One thing that I found STRIKING about the 2.1 rules was that the art seemed of a lower quality, despite having been done by the same artist.

What happened?  Was there a different inker for the 2.0 rulebook? 

I am not trying to throw stones, as my own drawing ability is not very good.  I'm just curious.  I really enjoyed the 2.0 art, and was disappointed by 2.1.

Just compare the covers:

Several people have noticed the degradation of Jeff Dee's art skills between the revised edition and 2.1

It's likely because he stopped drawing in the interim.

I'm not sure it's fair to say it's degraded but rather simply different. Nobody's art is the same at 50 as it was at 20. It's natural that an artist style is just going to change after so many years.  I believe over the decades Jeff has done a lot of computer game design and less comic book art as a professional and this too would effect his style.

Just one mans thoughts on the subject.

I also noticed that just near the end of the V&V early days, Jeff's stuff was getting a...let's say a rushed look.

Compare early art like Empress, to the art for Mystic just three years later and it seems like a different guy did the two pieces. One most assuredly in the style of the other, but something is off. He starts getting blockier in his human shapes where as before, and especially in his earlier D&D work, Jeff was damn near untouchable in making dynamic and realistic/nautralistic human forms.

Now in all fairness, his worst bar napkin scribbles still put most others to shame, but I'd really like to know what happened to cause the degradation as well.

You mean Jeff Butler, I think. He also drew a Green Hornet comic books for a while in the '80s. His art was a little stiff but very good aside from that.  Made me think maybe he wasn't used to sequential storytelling art so much as the covers and what not he is better known for. 

http://www.jeff-butler.com/gallery-green-hornet-art.htm

Matt wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2015 at 8:21pm:

YES! Thanks, totally confused my Jeffs. 

Oh, absolutely! 2.1 is still really nice art, it's just sorta missing something that was in the old 2.0 art. Passion, fire, spark... something... I guess it's whatever makes the difference between really good and great.

I still feel   Dee owes me money for the 2.1 rule book.  The art was terrible, the graphics were shoddy and pixelated.   The lay out left some pages three quarters blank....

For a guy that wants to make a living as an artist he should try harder.

Say what you want about Bizar, but he puts out a product that looks great.   Funny that a business man makes better art than an artist.

I read Living Legends.  It was ... not V&V. The Cover art for V&V 2.1 is actually in Living Legends as a black-and-white drawing where it is dated 1985, so it's not that his art degraded over 30 years, it happened in the span of three years. It also means the cover art for LL is newer than the art for V&V 2.1. There is a page from the old comic book, and an update of Motivator/Mirage (just not the same...). The art Mr. Dee used spans about 20 years (he has Shatterman form 1986, and some dude dated 2005

It has a point system to balance everything out. It has more weaknesses. It has a skill system. It's not a bad system, but it's not V&V - and V&V is a pretty great system. Sadly for LL, there were similar and more complete systems out there at the same time that had better marketing.

Like most others, I too don't find the art (usually) to be as good in 2.1 as 2.0.  That said, there are some images in 2.0 that I think aren't very good, and some from 2.1 (like one I bought the original on) that are outstanding (and better than much of 2.0).

I don't think I agree that artists tend to get better.  I know Willingham commented about having to draw bigger now that he's gotten older, and I myself have found that I can't do art as well now that I need reading glasses.  I've found that many artists I loved back in the 80s (John Byrne, Patrick Zircher) do stuff today that I don't think is as good as what they did back then (I still love their old stuff, but don't care as much for their newer material).

The 2.1 cover is just not good. Bad composition: People directly in front of buildings, when those buildings could have been off to the side; no depiction of the surface the characters are standing (?) on. Poor color choices, that reduce contrast and limit the eye's ability to see what's going on. Poor selection of characters: Two character are too well known to give you the "that could be my character!" feeling (or if you don't know the Spyder, then you get the "ew—hairy chest and bare toes" vibe), and the other two look more comical than anything else. Poor subject matter: Why is there a guy propping up the flying dude, and why does that chick have a leash going up to the flying dude's crouch? (Of course that's *not* what's really going on, but then you get back to the poor composition that doesn't make the situation clear...)

The 2.0 cover is hugely superior in terms of composition, color choice, and subject matter. It's very clear what's going on and who the bad guy is. And the characters are drawn generically enough to give you the "that could be my character!" feeling.