Byrne Robotics: Q for JB: proportions

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Warren Leonhardt
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Joined: 10 July 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 454

Posted: 20 February 2009 at 4:42pm \| IP Logged \| 1

He wasn't "known" for much of anything when he did MARVELS.
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Oh. Didn't realize. Late to the party.

I'd say it's more a case of comics going thru an affected ennui phase!
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I second that emotion. Less pop, more poop. I have the same grumble about animated cartoons today...whatever happened to the caricature of life? If I want 'real life' I'll look out the winduh, dadgum it! Oh horsefeathers.

I always remember Neal Adams saying he drew super-heroes as if they really existed. It wasn't until Alex Ross and the like came up that I realized the difference. Ross does super-heroes as if real people were given powers and Adams seems to do it as if the super-heroes actually existed.
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YEAH! Like - if Superman/Thor/Spider-Man existed, he'd be AWESOME! Beyond human, otherworldly, etc - because they ARE. How Existentialist...but yeah. Adams/Kirby/the Romitas would try to draw what that super quality might look like trapped in humanoid form, whereas others...? As you said. That makes sense. I like the artists who draw with ZEAL! Marie Severin's work is awesome that way. Really lively stuff.

Edited by Warren Leonhardt on 20 February 2009 at 4:45pm

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Martin Redmond
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Joined: 27 June 2006
Posts: 3882

Posted: 20 February 2009 at 5:55pm \| IP Logged \| 2

Casting easily recognisable celebrities feels a bit unoriginal. :/

Edited by Martin Redmond on 20 February 2009 at 5:56pm

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133317

Posted: 21 February 2009 at 5:48am \| IP Logged \| 3

I always remember Neal Adams saying he drew super-heroes as if they really
existed. It wasn't until Alex Ross and the like came up that I realized the
difference. Ross does super-heroes as if real people were given powers and
Adams seems to do it as if the super-heroes actually existed.

••

I used to say that Neal drew people who looked like people would look if
people looked like that.

And that's exactly what superheroes need.

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133317

Posted: 21 February 2009 at 6:00am \| IP Logged \| 4

Casting easily recognisable celebrities feels a bit unoriginal.

••

My principle problem with it comes when I disagree with the casting. When I
was a kid reading comics, several different artists drew the Batman books
(tho they were all signed "Bob Kane"), but Batman looked like the same guy
no matter who was drawing him. Ditto Superman.

Even when I came into the Biz, there was still a policy of keeping the
characters "on model". At Marvel this often mean John Romita redrawing
faces. But even when someone as stylistically distinct as Neal Adams came
along, he still drew the characters as if he and all the other artists were
looking at the same model. His Batman became his own, but it started as
Carmine Infantino's version, which itself had evolved from the "Bob Kane"
version.

In the past few years -- is it decades, even? -- as comics have become less
and less about being professional publications and more and more about
being slick fanzines, the notion of the talent "making their mark" on the
characters has become more important than maintaining the integrity of the
characters. Thus, Alex Ross can give us Gilligan's Professor as Reed Richards
and fanboys can chuckle knowingly. Or the rumor can go 'round that Tom
Cruise is interested in playing Tony Stark, and Marvel, ever eager to suck up
to Hollywood, can have the character drawn that way, even if he has never
looked like that before.

In the end, it is once again about the characters being made to serve the
talent, instead of the other way around.

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