The WORST artwork ever! 

I read in an interview that the reason this comic happened the way it did is because Nowlan was offered a chance to do a fill in on X-Men or New Mutants. He said he decided not to do X-Men, because he would have had to work with Dan Green, as an inker, which he didn't think would work. However, New Mutants was using the new Flexi-graph printing, and he was worried about how his art would reproduce, so he opted to go for a more simplistic/animation style as he felt that would print better.

I really appreciate that he was able to make the young new mutants characters actually look like teenagers

Sad to say that there are quite a few artists whose work I was not receptive to as a kid but as I got older I gained perspective and appreciation. JRJR, Simonson, Nowlan, Mignola, and even Kirby were initially rejected by my child sensibilities but now they're among my favorites. Some of us comic fans are capable of change but there are many of us that remain stunted

Nowlan had a stylistic arc. His FIRST Marvel issue was DOCTOR STRANGE 57. Check it out! The stylishness is lush,with heavy chiaroscuro, and dynamics. However, as he progresses, like into this New Mutants issue, he streamlines his line work and accentuates the work with spotted blacks. Then, he later merges the two extremes, into what would become his style for work in Batman and Boy Genius.

You have got to review Kevin's work on Grimwood's Daughter in Dalgoda.

Holy shit, this issue was so good and memorable. That X-Factor panel and the Mags n' Storm pages have stuck with me for all these years. Nowlan, Mignola, Stroman, and Kyle Baker all had a "vibe."

I remember Bret Blevins getting the same kind of reaction from my nerd circle when he drew New Mutants, and those are amazing issues. Loose, gestural style fits that book so well, and yet never got over like they should've. Rick Leonardi, too... So underrated.

I love that front cover. Feels like Kevin Nowlan trying to channel Hergé. That fun mix of American and Franco Belgian. Hell, I get the feeling Pat McEown was inspired by this sucker EDIT: - Hey! Ed pointed it out! Also, this was something that appeared during the late 80s and early 90s where I GENUINELY think people were copying Love & Rockets. And Jaime and the Hernandez Bros were kind of channelling older comics which weren't afraid to be cartoony. I think Nowlan is inspired by Hank Ketcham with the old Dennis the Menace comics in there, specifically where we see Cannonballs ear (That's a Hank Ketcham ear), there's Alex Toth, there's Roy Crane, there's elements of Jesse Marsh in there, but the ONE thing... the one thing I don't think anyone points out is there's a bit of Chester Gould in these too. Specifically when Gould simplified the faces. Look at the side profiles, especially of Professor X, and you can tell these guys were trying to draw a bit closer to that Chester Gould style of art where it's simplified down to almost a single line. Also bits of Hergé and Love And Rockets too.

I remember this comic coming out on the newstand at the same time as Teen Titans Spotlight 11 which was a Tin Tin pastiche (drawn by Joe Orlando!) and I stumbled across Herge at a children's bookstore that same spring, so the dots as eyes were a theme for my comics reading that season and I absolutely loved this Nowlan art.

Love this! I totally forgot about this issue. Thanks, boys!

Kevin Nowlan is an amazing artist! I can’t believe people would write letters like the ones you read.

Feel like a big part of the reader's disconnect is Nowlan making the NM a bit more cartoony to highlight that they ARE kids. As you guys pointed out, house style demands the hero always looks more heroic than the average person.

Oh -- and along with the other mentions of a Mignola connection -- Kevin designed the Hellboy logo for Mike. They've probably known each other, or at least mutually admired each other's work, since their early Marvel days... if not from their fanzine days...

I suspect the editor sent the letters to Kevin as a joke "can you believe these idiots?!" type of thing... I'm sure with the best work, editors were used to getting the most starkly divided letters... some loving it, some hating it, and very little in between.

Strange how so many people hated this. I loved it. I preferred Nowlan's cartoony style over Rob Liefeld's EVERYTHING EXTREME images. When I look at this comic, I can "see" everything that's happening very easily. The imagery is stylized and cartoony, but also very clear in intent. I can tell exactly what I'm looking at. I don't have to stare at it to try to figure out "is that his arm or her leg?"

