Commercial vs Mainstream vs Art

I had a couple of people comment on my call on Paul Abstruse being the best australian artist not working for the big 4 (the big four being Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse) (For those playing at home; the little 4 being IDW, ONI, Slave Labor and AIT/Planetlar).

Now does this mean that Paul is the best artist in Australia? Not really - i enjoy the art of Jase Harper, Matt Hyunh and Chelsea Fritzlaff a lot more. However, in comic book commercial reality that revolves around men punching each other and 'splosions, Jase's Hewlett/Barks, Matt's Mignola/Vasquez or Chels' Bode/Vess/Keith styles don't really suit Spiderman or JLA. It would be great to see - a Huynh Batman would be pretty cool - but in the end, it would be a waste, their talents are better used on something else.

Paul's work is much better suited to something produced by Marvel or DC. Wolverine fans woukld probably warm to Paul's interpretation of the character than Jase's.

But its a funny thing, artists that are deemed underground by comic fans; creators like Tomine, Clowes, Brown have probably had more people see their work as spot illustrations in Rolling Stone, Spin and GQ. The magazine audience in the millions would outstrip the 100,000 buying Ultimate Spiderman.
Or locally, more kids are buying Kzone and seeing Megahappy Pet Fun Music time and Batrisha (You can see an online version here) than seeing Nicola Scott's work in Star Wars tales.
'What's mainstream?', needs to be answered before 'who's mainstream'. In comic land, mainstream is Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse. In reality though? i thinking archie and disney sell more, locally i'm guessing Simpsons probably does better than Xmen.

Its horses for courses and what floats your boat.
It's all relative and no offense was meant or judgement passed on the quality of work.