Art Favorite Comic/Manga artist

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

Who would be your favorite comic book and/or manga artist?

I don't want this to be a stupid "CLAMP is my fav!!" thread. Tell me who you really admire as an artist (this could be more than one person), and WHY he/she is your favorite. Explain whether you like his/her character design, detail, etc. Also tell me whether you would want to draw like that yourself, or whether it's a style you like but it's just not for you. I want artists to respond here, not just manga freaks.

I will go first (I have many that I like, and no true favorites really, but I'll name a couple only):

Manga -- Kosuke Fujishima. He is the guy behind Oh My Goddess!, You're Under Arrest!, and exDriver. The man amazes me with his extremely detailed lineart. I wonder how large his initial works are before they are printed in the manga size, because there's no way someone would have the kind of precision he has without drawing about 10x bigger than the print size. In addition to the precision, he also adds tremendous amounts of detail in the sense that he'll put actual (with the name ever-so-slightly changed on purpose) company names all over a motorcycle, or draw an SNES controller exactly the way it looks.
Fujishima's costume designs are also incredible. Not only are they so detailed that it almost hurts to think about, but they show that the guy really has a sense for style. Urd is always wearing something interesting and sexy, and it's not usually something I've seen in fashion catalogs.

Fujishima's artwork is what got me interested in manga, and I have tried to draw in his style many times. I can pull it off alright, but it just takes way too long. I would be too lazy to add all that detail if I didn't have to (don't even ask about the way he does buildings...).

Another thing that is very interesting about Fujishima is that his style changes over the years. The Oh My Goddess! manga characters change general looks every few volumes. It's almost scary to compare Vol. 1 (555-Goddess or Wrong Number!) with Vol. 17 (Traveler). Although I can't say that the work is steadily improving. In fact it's taken a turn for the worse, and I know that it will get worse yet before it gets better (U.S. translations are way behind the Japanese TPBs).

If there's something else to criticize about him, it's that he uses no shadows anywhere, and therefore many times his drawings lack volume. But generally the spacing and layout is good enough to where you'll barely notice. But that's one thing someone like Yoshiuki Sadamoto (Evangelion) does well that Fujishima doesn't even bother with.

Well I wrote a lot about Fujishima, so I'm going to post about my favorite American comics artist later.

P.S. if you want to see my attempts at sketching Oh My Goddess! stuff from the manga, it should be on TheOtaku.