Nice job! Since we are on the New Mutants subject, could you do an episode about Glynis Wein / Oliver? She was the first colorist that got my attention during this series.

I was expecting bad art when i clicked. But that art was great.

As an old silver age guy, you ought to check out Al Hartley's artwork in Thor Journey Into Mystery #90. It is a cross between Thor and Archie. It is so bad that I wonder if it might become a valuable book to own, just for its complete uniqueness. Jack Kirby does his iconic cover on issue #89, then Stan churns out this abomination in #90. Those were the days!

I’m sure I noticed Kevin Knowlan’s work on Dr Strange in the late 80s, but it had to be his Man-Bat story in Secret Origins 39, with the blatant channeling of Alex Toth, that really grabbed me. And even before Ed mentioned Tony Salmons I could see a resemblance in styles that I didn’t notice before.

Hey Ed, Stan Lee knew how to quell the marks…send ‘em an occasional no-prize.

In 30 years I´ve never seen a single bad drawing by Nowlan, his artwork is so adorable and inspiring. But I still remember when this issue came out ...my younger me was like "Omg, wtf IS THIS!!" Of course I really hated his stylistic approach at first. To my own surprise I kept coming back to this issue again and again, until I had to admit to myself that I had strangely fallen in love with his drawing style.

You were thinking of Strnad and Nowlan's "Grimwood's Daughter".

Ha!! I was flicking thru this just the other day... The cover is falling off, but I still proudly retain my copy of the "worst drawn comic ever"! (incidentally, I loved this when I was a kid, and I love it now.) Nice one, guys! Oh, happy new year too! Hope you have a good one... Don't play up too much! 🎉🍺🍻😎😳🤢🤮😭

Like the Tony Salmons comment, great artist.

Man-Bat, Secret Origins 39 was my first Nowlan comic. Loved it. Love his style. He was pretty much an insta-buy back in the day.

Those letters are aggravating. Same type of audience that hated Allred’s X Statix. I just don’t get that attitude

Wonderful conversation guys. Love the commentary and comparisons possible influence lineage. Would love to see Tony Salmons get some attention. Thanks and happy new year.

I had forgotten how similar Nowlan’s style and Kyle Baker’s style were back in the day.

Oh my god. That advert on page 7! Imagine getting that brief

Loved this episode. Halfway into the episode you guys seemed to feel bad about laughing at those letters but people dissing great artists in comics is a regular thing. Like there's one dude on youtube who's doing the comic book review thing and he regularly chooses Sienkiewicz's stuff as the worst ever (like the Elektra omnibus for example) and he says stuff like 'I like his stuff but not this stuff' and his arms are covered in all those terrible tats. It's hilarious. Most comic book consumers are squares.

I dig Nowlan a lot. It's always cool when there is variation from sameness, but as you said, many people want one set thing. I have been looking at a lot of varied artists lately, and it is freeing and inspiring to know one can develop a unique style filtering all the varied influences through one's own sensibilities and finding one's own way. Thanks for another terrific video, guys. Happy New Year!

Marvel: NOBLE< DRAW AN EYEBALL1 Noble: *sweats*

What obnoxious trolls from those letter writers. Seriously, this art shows clear talent with amazing fundamentals, but just because some characters have squinting eyes and are yelling, or have dots for eyes occasionally, the entire thing gets called "a 2 year old with crayons?" You can tell someone is just trying to be an asshole when you can look at it and realize this looks nothing like crayons and there are 25 year old men that can't draw this well, but it gets called that, anyway. I guess "2 year old with crayons" was the 80's equivalent of "MS Paint". That was also a terrible criticism back in it's day, too. "It looks like it was done with MS Paint" people say. MS Paint is like any drawing tool, it can look magnificent depending on the skill level of the artist. Also gotta love how you can tell whenever the low-hanging fruit criticisms about art are clearly made by people that have never drawn anything a day in their lives.

