Howdy Folks!

Cruising through through trade section in my local comic book store this week, I cam across Alan Moore’s run on WILDCATS. The thing I remember most about Moore’s run wasn’t the story, but the art, done by a guy named Travis Charest. I remember really digging Charest’s art, but I couldn’t think of anything that he had done lately, and that got me thinking about a few other guys who I used to enjoy that I hadn’t seen around the comic book scene in recent memory. The following are are a few guys who seem to have disappeared off of the comic book map:

Travis Charest: One of the most unique artists in the medium, Charest started out as something of  Jim Lee clone, but quickly developed his own style, using negative space like few others, and having a penchant for minutiae.

Charest got his break in comics filling in for Jim Lee after Lee left WILDCATS. After leaving WILDCATS, Charest did a lot of covers and was working for seven years on a METABARONS GN, but got fired for only getting 20 pages done in his seven years. Where is he today though?

Today, Charest is mainly a cover artist for Marvel, but his work  is still rarely seen. He also runs a strip called SPACE GIRL on his MSN group, which he hopes to collect into a GN one day. It seems that an inability to hit deadlines his doomed Charest to be beautiful, but ultimately forgotten.

Bart Sears: Master of the muscles, Bart Sears was a big time penciller in the comic book industry for over 20 years. His style was dynamic and bold, and if anyone could over-muscle a figure it was Bart.

Sears hit the big time in the 1980’s with DC, Penciling JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE, and their big crossover, INVASION. He was a big success through the 1990’s both with DC and Valiant comic, penciling titles like TUROK and XO MAN OF WAR. In 2000, Sears joined up with CrossGen comics as a penciller and later as art director. After CrossGen, Sears landed at Marvel for a few years, penciling titles like CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON, and WEAPON X, but he has been absent from comics these past few years. So where did he go?

Sears actually stepped away from comics in 2008, and became the senior concept artist at a company called Heatwave Interactive which creates cross-media properties.

Joe Madureira: Joe Mad is the master of American-manga fusion. While his art has many of the hallmarks of manga art such as frenetic pacing and big action , he also has American sensibilities in his storytelling style.

Joe Madureira became well known for his run in the mid 1990’s on the X-MEN books and tuck around the X-offices for the better part of four years before bolting to create his own comic, BATTLE CHASERS. While the book was fun, it was plagued by delays, and after only nine issues in four years, BATTLE CHASERS came to an end. Joe went into video games for a few years after that and resurfaced just a few years ago for a quick ULTIMATES story, then was gone again? Where did he go?

Madureira went back to video games after his brief re-appearance in comics, working as the creative director on Darksiders, a game that was just released from the Vigil game studio. You can find it on sale now.

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for stopping in, I’ll see you tomorrow.