Ryan Sook is one of those artists who creates lovely covers and great art but who has yet to work on an extended run on a great book to elevate him to the next level. I first remember seeing his work on part of the Tangent Comics: Tales of the Green Lantern, back in 1998, although his first published work was on Challengers of the Unknown #15 in the same year.
His art style was very influenced by Mike Mignola, something he readily admits to (Mignola personally selected him to be the first artist other than Mignola to draw Hellboy universe work – a BPRD series), and he used this style on Buffy the Vampire Slayer books and a run on The Spectre by JM DeMatteis. Also at DC, he did an Arkham Asylum mini-series and then some interior pencils on Hawkman.
His art had evolved from the Mignola influence towards Adam Hughes, although still distinct. This gorgeous art style can be seen in the Seven Soldiers: Zatanna mini-series and the revival of X-Factor by Peter David; unfortunately, he only remained on interior duties of this for four issues (although he stayed on covers for another eight issues), which was a great loss.
He hasn’t done nearly enough interior work since but he has become something of a stellar cover artist of late, providing eye-grabbing designs drawn in a sumptuous style, all soft anatomy and beautiful faces. I look forward to him getting to grips with something big and defining so that he can have a greater presence in the pantheon of current comic book artists.
The Ryan Sook Official site [LINK] (which has a lot of Sook’s interior and cover art from his entire career)
Ryan Sook gallery on Comic Art Community[LINK]
Ryan Sook on Comic Book Database [LINK]
I like the style of this artist. Very good use of design and negative space. I would love to see what he does with interiorwork.
Sook recently did some interior art in Final Crisis: Resist, one of the spin-offs, but only some. There’s no word of him providing any new story pencils in the near future, which is a real shame.