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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132389
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 10:42am | IP Logged | 1
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All Artists draw differently, and all artists want their version of the character on the cover of a cereal box or a poster. *** I've invoked Mickey Mouse before, in this context. Over the years, The Mouse has had many different looks, but all the artists who worked for Disney stayed on model as far as whichever look was in vogue at any given time. What we see in comics today is, in the end, a lack of discipline. Artists want to draw, say, Batman, but they want to draw their version of Batman. Yet, in bygone days, before credit boxes, before rockstar artists, Dick Sprang, or Carmine Infantino, or Neal Adams could draw Batman, and the work was instantly recognizable as Sprang, Infantino or Adams -- yet Batman looked like Batman. As noted above, Neal redefined what Batman looked like, but at first he drew on-model. In his own style, yes, but there was no doubt that the Batman he drew and the Batman Carmine drew were the same guy. Bring it within the scope of my own career, and at roughly the same time Sal Buscema, Ross Andru and I were all drawing Spider-Man, each with our distinctive styles -- yet Spider-Man looked like Spider-Man. He looked like the same guy Ditko had drawn. Artistic ego was sublimated to the greater good of the characters.
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Aaron Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 10461
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 10:48am | IP Logged | 2
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"Artistic ego was sublimated to the greater good of the characters."
Thats what sets good writers and artists apart when working with established characters. The JB Reed Richards and the Lee/Kirby Reed are the same guy, with certain stylisticc differences, but still a consistent character. The "current" Reed, who just managed to drive his wife away, is something else entirely. All the "current" Reed demonstrates is laziness on the part of the current writers.
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Brad Teschner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 3933
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 10:57am | IP Logged | 3
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"I've never been convinced that comics would sell that much differently even if things were done entirely differently..."
I started collecting comics when I was 7 years old, and I found my
first ish (FF #268) at a super-market. never stepped into a comic shop
until months later. what new readers will the industry attract if they
only market their product in specialty shops?
the films will bring them there, you say? the books are now now just a
tool for marketing the movies, not vice versa (as it should be). funny
how the x-men went to black leather and doctor octopus went goth after
their movie versions did so.
i think it's fair to say that comics are not really even being marketed
anymore...it's almost as if they just hire talent to put out books so
they can retain the copyrights for the eventual film adaptation.
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Mark Waldman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1273
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 10:58am | IP Logged | 4
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Yep. JB - I think a lot of it goes into how times have changed as a
whole. Kids used to enjoy reading comics, playing hide and seek,
neighborhood pick up games - baseball, football, roller hockey,
whatever, but now there are so many distractions for young people -
different distractions - that it would seem the more rare exception for
a kid to excitedly anticipate comics coming out, etc. when they can go
online, play xbox or Playstation, use their iPod, etc.
I think these fundamental cultural differences have lead to the erosion
of the cool factor and therefore respect involved when a young artist
finds his way into comics. Pretty sad, but likely true.
I think in many ways your generation of artists, the ones we all
discuss on this forum, were the last group who got it. Nowadays,
not so much.
Semi on-topic - yesterday I stumbled upon Steve Rude's web site.
Pretty good - amazing artist. He definitely gets it. Nice
traditional drawings and paintings, including this one which I thought
was very cool - no bling bling though for the kiddies... haha.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35748
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 11:03am | IP Logged | 5
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The current mega-crossover, earth shattering event over at Marvel, CIVIL WAR, is a perfect example of this. I like some of the stuff Millar does, but this is a steaming pile. 80% of the characters act out-of-character all to fit the plot of a "kewl" story. The whole marketing gimmick of "Whose side are you on?" virtually makes you chose between heroes and that's so incredibly wrong.
I've gotten tired of characters that are basically puppets, acting only at the behest of whomever is pulling the strings such that Spider-Man in title X is quite different from Spider-Man in title Y, both in character and in artistic rendition.
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John W Leys
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Posts: 1143
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 11:16am | IP Logged | 6
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I used to get irritated when some artists couldn't draw a character on-model. Back when I was an active comic reader (I still read them, but not nearly enough to be considered regular or active) this happened from time to time and was a major distraction from the story at hand. The art may have been good, but it wasn't "right."
The problem escalated to the point where I now wonder if there even is a model anymore...
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Brad Teschner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 3933
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 11:29am | IP Logged | 7
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sure there's a model...Wolverine is Hugh Jackman, Storm is Hally Berry, Sue Storm is Jessica Alba and Mary Jane is that chick from Bring It On.
At least, that's what Marvel would like to see.
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Mark Waldman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1273
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 11:36am | IP Logged | 8
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Funny. Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane still bewilders. The hottest woman in comics becomes this?
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Brett Rankin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 180
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 11:54am | IP Logged | 9
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To partially blame this on the downfall of comics is interesting, but it kind of ignores the entire history of how and where people get their entertainment. Comics have steadily been trending downward since the 60s, save for some jumps here and there like the early 90s.
You can blame it on this or that, but the fact is there are more choices out there now. 100s of TV channels, the internet, and a youth that matures and gets into sex much earlier are all contributers. Kids like sex, and the video game industry is a billion dollar business - big releases like the Madden games do literally a 100 million bucks the first week.
Games offer intricate storylines and pretty stunningly realistic graphics now, too. Face it - would you rather read a Spidey story, or participate in one as Spidey himself with a video game?! I'd rather be Spidey! Most kids think paper is pretty silly in general!
I guess we can pretend those video game dollars aren't former comic book dollars, but that would be kinda silly and ignorant.
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Brad Teschner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 3933
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | 10
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"To partially blame this on the downfall of comics is interesting"
I don't think the movies in and of themselves are the downfall of comics...rather the industry's reaction to the success of the movies. rather than staying true to their origins, the comics became more like the movies. character's are so screwed up and doing things that are so out of character that it's going to take a "Crisis-Like" event to put things right once this movie bubble bursts.
It's going to happen...it's inevitable. The success of X-Men is much like the rage for teen slasher flicks that Scream started in the 90's. That ran out of gas too. Super-Hero flicks are already starting to wain. Daredevil and FF blew chunks...I'm less than enthusiastic about the forthcoming Wonder Woman (did you see Serenity? I like Firefly as much as the next guy but as movies go Serenity was under-whelming). Iron Man seems promising...but did anyone even see Zathura?
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Greg Kirkpatrick
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 June 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2193
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | 11
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Kids like sex
Hey, so do some of us adults ;)
former comic book dollars
I would say more like formerly potential comic book dollars.
I do think this attitude of creators and companies of 'making their mark' is an obvious sign of comics being geared to those who already read/collect rather than those we want to start reading/collecting. Whereas it used to be "let's make a cool Superman story" it is now "let's make a cool Grant Morrison story. he can use Superman if he wants to." When a story reads/feels more like a Creator A story rather than a Character A story, that is where we are off the course.
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Tshombe Hamilton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 March 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 142
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| Posted: 03 November 2006 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | 12
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I was thinking of this the other day. It ia amazing how Superman, Batman, Spiderman and the others stayed true to form all these years. Now every artist wants to reinterpret them and change them.
The success of the X-films has ruined the comic book. They moved over to leather, revealed Logans origin just messed up a good thing.
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