Every week How to Love Comics spotlights a comic book artist that should be on your radar. I present you a gallery of their work and then leave you some reading recommendations if you are starving for more. I’ve cleverly titled this Artist of the Week.
This week’s artist is David Aja! Many of you will know this Spanish artist from his work on Hawkeye, but he has done plenty of work for Marvel including issues of Daredevil, Wolverine and a critically acclaimed run on The Immortal Iron Fist. Aja has a high-energy style which he mixes up with design elements and is not afraid to experiment. This is often done by integrating the action into the panel layouts to add extra energy on the page. While he can draw great action, he’s also a great visual communicator and is one of the very few artists who has been able to successful portray what’s going on inside a dog’s head.
Below is a gallery of his work from various points in his career. Enjoy!
David Aja Reading Recommendations
If you’ve enjoyed this gallery and want to read some of David Aja’s work here are 3 comics I highly recommend.
Hawkeye
Written by Matt Fraction. Art by David Aja, Annie Wu and others. Published by Marvel Comics.
If you’ve been following comics for a little while you would’ve certainly of have heard about Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye run. This is the series you’ll want to read if you want to know what Hawkeye gets up to when he’s not being an Avenger. Which happens to be getting into a lot of trouble!
While there were many artists on this 22 issue run David Aja did the lion share of art on Hawkeye. Bringing his design-heavy art he found new ways to tell stories visually and was able to experiment in many different ways. For instance, there’s an issue which is sign-language heavy, while another is told through the perspective of a dog.
Hawkeye’s final issue will be released next week and in total the series will be collected in four trade paperback collections and is available digitally.
The Immortal Iron Fist
Written by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction. Art by David Aja. Published by Marvel Comics.
The Immortal Iron Fit is a mystical kung-fu series with plenty of action. In this series we see Danny Rand (Iron Fist) take Hydra in a race to find the hidden secrets of previous incarnations of the Iron Fist as well as him taking part in a martial arts tournament against champions of the Seven Cities of Heaven.
Unlike Hawkeye, Aja’s work on The Immortal Iron Fist is less design focused and more detailed. He uses a finer line, mixed with heavy blacks which allows for more detail and darker tone. His action sequences, as you’ll see in the gallery use different sized panels to speed and slowdown the pace.
David Aja’s work is collected in The Immortal Iron Fist: The Complete Collection Volume 1 and is available digitally.
Secret Avengers #18
Written by Warren Ellis. Art by David Aja. Published by Marvel Comics.
For a period of 6 months in 2011 Warren Ellis wrote Secret Avengers, Marvel’s covert espionage superhero title. Each issue was a self-contained story and featured a different artist. David Aja did issue #18, which mixed high-paced espionage, mind-bending science fiction and martial arts.
Using his style that’s closer to that of Hawkeye, Aja’s art in Secret avengers is fast faced and action packed. Aja manages to show off the mind-bending interior of the No-Zone, a space station with insane physical perception, with ease and making it look like something out of a MC Escher painting.
Secret Avengers can be read in Secret Avengers: Run The Mission, Don’t Get Seen, Save The World as well as digitally.
Check out previous Artists of the Weeks.
Have Your Say
Did you enjoy David Aja’s art? If so, will you be checking out any of the comics recommended? You can let me know in the comments below or via Facebook or Twitter
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