GORAN PARLOV - THE "NOT A HOAX" SENSATIONAL NEW COMIC ARTIST FIND OF 2014!

I mean, I guess technically Marvel found this guy before me. And according to the internet, he's been a professional artist for over twenty years, first in his native Croatia, and then his first American work was published by DC's Vertigo imprint in the early 2000s. Since then he's done some work for Marvel as well, mostly on the Punisher. But I just discovered him, and isn't that what really matters?

Anyway -- I was perusing the weekly new releases in the Marvel Unlimited app, and my interest was piqued by the thumbnail cover to A+X #16 starring Spider-Man and Psylocke, which appeared to feature a beautiful image of my favorite web-slinger in the iconic John Romita, Sr. style. I opened the issue and thumbed through it, and -- wow! This guy draws the most perfect Spider-Man I've seen in years. Previously the record for "Best Modern Spider-Man Artist" was held by Marcos Martin for the handful of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues he illustrated during the "Brand New Day" era. And while I still absolutely adore Martin, and I think his work is a perfect fit for the character, Parlov's rendition is practically a clone of Romita Sr., thus edging Martin out of the top spot.

Parlov gets every aspect of the Romita design absolutely perfect, including the amount of space between the costume webs, the right level of black on the outfit's blue sections, and, most importantly, the shape of the mask eyes and their black-to-white ratio -- two things many artists seem to struggle with. Marvel needs to boot the horrendous Humberto Ramos from AMAZING, chain this guy to a drawing table, and pay him large sums of cash to be Spidey's regular artist until the day he's physically incapable of drawing anymore. This man was born to draw Spider-Man.

Also, the story seems to be set at some point in the past, as it features the X-Men, though only via a minor cameo, in their Jim Lee costumes. So it's got that going for it too. But the main takeaway here is Parlov's Spider-Man. He draws the character the way he's supposed to look. I seriously can't stop drooling over this beautiful short story.

Oh, and check out that awesome signature, too! I love those European cartoonist signatures. They look so classy.