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Post by hondobrode on Apr 6, 2015 9:07:35 GMT -5
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Post by Jesse on Apr 6, 2015 9:49:41 GMT -5
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 6, 2015 10:37:09 GMT -5
When I originally read my father's copies of Star Wars as a kid I lamented that the colors were all wrong, but now that I've seen the art with colors closer to the films I really appreciate the color choices made. The originals may not be realistic adaptations of the film but they are vibrant and really give the books a fantastic sense of energy which is really drained by the monochromatic look used above.
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Post by hondobrode on Apr 6, 2015 12:41:45 GMT -5
I would've missed that. Thanks Jesse |
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Post by the4thpip on Apr 7, 2015 2:07:42 GMT -5
It's not as bad as adding color to old Lauren and Hardy films, but I'm still way to nostalgic a guy to like those better than the original.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2015 2:51:30 GMT -5
I can appreciate wanting to improve on the old four-color-on-pulp look that Marvel had at the time. I always hated it. But I still like the look of comics colored by hand and think Prizmacolor markers would have done a better job than computers on this particular work.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Apr 7, 2015 7:49:02 GMT -5
I dont mind it too much, pity they couldnt fix up Chaykins awful art, even above you can see how little effort he made.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 7, 2015 22:58:06 GMT -5
repeating what I said in the "May The Force Be With You" thread...
I do not like that new digital colouring at all. It completely overwhelms Howard Chaykin's art, which was, frankly, pretty sub-standard to begin with anyway. This kind of modern colouring may feasibly look better in the Steve Leialoha inked issues that followed, but the Chaykin drawn pages shown here really are not to my tastes.
Apparently, recoloured versions of the Al Williamson drawn The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi comic adaptions are going to follow. Again, it's feasible that this kind of colouring will work better with Williamson's art than it does here with Chaykin's, but we'll see.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2015 1:15:00 GMT -5
The issue of recoloring classic comics seems to be flaring up all over the place these days...there was an article on it in resposne to a series of tweets and Io9 article on the Heavy Metal site today showing several examples of recolored comics juxtaposed with the originals.... article here-M |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Apr 8, 2015 14:06:13 GMT -5
The issue of recoloring classic comics seems to be flaring up all over the place these days...there was an article on it in resposne to a series of tweets and Io9 article on the Heavy Metal site today showing several examples of recolored comics juxtaposed with the originals.... article here-M This is a trickier issue than it seems at first glance. Until the dawn of computers the options available for American comics were minimal for the most part. Higher production values let some series get away with proper color printing but most of the mainstream stuff was limited to a four color palette, which consisted of four levels of concentration (25%, 50%, 75% and 100%) of three colors (cyan, magenta and yellow). And that was best case scenario, as Marvel and DC often dropped several of these colors (which is why Batman's costume often looks lavender in old comics, DC was unable to print a proper gray until Neal Adams persauded them to). This argument in particular seems a little fishy to me: The bright colors of the original comics were necessary because that was the only option. The Green Goblin's tunic was 100% magenta. There was no overcompensation of newprint's natural dullness. 100% magenta is what you had. Dulling it out would need something like 75% magenta, 25% cyan and 25% yellow (since green neutralizes magenta) but thats a pretty steep dropoff. Even though his argument is off, his basic point is true. Why should modern reprints behold themselves to a tiny palette and the work of people who, often, were rushing pages out the door at the last minute? I suppose the best answer is a respect to history. This is how they were originally printed, this is how they should look. On the other hand, Simonson's Thor and Watchmen have been recolored and look excellent. Thor uses a lot of gradients and effects but still follows the spirit of the original colors, while Watchmen is mostly supplemented with tones not possible in the four-color system. But there are a lot of awful recolor jobs as well and in examples like Moebius's work it's not just unnecessary but flat-out disrespectful. |
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Post by Pharozonk on Apr 8, 2015 14:33:31 GMT -5
The issue of recoloring classic comics seems to be flaring up all over the place these days...there was an article on it in resposne to a series of tweets and Io9 article on the Heavy Metal site today showing several examples of recolored comics juxtaposed with the originals.... article here-M I prefer the originals in most cases, except for Bolland's. His photorealistic style seems to look better with the modern color techniques. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
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Post by Confessor on Apr 8, 2015 19:58:48 GMT -5
