| Greg Land | |
|---|---|
 Land in May 2019 | |
| Born | 1963 (age 61–62) |
| Nationality | American |
| Area | Penciller |
Notable works | Sojourn Ultimate Fantastic Four Uncanny X-Men X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong |
Greg Land (born 1956) is an Americancomic book artist, best known for his work on books such asUncanny X-Men,Birds of Prey, andFantastic Four.
Greg Land first got a job with an independent publisher as the artist forStormQuest after advertising himself at a Mid-Ohio Con comic convention.[citation needed] After that, he was hired byDC Comics in 1999 to finish the covers forBirds of Prey, based on the sketches ofBrian Stelfreeze. He also had runs as interior penciler on bothBirds of Prey andNightwing.[1]
Later, Land began to work atCrossGen Comics onSojourn. The series ran from July 2001 through May 2004, for a total of 34 issues.[1]
After CrossGen went out of business, Land went on to work atMarvel Comics, where he did covers to various series. This led to a collaboration with writerGreg Pak as the main artist ofX-Men: Phoenix – Endsong.[2] Next, Land became the penciler forUltimate Fantastic Four.[3] He did the artwork for a crossover between Marvel'sSupremeverse and theUltimate Universe, entitledUltimate Power,[3] which was written byBrian Michael Bendis,J. Michael Straczynski andJeph Loeb. He then did the covers forMarvel Zombies 3 which were all homages to posters of notable zombie movies.
In 2008, Land illustratedUncanny X-Men #500.[4] From then until December 2011 he would illustrate several sporadic sets of issues, totaling 22 in all, his last being issue #544.[5] During this same period he also illustrated issue #210 and 235–237 ofX-Men: Legacy.[6]
In 2012, Land illustrated issues #5–8 and 11–12 of the relaunchedUncanny X-Men.
Land has been accused of going beyond the accepted bounds ofphotographic reference, lifting images from sources that include hardcore pornography, and copying them into his pages outright with minimalPhotoshop alterations to make the work appear to be an original drawing, a reputation he developed from his work onUltimate Fantastic Four andUltimate Power. Land has agreed that he does employ photo reference to a large extent, and that he uses pornography as a source, but denies that the extent to which he does so is questionable.The A.V. Club included him in their 2009 list of "21 artists who changed mainstream comics (for better or worse)" for this reason.[7]
Commenting on Land's work onUncanny X-Men #510, Brian Cronin ofCBR.com remarked that the issue "possibly has the most harmful art to a story that I’ve seen in a comic," saying that Land's limited supply of poses and use of the same models for multiple characters "results in terrible art and particularly terrible storytelling."[8] He was also mocked for his limited use of facial expressions on theThing.[9][10]
Land has also been accused of directlyswiping art from other comics artists, and is considered "notorious" for tracing his art from other sources.[11]
Land's art for Marvel'sAliens Omnibus was pointed out by artist Tristan Jones as containing direct copies of various pieces of Jones' ownAliens artwork.[11][12] Similarities were also found between elements of Land's cover and an Alien portrait byAndy Brase, a catalog photo of a sculpted Alien egg toy byNECA, and a screenshot from theSega video gameAliens: Colonial Marines.[13]