This analysis is pretty dope. I started reading X-Men omnibus and noticed the change in artwork with fill in. To me I always have key artist that define how x-men look to me but noticed when fill in artist draw something else the art looks really good. Regardless this was Chris Claremont voice afterwards 1993 X-Men just got all weird with no consistency

I see a lot of George Freeman in some of those Nowlan faces (or a lot of Nowlan in Freeman's faces...).

Kevin Nowlan is one of the nicest artists that I ever had the chance to meet and talk with. He encouraged a 14 year old me to continue to learn and better myself, and pursue my desire to draw. Anyone that has a bad word for him can kindly go fuck themselves.

Best channel ever. Thanks guys.

“Unmastery”. You’re gonna have to play with it when deadlines are more important than quality.

Shoutout to CHOD!!!

I remember some "fans" complaining about Jack Kirby's art when he returned from DC in the 70's. And I recall complaints about Frank Robbins' art anytime he did a fill-in issue. This is when I realised some "fans" are just ignorant 🤷‍♂️

I'm getting a heavy Leinil Francis Yu vibe from these. I love Keven Nolan though.

i feel like it's possible that the editor was having a laugh with the artist, but knowing marvel, sending the letters could've been the editors way of offering critique to the artists.

Guys …..As always you guys bring the critical insight. I’m a bit older than you gents, and I had checked out of T.N.M. by this time, and from your RU-vid header I was expecting the worst. But Nolan’s art is amazing, and some incredibly inspiring panels. Especially some of the work on Storm.

I'm curious about the average age of those letter writers...

To me, then and now, this was the best drawn issue since Bill Sienkiewicz left. The letter writers wanted their zombie housestyle (when I saw the vid title, I was hoping you'd have Secret Wars II 1-9, cos, God bless Al Milgrom but he was the worst f'n tracer of all time). Nowlan was just 20 yrs ahead of his time, compared to Jai Lee, Quitely and the most recent New Mutants artist, who obviously channeled Sienkiewicz. That 2pg splash brought the enormity and horror of the Morlock Massacre to the arc more than any other issue. It depicted the genocide that Shooter tried to tamp down. I was pissed when I found out he WASN'T going to kept on, not that Blevins wasn't a good artist but his work didn't carry the heft the stories being told until the end of Inferno (except his depiction of grief over Doug's 1st death); too cartoony at times. Your comments about Nowlan having a run equals my feeling at the time. The letter writers' heads probably exploded when Quitely came along with Morrison in New X-Men after all the shite 90s overblown artwork (Jim Lee, Joe Madureira and Satan himself, Liefeld).

I was maybe 10 when this came out. Those first few pages was really throwing me for a loop. Probably hadn't seen Sienkiewicz yet. By the end of the issue, I was totally converted and ready for more. Nowlan never left my radar after this one. Great episode guys.

Like school in the summertime…no class. Nowlan is a modern master.

Bret Blevins did an issue of Uncanny X-Men in '87 (#219) that really had me scratching my head at the time. By the time he was on New Mutants, though, I was ready for him. (Granted, his style had also evolved by then.)

Being in the comments section and occasionally being a subject of comments sections, I can say that it hurts on both ends. Angry fans and creators who witness those fans reacting are basically in a misunderstanding over what they believe should be true about the work - fans are the way they are because they have expectations, even if they're misplaced, while creators are often coming from a place of being a superfan themselves and feeling like their taste is their whole identity, which in an unmediated space like most of the internet can create that death spiral of lashing out at the audience and making things worse. Having been held over the fire a bit myself, I figured out that I could take it a lot better after engaging a little bit more with philosophy and just working out a theory of why I made something the way I did and logic'ing it out - because then I don't need the comments to tell me how I did, I have my grading system and I already passed it. Nowlan here, working alone, definitely found a kind of framework like that. He still got the letters, they still hurt, but the upside of it being 1987 was that he didn't experience this through his phone notifications suddenly blowing up, and he didn't have to immediately make some kind of statement about it. Anyway, the marks that want the artist to bleed can henceforth enjoy AI art.

