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Felicity Walker
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 February 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 349
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 2:44am | IP Logged | 1
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LOL. When Green Lantern punched that guy, the sound it made was “SPOCK”!
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Jim Muir
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1374
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 4:07am | IP Logged | 2
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<<I was just at the watchman sight http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/ and saw this image that looks very much like the image Gerry had up earlier>>
I think you're stretching the argument to breaking point JY. They're both pictures of small corner shop dime stores.... erm ... and thats it.
The difference between a homage and a swipe seems pretty clear to me, and many other posters here also recognise it. A homage is usually a recreation of an iconic shot and wants to be recognised as such. A swipe recreates an obscure shot, and doesn't want to be discovered doing it.
Of Erik's 2 examples (and Im not too familiar with either) a nearly line for line of Kirby's establishing shot of Galactus Ship would appear to be an homage to an iconic Jack Kirby shot.
A Rob Leifeld drawing of a Jim Lee Helicarrier ... that too may well be an homage, but I wouldnt regard a Jim Lee Helicarrier shot as iconic to start with, but maybe thats just me. Homages are usually based on a well known work, and this doesnt sound like one.
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Peter Svensson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1470
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 4:26am | IP Logged | 3
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The difference between homage and swiping is whether or not the artist is trying to get away with it. It's an homage to use a classic cover shot, or recreate an iconic image with different characters when you know that the majority of your readers will recognize the original. Placing an "After 'original artist'" is generally the sign of a good homage. John Byrne's Fantastic Four covers are homages, as the vast majority of readers will get that he's making reference to the originals.
It's swiping to take someone else's artwork and pass it off as your own original work. If you think that the majority of your audience won't notice that your figures are traced or recreated directly from someone else's art, and aren't trying to notify them otherwise, then it's a swipe.
There's a third category, that of serendipity, where the artist unknowingly replicates an earlier work by just trying to find the right image. This is how we get a bajillion standing pietas, because that's just a good way to show someone holding a dead body. It's how we get Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld both drawing the Shield Helicarrier from a certain angle. It's easy to look at certain shots and claim swiping, when it can be attributed to both artists having similar inspirations.
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Leigh DJ Hunt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 February 2008
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1570
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 6:09am | IP Logged | 4
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I love homages on covers, love them. I'm not a big enough DC fan to know for sure but I would have thought that Jonah Hex cover was a homage to the Adams' Superman cover.
As for Greg Land, I loved his art on Sojourn but I then started to get frustrated with his photo-referencing. It's okay if you don't notice it but I was really pulled out of the story when I recognised a panel in a comic I was reading for the first time. I flicked through my back issues and there it was again. He'd clearly used exactly the same piece of photo reference for two completely different characters in different situations.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133577
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 6:16am | IP Logged | 5
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As the audience has shrunk, that strata of fandom that fancies itself to be "in the know" has grown proportionately, and the internet has given it a louder voice. Unfortunately, as is all-too-often the case with self-proclaimed "experts", the expertise is actually minimal at best, and greatly confused at worst. Thus, we have drawings being declared "swipes" that are, to a truly expert eye, nothing of the kind. We also have artistic conventions -- such as the use of photo reference -- being erroneously called "swiping".* This is how I find myself in the skin-crawling position of defending Rob Liefeld, pointing out that there are, after all, only so many ways you can draw Captain America running straight at the camera with his shield arm and right leg forward. Things that are not swipes, then, include: Using photo reference Drawing the same scene or object (as in a flashback) in your own style Drawing an iconic pose without reference Evoking an iconic scene without duplicating it Evoking another artist's mannerisms in your own style …basically, going to the same well dozens of other artists have already visited. (When I was doing AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and CHAPTER ONE, I fell upon the idea of drawing the web-swinging Spider-Man right-side-up in the panels, but inverting the backgrounds. Almost at once, I noticed other artists doing this, too. Should I cry "swipe!", or just take the compliment implied?)
*Another favorite word is "cheating". When I started doing my own lettering with a computer font I had created, some called it "cheating". Not long ago, looking at the tools of my trade, someone asked what the french curve was, and when I told him, he said "You mean you cheat?" Yes, I do! And I don't will the lines onto the page, either. I cheat, and use a pencil!
