DoNotDelete wrote:[My biggest criticism is that I got the feeling you were trying to set this issue up as some kind of 'Mega Man Tribute' art book or something - if that was your intention it didn't come off hugely successfully either. As nice as Ryan's artwork is - and I don't know how big your role was in plotting each image (meaning the blame for what I'm about to say may not be entirely on Ryan) - the artwork feels very samey and becomes boring very quickly - and I can't really blame Ryan for that because the whole point of a tribute art book is that a lot of different artists get to throw their hand in - and with different artists come different approaches to producing a piece of page art - meaning each page could have offered a different and fresh perspective - as the actual 'Mega Man Tribute' art books do.
So I guess what I'm saying is - if the premise was to produce some kind of art book tribute - knowing that only one artist was going to be producing all the interior artwork, then the idea for Mega Man #55 - though well-intentioned - was doomed to fall flat on its face (artistically speaking). Not that Ryan isn't an awesome artist who I have a great deal of respect for. Though - for a comic book coming to the end of its run I don't know how feasible it would have been to have each page be produced by a different artist - but isn't that something you would have/could have/should have considered in writing/plotting this final issue?
Writers don't typically get to pick/assign/dictate who does the artwork. That aside, Ryan did half the issue. No offense, but it comes off as a bit rude to complain that there should have been more artists involved while completely overlooking Jamal's contribution.