Even though his argument is off, his basic point is true. Why should modern reprints behold themselves to a tiny palette and the work of people who, often, were rushing pages out the door at the last minute? I suppose the best answer is a respect to history. This is how they were originally printed, this is how they should look. On the other hand, Simonson's Thor and Watchmen have been recolored and look excellent. Thor uses a lot of gradients and effects but still follows the spirit of the original colors, while Watchmen is mostly supplemented with tones not possible in the four-color system. But there are a lot of awful recolor jobs as well and in examples like Moebius's work it's not just unnecessary but flat-out disrespectful. "Respect for history" and "to preserve the art as it was originally intended to be experienced by the talents who worked on it at the time" are the only answers as far as I'm concerned. Anything else is purely subjective. You say that Watchmen has been recoloured and looks excellent, but I disagree...I think the recolouring weakens the impact of some of the panels. Neither of us is right or wrong though, it's just a matter of taste. What Watchmen or Marvel's Star Wars originally looked like when they hit stands and made such an impact isn't a matter of taste though, it's a matter of fact. To alter the original art with recolouring or even re-drawing, in the case of Neal Adams is, at best, messing with the greats and, at worst, historical revisionism pure and simple. My view on this type of thing isn't limited to comics either. There are art forms that I care much more about than I do comics, like music (especially) and film, that I'm even more vehemently opposed to messing about with older stuff. Whether its colouriing old black & white movies, the wholesale revisionist tinkering of George Lucas to the original SW trilogy or The Doors remixing their entire back catalogue in the 2000s, it's a big "no-no" for me and will, as a consumer, prevent me from buying something if I'm aware it's been tinkered with. Let the art (any art) stand as it was originally created and presented to the world, warts and all. There is often beauty in its shortcomings and flaws that even the creators sometimes can't appreciate. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2015 21:59:51 GMT -5
Even though his argument is off, his basic point is true. Why should modern reprints behold themselves to a tiny palette and the work of people who, often, were rushing pages out the door at the last minute? I suppose the best answer is a respect to history. This is how they were originally printed, this is how they should look. On the other hand, Simonson's Thor and Watchmen have been recolored and look excellent. Thor uses a lot of gradients and effects but still follows the spirit of the original colors, while Watchmen is mostly supplemented with tones not possible in the four-color system. But there are a lot of awful recolor jobs as well and in examples like Moebius's work it's not just unnecessary but flat-out disrespectful. "Respect for history" and "to preserve the art as it was originally intended to be experienced by the talents who worked on it at the time" are the only answers as far as I'm concerned. Anything else is purely subjective. You say that Watchmen has been recoloured and looks excellent, but I disagree...I think the recolouring weakens the impact of some of the panels. Neither of us is right or wrong though, it's just a matter of taste. What Watchmen or Marvel's Star Wars originally looked like when they hit stands and made such an impact isn't a matter of taste though, it's a matter of fact. To alter the original art with recolouring or even re-drawing, in the case of Neal Adams is, at best, messing with the greats and, at worst, historical revisionism pure and simple. My view on this type of thing isn't limited to comics either. There are art forms that I care much more about than I do comics, like music (especially) and film, that I'm even more vehemently opposed to messing about with older stuff. Whether its colouriing old black & white movies, the wholesale revisionist tinkering of George Lucas to the original SW trilogy or The Doors remixing their entire back catalogue in the 2000s, it's a big "no-no" for me and will, as a consumer, prevent me from buying something if I'm aware it's been tinkered with. Let the art (any art) stand as it was originally created and presented to the world, warts and all. There is often beauty in its shortcomings and flaws that even the creators sometimes can't appreciate. Then there are artists (and musicians) like Robert Fripp who believe that any art is always evolving and the version of say a song or album you see when it is first recorded is merely a snapshot of where it is at in that moment but is not the finished piece since art, like the artists who create it are continually evolving, learning, growing, etc. Fripp thinks musicians who go out on tour and replicate the studio versions of songs are basically cheating their audiences from seeing true art because the song and the artist should have evolved since then and essentially likens those artists in the same vein as cover bands trying to replicate a song and style from a different time. He basically said I don't want to go out on tour as a band covering our own studio stuff, I want to play the songs where they are now, not where they were a year ago in the studio or 30 years ago when I first recorded it. So there are two sides to it, and I can see points on both sides, but then not everything historical should be preserved just because it is historical, and a rushed color job done in an all nighter to meet a crushing deadline and get a book to the printer on time may not be something that should be preserved. And it may not be how the creators intended it to look but it was all they had time to get done before the deadline hit. Somethings are better left behind in the shrouded mists of history. -M |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Apr 9, 2015 0:18:55 GMT -5
"Respect for history" and "to preserve the art as it was originally intended to be experienced by the talents who worked on it at the time" are the only answers as far as I'm concerned. Anything else is purely subjective. You say that Watchmen has been recoloured and looks excellent, but I disagree...I think the recolouring weakens the impact of some of the panels. Neither of us is right or wrong though, it's just a matter of taste. What Watchmen or Marvel's Star Wars originally looked like when they hit stands and made such an impact isn't a matter of taste though, it's a matter of fact. To alter the original art with recolouring or even re-drawing, in the case of Neal Adams is, at best, messing with the greats and, at worst, historical revisionism pure and simple. My view on this type of thing isn't limited to comics either. There are art forms that I care much more about than I do comics, like music (especially) and film, that I'm even more vehemently opposed to messing about with older stuff. Whether its colouriing old black & white movies, the wholesale revisionist tinkering of George Lucas to the original SW trilogy or The Doors remixing their entire back catalogue in the 2000s, it's