Reading this column after all this time, it strikes me that it's one of those which could so easily be misunderstood. Especially by anyone who doesn't read to the end! For the benefit of anyone who hasn't read to the end, therefore, no - it isn't saying that every comic should look like it was drawn by Jim Lee. It's saying that every comic should be drawn in a style which is appropriate to it.

I've mentioned a couple of high profile examples in this article but, since it was written, I've read another which most definitely deserves to be on the list of artistic failures - Arkham Asylum. Dave McKean is a clever guy and you could take many of the panels from that book and hang them side by side with works by Francis Bacon but are they appropriate to the book? In atmosphere, yes, but that counts for little if reading the book becomes a chore.

I try to apply this rule of appropriateness to my own comics, too. Shades, for example, may be a super hero story but, since it's all about "being British" I felt it was important to the story that the artwork did not ape the high-gloss of US super hero stories. The Spires may, at one level, be a fantasy tale but since I went out of my way to set it in a world other than in a Grimm's fairy tale, it was important that the artwork should capture the feel of that world.

Props to Harsho and Fabrizio, eh?