Happy Birthday, Steve Lightle!
Steve has worked for both DC and Marvel, making a name for himself on Legion of Super-Heroes (volume three) before working on The Doom Patrol (with Paul Kupperberg). He then moved to Marvel, where he drew Wolverine and Ghost Rider, among others. He was also the regular cover artist for X-Men Classic, Marvel Comics Presents, and The Flash.
Nowadays you can find Steve Lightle working hard on his own, original story Justin Zane. You can find that serialized story as well as original art and other stuff for sale at his site SteveLightle.wixsite.com/justin-zane
Happy Birthday, Steve!
Lightle is one of the greatest underrated artists in comics, in my estimation. His stuff is just gorgeous, and his style is uniquely his own.
ReplyDeleteChris
I agree he has produced some pretty good work over the years !
ReplyDeleteI think that Steve Lightle is the best artist in Legion history (sorry Mr. Giffen). Especially with his gorgeous covers.
ReplyDeletei forgot about Mr. Lightle's work to be honest until just taking a look at a 1986 issue. He reminded me a lot of Giffen's pre abstract work on the Legion - which I'm sure many others commented on even back in the day (and based on the backgrounds alone was probably intentional). While that version of Giffen's work will likely always be first in my mind (the abstract stuff exactly the opposite - sigh) Steve did admirable work for sure. I'm sure I was glad to see him on the title.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason Steve Lightle's work resembled Giffen's art on LEGION is because he was following editorial guidelines, preserving the visual continuity for the series created by Giffen.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, Giffen's art on the LEGION series really dropped off a cliff in quality beginning with issue 307. I still like Giffen's work the best on LEGION (issues 285-306), but Lightle's work (vol 3, issues 7–10, 12–14, 16, 23) is also great and very consistent with what preceded it.
I also love Grell's run on the series (issues 202-224, and 235, from 1974-1978).