a big "no-no" for me and will, as a consumer, prevent me from buying something if I'm aware it's been tinkered with. Let the art (any art) stand as it was originally created and presented to the world, warts and all. There is often beauty in its shortcomings and flaws that even the creators sometimes can't appreciate. The Watchmen recolor is so subtle that I have a hard time picturing what panels it diminishes. Got any examples? Generally speaking I agree with you, I want the original thing. But with something like Watchmen, where the original colorist is tweaking his own work, I have a hard time taking issue with it. I have to admit, I'm also more forgiving of changing comic colors simply because I generally don't see them as an art. Most of the color I see is just there, making sure Hulk's skin is YB2 and his pants are RB3 and the panel where something shocking happens is block colored YR. Oh sure there are exceptions like Higgins and Varley but in most cases I appreciate original colors as historical artifacts but nothing truly sacred. When the colorist has room to actually open up and actually have their work make print (such as Higgins on TKJ and Varley on TDKR) then the story changes completely. Incidentally, Dave Gibbons made the exact same comparison to remixing music that you did and as a result limited his corrections to just a handful of conspicuous errors. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 9, 2015 11:28:11 GMT -5
Then there are artists (and musicians) like Robert Fripp who believe that any art is always evolving and the version of say a song or album you see when it is first recorded is merely a snapshot of where it is at in that moment but is not the finished piece since art, like the artists who create it are continually evolving, learning, growing, etc. Fripp thinks musicians who go out on tour and replicate the studio versions of songs are basically cheating their audiences from seeing true art because the song and the artist should have evolved since then and essentially likens those artists in the same vein as cover bands trying to replicate a song and style from a different time. He basically said I don't want to go out on tour as a band covering our own studio stuff, I want to play the songs where they are now, not where they were a year ago in the studio or 30 years ago when I first recorded it. To be clear, I agree with Fripp in terms of a song's evolution from it's moment of release...at least in a live setting. Sure, it should change and evolve as the artist himself does, but the record that Fripp released to the world decades before should be preserved for what it is and, more importantly, for what it was back then. A live performance of a song is obviously something organic and it will therefore change from performance to performance (even if only minutely). I really do feel that a recording that is committed to tape, released on record or CD and which makes an impact (however small or big), should be preserved and not be tinkered with decades later. So there are two sides to it, and I can see points on both sides, but then not everything historical should be preserved just because it is historical, and a rushed color job done in an all nighter to meet a crushing deadline and get a book to the printer on time may not be something that should be preserved. And it may not be how the creators intended it to look but it was all they had time to get done before the deadline hit. Somethings are better left behind in the shrouded mists of history. I disagree with the bolded part completely, I'm afraid. History should always be preserved. All history. All of the time. Irrespective of what it is or how great or little impact it had. That's a fundamental rule of life for me. In the case of comic book art specifically, I get what you're saying about the rushed colouring job, but just because something is done sloppily or in a hurry doesn't necessarily make it bad. This is what I was saying about appreciation of art being subjective. Clearly what goes on between a viewer and a piece of art is where the magic occurs. I may see beauty in the original colouring that you may not and visa versa. That doesn't make ether one of us right or wrong, but by changing the colouring one of us may end up being disappointed with the result and future generations of readers will not necessarily get to experience the work as it was originally published. This is sometimes even more true if the original creative people who were involved with the art get to work their revisionist magic. As a creative myself (musician/songwriter) I subscribe 100% to the idea that sometimes people who create art have the least idea about why it works. For example, if you listened to one of my songs, what I might perceive as a sloppy guitar solo, you might think, "Wow! I love that rock 'n' roll sounding guitar solo...it's messy, but man, it rocks!" You might see some worth or beauty in something that I perceive as bad playing. If I then give you another version of the same song, but with a re-recorded and perfectly executed guitar solo on it, you might think, "well, it does sound slicker, but I kinda miss the swagger of the original." It's just the same as George Lucas and the whole "Han shot first" thing: Lucas genuinely thought making Greedo shoot first made the scene better and the whole world of SW fandom disagreed. Lucas, as the artist, failed to see what everybody else loved so much about that scene in the first place. The Watchmen recolor is so subtle that I have a hard time picturing what panels it diminishes. Got any examples? Not specifically, but I remember some years back looking at a side-by-side panel comparison of the original colouring and the newer colouring and I distinctly recall there were panels in Dr. Manhattan's lab that lost some of their drama with the new colouring I felt. Generally speaking I agree with you, I want the original thing. But with something like Watchmen, where the original colorist is tweaking his own work, I have a hard time taking issue with it. See, I get the reasoning behind this, but like I've outlined above to mrp, sometimes the original artist is the person least qualified to understand what made his art resonate so powerfully with audiences in the first place. I'm not saying that this is the case with Watchmen specifically, but just as a general rule. |
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