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Donald Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 February 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 3601
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:23am | IP Logged | 6
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JB Said:
"You mean you cheat?" Yes, I do! And I don't will the lines onto the page, either. I cheat, and use a pencil!
This led me to think of an alternate universe in which, we did have machines that could transfer the vision in our heads directly to paper or screen or what have you.
I would say that even in this alternate reality you would still be considered fantastic, as few people have the imagination that it takes to create such images let alone string said images together into a coherent story.
I can write, I can even weave words into a reality for the reader...However I think it is a different thing to be able to visualize in the way an artist does.
Don
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Tom French
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4154
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:29am | IP Logged | 7
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I remember in FOURTH WORLD -- and even WONDER WOMAN -- where you'd label certain panels "apres Kirby [date]" and the "Byrne apres Byrne" in WW. I thought that particular kind of thing to be very respectful.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133577
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:31am | IP Logged | 8
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I have often said, I simply cannot understand why everyone can't draw. I mean, sure, levels of skill, just like everyone can run, but not everyone can enter the Olympics. But when it comes to drawing, there are some people who cannot manage even a squiggle. The connection between eye, hand and brain just isn't wired that way.It mystifies me. But, then, poker mystifies me, plumbing mystifies me. Some folks got it, some folks don't.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133577
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:42am | IP Logged | 9
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One of the most important lessons I learned came very early on, before I turned pro.Steve Englehart was writing CAPTAIN AMERICA, and planned a story in which Cap visited Canada, and, in a typical Marvel Misunderstanding, got into a tussle with a home-grown superhero. He thought it might be fun to get a Canadian artist to draw the issue, and as I had been deluging Marvel with samples, someone suggested me. I got a letter (yes, and old fashioned, thru the mail letter -- this was, like, 1973) from Steve, telling me what was going on, and asking me to submit some Captain America samples. So I sat down at my drawingboard and, in what was then my habit, swiping Neal Adams like crazy, drew Cap in a two page scuffle with a maple-leaf wearing hero.* I sent the pages in, and while they were generally well received, in something that would become all too familiar in the early days of my career, even tho I had responded promptly, Englehart had drifted off in other directions, and decided not to do that particular story. He did show the pages to Neal, tho, and reported his comments back to me. The one that stuck in my head, "This is good me, but what can he do?" I took that lesson to heart, and began what turned out to be a very long quest for my own artistic "voice". (In the decades since, I have often used Neal's line, when fans have shown me portfolios too heavily modeled on my own work. "This is good me, but what can you do?")
*Not Guardian. I had my own Canadian superhero team at the time, and it included the Guardian prototype (not in the costume he would later sport in X-MEN), but I wanted to hang on to him, so I came up with a different flag-variant on the fly. It came out looking a whole lot like the costume that would, a few years later, turn up on Captain Canuck -- which is in and of itself an important lesson how everything that seems to be a swipe is not necessarily a swipe.
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Donald Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 February 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 3601
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:45am | IP Logged | 10
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I have been able ( because of your generosity in posting pencils) to learn alot about inking...I have learned alot about line weight, and have been able to hone my own skills in this area. While I can appreciate great art, i do not have an artists eye. I can sketch out shapes that when I explain them become clear to the observer but I long ago decided to stick with writing (unpublished as of yet).
I have noticed that many writers also fall into the same trap of aping another writers "voice". I am a fan of many writers and try to blend several stylistic choices in my own voice...I have written stories that blend a Sam Spade feel ito a teen setting to great effect.
Don
edited to add response to second post
Edited by Donald Miller on 21 February 2008 at 7:50am
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Jesus Garcia
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 April 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 2414
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:49am | IP Logged | 11
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One of my wife's favorite artists, Jack Vettriano, has had to defend himself against contentions of copying. Weve got a "Singing Butler" print in our dining room, in fact.
See the link and images below
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4305438.stm
Now, is this photo reference or is this swiping?
Edited by Jesus Garcia on 21 February 2008 at 7:49am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133577
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| Posted: 21 February 2008 at 7:52am | IP Logged | 12
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Now, is this photo reference or is this swiping?
••
In that case, both.
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Topic Closed)
