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Topic: Grandeur? What’s That? (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Jason Mark Hickok
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Posted: 27 June 2009 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | 1  

Live action to me is ALWAYS a 'guy in a suit,' especially if it's a known actor.

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I didn't feel that way when I watched Iron Man.  To me (and this is my opinion) it really felt like it was Iron Man and not Robert Downey Jr.

I agree with you on other comic book movies.  It does seem like an actor in a suit and that is as good as it gets.

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 27 June 2009 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | 2  

So many reasons why the Neal Adams cover is so great, not least of which is its faithful sense of history:

He made Batman his own but kept him Batman.

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Erik Larsen
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Posted: 27 June 2009 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | 3  

I think this is where we can all point an accusing finger at Alex Ross. This
is where making things "look real" has brought us. His Batman is not
scary. He looks like a guy in a costume. Gray Morrow had a hell of a time
with this sort of thing as well. He tended to draw so realistically that he
couldn't bend reality in a way that made superheroes work. He was an
extremely talented guy but his Batman has pupils instead of slits and his
cape looked like a towel--it just hung there.

I really don't think it makes Batman cooler to see the seams where his
cowl was stitched together or to see every scale on Captain America's chainmail and so on.

I think Alex Ross in an amazing talent. Make no mistake--but these
characters are supposed to be bigger than life. Making them "just regular
people" makes them ordinary and I don't want an ordinary Batman.

This may also help explain why it's so difficult to translate these guys to
the big screen. I have yet to see a "real live" Batman which is anywhere
near as effective as Neal Adams' Batman. Put any normal mortal in tights
and, sorry, he ain't all that--and is more likely to strike laughter than fear
in the hearts of evildoers.

I don't think it's because these artists feel ashamed to be drawing
superheroes, though--I think it's more that they think it's what fans
want. Fans "demand" that they look this "realistic."
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Arc Carlton
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Posted: 27 June 2009 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | 4  

Byrne: Sequel? What sequel? 
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Daniel Gillotte
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 12:31am | IP Logged | 5  

A lot of modern artists need to read How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Even just the first few pages will help them a lot! I couldn't find the image to share, but the couple of panel comparisons that John Buscema does showing a mundane approach versus the marvel approach to comics is sorely needed to be taught to many of the current artists, in my view.
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Arc Carlton
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 12:36am | IP Logged | 6  

And what about Marvel current  artists?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 4:58am | IP Logged | 7  

I think Quitely would have drawn that image differently if it was Bruce…

••

I'm curious as to what you would base such an assumption on. His Superman is a guy in an ill-fitting Superman costume. His Wonder Woman is a woman in an ill-fitting Wonder Woman costume. And when he has drawn Batman before, it has been, as here, a guy in an ill-fitting Batman costume. Like so many current artists, he draws Halloween parties, not superheroes.
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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 5:11am | IP Logged | 8  

JB, what do you think about the cityscape, and how uses light and shadow in that  Batman piece?
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Darren Taylor
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 5:22am | IP Logged | 9  

Halloween parties, not superheroes."-JB

Best description of this so far.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 6:00am | IP Logged | 10  

This was the image that really brought this home to me, sort of crystalized what had been nagging at the back of my mind for a while:

I mean, yes, I can appreciate the artist portraying these characters looking like real teenagers, but what's with the costumes? The headdress on the Scarlet Witch is particularly absurd.

There's an episode of STUDIO 60 in which one of the characters asks another to take a look at a script he has written for a third. The character reading the script immediately picks up on the fact that the guy who has written it is trying to impress the gal for whom he wrote it. "Look at all the words I know!" says the guy reading, by way of comment. That sort of defines the feeling I get looking at the way superheroes are so often portrayed these days. Sure, we're professional artists, and we're putting our stuff out there for public consumption, so we are, almost by definition, "showing off", but it seems all too often the imagery has become all about the showing off. "Look what a cool artist I am!" Unquestionably, this is what Neal Adams was doing, too -- but he kept that "showing off" always in the service of the characters.

Service to the characters is, of course, the principle thing missing today, in artists and writers alike.

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Michael Penn
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 6:12am | IP Logged | 11  

They look like they're going to a Halloween party.
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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 28 June 2009 at 6:25am | IP Logged | 12  

They look like they're going to a Halloween party.
---
I immediately thought "some sort of costume party" as well.
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