If you consider Hogarth, Winsor McKay, Hal Foster, Frank Frazetta, Maxfield Parrish and many others, it may be said that many fine artists were driven into comics and strips by the Modernistic know-nothing snobs.
Hogath
McKay
Hal Foster
Frank Frazetta
Maxfield Parrish
There are some excellent American illustrators. I'm not partial to Frazetta - sort of had him in the box with the Brothers Hildebrand, whom I really cannot stand - much too conventional and not much skill in body/face anatomy (I absolutely LOATHE their LOTR illustrations). But "Nemo in Slumberland" is an absolute classic.
Parrish is I think one of the American illustrators who successfully made the transition to "easel painting" for want of a better term. But my favorites are Howard Pyle, his star student of the Brandywine School N.C. Wyeth (a better painter than ANY of his children, by far, certainly better than Andrew), and my sleeper candidate, South Dakota native Harvey Dunn, who never fails to impress me.
Pyle: The Buccaneer
Wyeth: Illustrations to "Robin Hood" Scroll down to "Little John's Fight With the Cook".
More Wyeth, one of his Maine paintings: Black Spruce Ledge
And Harvey Dunn, who is hard to find: American Machine Gunner The best WWI combat artist, went out with the AEF.
There is some real junk on this site that he painted as a young student, when he hadn't found his own voice yet. But scroll down through the derivative junk to the pen and ink sketch of the surrendering German. I wouldn't wish WWI on my worst enemy, but Dunn became an artist there. Everything he did after that time is really his own. Dunn website (Even the (mildly) naughty redhead. :D )
Once Dunn went back home to South Dakota, he painted images from his pioneer childhood. Probably as an antidote. "Prairie Garden" and "Buffalo Bones Are Plowed Under" These are some of the most powerful images of the American frontier I've ever seen. There is one called "Pioneer Woman" that I cannot find -- my husband bought a (cheap) copy for me, since it IS me. If you ever find a copy, you'll know what I look like. :D
And . . . how do you load images into the text? Inquiring (if mildly incompetent) minds want to know!
He also taught drawing for decades. "Comic book" artist Wally Wood studied under Burne Hogarth. Wally also worked in Will Eisner's studio of artists.
