experimental stuff, of art that is not fulfilling its role.
Comics are a merged medium. The greatest comics have both excellent artwork and excellent story. Recently, I've seen a lot of comics that use art that fails to tell the story. And I've seen fans of the artists doing these books claim that the ability to tell a story is not important, that the art should be judged on its own merits.
Well, no. If they want the art to be judged on its own merits, they should do a pin-up book or put their art in a gallery, like many artists. By choosing comic books, they are committing to doing art appropriate for comics. And there are a few things inherent in doing comic book art that might be considered more demanding than just plain gallery art (though I'm sure gallery artists would disagree).
Some things that comic book art has to do well that other art doesn't always concern itself with:
The latter two aren't so hard, lots of artists manage them. But too many artists can't seem to manage the first point. Storytelling is a vital part of comic book art. Probably the most vital. Without storytelling, artwork is just a series of unconnected pictures. If an artist can't manage the basics of storytelling, he shouldn't be drawing a comic book.
And that's really what this rant is about, I guess. I'm tired of people telling me that I should like a comic book artist who is unable to tell a story to save his life. If they can't tell a story, they should go into a different field of art. I hear advertising always has openings...
A lot of people refer to certain styles of artwork as done in "Image" style. Current fans of Image books are, naturally, a bit confused by this name. The truth is, very few books that Image currently produces are done in that style. But certain Image books were the first to use and promote the style, which consists of weak storytelling, an emphasis on "payoff" pages that look like posters, often crowded artwork with lots of extraneous lines, and dark coloring. The artists that drew in this style were promoted as "hot" artists with lots of potential. Unfortunately, potential is all they had. The artwork, while possibly good by its own merits, fails as comic book art because it emphasizes art above story.