Kevin Nowlan rules! But every strong and original artist has to put up with shit like that. I remember some boneheaded kid bitchin' about Mike Mignola's single fill-in issue on X-Force #8 back in the day, and how this guy had ruined the book. I told him it's the only issue I liked so far. He then said, "I guess it's not too bad."

He had a 30-day deadline so that's the reason he simplified the art. Though he got a lot of fanboy flack, Arthur Adams and Mignola bought all the originals, so he felt vindicated.

Interesting to see the perspective of professional cartoonists on this issue but I can 100% get how readers used to a more standard "Marvel look" in 1987 would react negatively to the artwork. I probably would have been at least puzzled when I saw it. Sort of like when my step-dad saw Keith Giffen's art on Superman in the the mid-80s. He was like what the crap is this??

Don Perlin's efforts on the second run of Man-thing in the early 80's were far inferior to this.

Surprised it wasn't a Liefield book!

That issue by Nowlan is fantastic...how the writers of those letters couldn't see the solid fundamentals is beyond me. The man can draw. I went to check on some of the Sienkiewicz stuff prior to this issue, and it's not his best - seems a touch stiff...but still super dynamic, and then Nowlan comes in for a pinch hit...it's like fresh air. But the jarring shift from Sienkiewicz to Nolan, I suppose the reaction is understandable. (Kind of like anyone who would follow Scott McDaniel on Nightwing...Who could you get without having a jolt?) Also, in other comics from Marvel in proximity to this issue, the art is "comic book" but doesn't hold a candle to what Nolan does - he actually brings something to the table, and it was a knockout punch. Also finally figured out from this Jae Lee - he's a mashup of Sienkiewicz, Nowlan, Jim Lee, Neal Adams(?) and a few others, and of course is no slouch. Some of the faces in this book look like Jae Lee's.

Very similar to Peter Chung's Aeon Flux characters.

@15:50 Ed: There isn't enough hair marks.. shadow etc" (Pointing to simplified Magneto profile) What I see Ed is Kevin rendering "cinematic depth of field" in ink. Same with the cannonball face you guys crit at the end of the issue.

my worst was in the first run of Excalibur. The series isnt really that good in general but there is a couple issues the art is just horrible. I had a hard time reading them the art was so distracting

Can we please talk about Ron Wilson?

I can understand how some readers could have been jarred by the simplistic, animation-style simple line work, but in my judgement, Nowlan exhibits a superb sense of composition. If you look at the entire page designs as a whole unit, he is hitting all cylinders.

Cool episode 🔥💯👍

Nolan !!!

why is this on Arun's channel?

Worst art? New Mutants?! C’mon, that’s not Liefeld’s absolute wo- Oh wait, #51?! Who did the art on that again? Bret Blevins? I know his style might not be for everyone but wo- *hears Sienkiewicz disrespect* *fumes* Man that intro was a ride. I remember this issue now, and I remember the faces being particularly striking. Storm and Cannonball especially just WORK, and that Hepzibah really is the best design she’s ever had. Will absolutely have to look up that series mentioned while you guys were talking about that specific bit.

In a decade were Joe Madureira and Rob Liefeld became famous drawing awful comics, how could this be the worst?

Pet peeve, 'Simplistic' is a pejorative term, it's not a synonym for 'Simple'.

Based on the video title I fully expected a Liefeld roast haha. Nowlan is a much better subject, I love his distinctive style.

It's better than most of the 'artwork' excreted by Marvel these days.

TO THIS DAY fanboys cry about artwork that is 'outside the norm', which is insane to me. That's that art that really turned me onto comics. That's the artwork that's exciting.

Awesome art, mimicking the golden age styles. Peach Monoko's arts.....She's the worse.

Style-wise notwithstanding some artist's work can just look better on some books than others. I recall an issue of Moon Knight by Kevin Nowlan and a painted Supergirl cover on some fanzine that floored me cuz I thought it was a photo.