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Post by tarkintino on May 25, 2018 21:51:40 GMT -5
Although I DO see how people like Andru better than Romita. (Not me) Andru paid a lot of attention to the spacial relationships between the characters and his environment, and gave Spider-Man web-swinging over Manhattan a sense of depth and scope. Romita didn't care at all about that stuff - as Jim Shooter noted, John Romita's Spidey would be web-swinging and it would be physically impossible for his web to be attached to anything.Unlike Ditko or Andru, the space that Romita's characters operated in didn't make any sense. I mean, neither did Kirby's but the fact that Romita was surrounded by Ditko, Kane, and Andru makes his world-building look sloppy by comparison. Just the opposite. Truth be told, Romita did care about that. He had a photographer's eye and mind--the polar opposite of Shooter's arguably pedestrian-minded view of comic art. It was Romita who took full advantage of what a "spider man" could and had to be (treated as if he was a real person in a real world--an all-important mindset in handling the character) by having both character and "camera" take on every kind of fantastically airborne, fantastically athletic, dramatic position imaginable, as seen in this very small sample-- ![](https://i.imgur.com/ywOKQtj.jpg?1) That, and Romita's pre-superhero expertise at realistically illustrated romance (and other) genre comics only added to the fantasy character appear to operate in a crowded, gritty world--a world not far removed from our real environment that Ditko or Andru did not capture through their odd renderings of the world. Romita did not merely replace Ditko--he elevated the character to work in perfect harmony with the scripts, while (as mentioned earlier) creating the "Spider-Man look", which is not just how a character appears, but how his type of story is told. Few artists so defined a character in a book--and perception of the character beyond like Romita with Spider-Man.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 26, 2018 5:42:28 GMT -5
Yes, for sure. Romita Sr had all the tools when it came to drafting a page and also drew beautiful characters , which is a plus in my book.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 26, 2018 5:52:21 GMT -5
I always get a warm feeling in my heart whenever the original 5 Avengers are in the current iteration. I love seeing Cap, Thor and Shellhead working together.
there I said it.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on May 26, 2018 8:09:29 GMT -5
Although I DO see how people like Andru better than Romita. (Not me) Andru paid a lot of attention to the spacial relationships between the characters and his environment, and gave Spider-Man web-swinging over Manhattan a sense of depth and scope. Romita didn't care at all about that stuff - as Jim Shooter noted, John Romita's Spidey would be web-swinging and it would be physically impossible for his web to be attached to anything.Unlike Ditko or Andru, the space that Romita's characters operated in didn't make any sense. I mean, neither did Kirby's but the fact that Romita was surrounded by Ditko, Kane, and Andru makes his world-building look sloppy by comparison. Just the opposite. Truth be told, Romita did care about that. He had a photographer's eye and mind--the polar opposite of Shooter's arguably pedestrian-minded view of comic art. It was Romita who took full advantage of what a "spider man" could and had to be (treated as if he was a real person in a real world--an all-important mindset in handling the character) by having both character and "camera" take on every kind of fantastically airborne, fantastically athletic, dramatic position imaginable, as seen in this very small sample-- That, and Romita's pre-superhero expertise at realistically illustrated romance (and other) genre comics only added to the fantasy character appear to operate in a crowded, gritty world--a world not far removed from our real environment that Ditko or Andru did not capture through their odd renderings of the world. Romita did not merely replace Ditko--he elevated the character to work in perfect harmony with the scripts, while (as mentioned earlier) creating the "Spider-Man look", which is not just how a character appears, but how his type of story is told. Few artists so defined a character in a book--and perception of the character beyond like Romita with Spider-Man. Oh yeah, I really like Romita's Spidey too. Still, he operated in a crowded, gritty world that ignored perspective and logic. I agree that dramatic, creative framing of panels is more important than grounding your characters in physical space, and I think Romita's art worked very well. Superheroes aren't really designed to operate within the real world, and I strongly believe that making your art look freaking cool is the most important job of the superhero artist. And, as you implied, Romita's romance training might well have made him the most effective soap opera-style artist in mainstream comics.* Still, it seems like what you're looking for as a reader are more realistic figure drawing and effective framing, which Romita was very good at and Andru... wasn't. Still, Andru definitely had some strengths that Romita didn't, including perspective and real world spacial relationships. I saw the panels you posted and said "Wow! That's really great!" And then I studied the panels you posted and the wonky perspective and the amazing! magic!! flying-of-it's-own-accord-or-maybe-tied-to-a-crop-duster-off-panel webline set my teeth on edge. (Granted, if you post 9 Andru panels I will be all "What is UP with that guy's ARM?!" But the spacial, anchor-the-character-in-real-world-physics stuff will be perfect! That is why I am team Ditko.)
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,712
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Post by Confessor on May 27, 2018 4:01:26 GMT -5
Although, as stated earlier, I do love Andru's art on Amazing Spider-Man, when it comes to Spidey (who is my #1 favourite superhero), I'm first and formost a Romita Sr. man. His cinematic staging and "camera angles" were very dynamic, and his romance comic-honed skills were the perfect fit for Peter Parker as Stan Lee upped the soap opera elements in the comic. Ditko is a very close second for me though, with Andru coming in third place. Andru drew fantastic comics and I always particularly liked the way he drew (clone) Gwen Stacy. I've said this before in the forum many times, but the really great thing about Andru is that nobody before or since has managed to capture the precarious, vertigo-inducing nature of Spidey's rooftop webspinning quite as well. Andru always made it look much more dangerous than other artists. When Andru drew Spidey high above the streets of New York City, he really captured the danger of that situation and just how high above the pavement Spidey was. ![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-itw3LOdiOdY/VK7qK3sJufI/AAAAAAABGwo/EedNNggGvOg/s1600/Amazing%2BSpiderman%2B176-01.jpg) ![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jxUnt9Ue4Ok/VK7pFN1_ppI/AAAAAAABGuo/sPBz9QdcgAI/s1600/Amazing%2BSpiderman%2B156-01.jpg) ![](https://i2.wp.com/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/godandthemachine/files/2014/04/Spiderman-Sex-Education-3-e1397734008149.jpg)
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Post by Cei-U! on May 27, 2018 7:45:31 GMT -5
What's that last panel from? I don't recognize it or the name Ann Robinson.
Cei-U! Color me intrigued!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,712
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Post by Confessor on May 27, 2018 7:55:17 GMT -5
What's that last panel from? I don't recognize it or the name Ann Robinson. Cei-U! Color me intrigued! It's from a very weird educational comic that Marvel put out in 1976 for the Planned Parenthood organisation. Basically it was a sex education and anti-teenage pregnancy comic that was available throughout the U.S. at Planned Parenthood clinics. Please summon the four-color contraceptive! ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
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Post by Cei-U! on May 27, 2018 9:12:07 GMT -5
What's that last panel from? I don't recognize it or the name Ann Robinson. Cei-U! Color me intrigued! It's from a very weird educational comic that Marvel put out in 1976 for the Planned Parenthood organisation. Basically it was a sex education and anti-teenage pregnancy comic that was available throughout the U.S. at Planned Parenthood clinics. Please summon the four-color contraceptive! ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
Howzabout I summon my want list instead, so I can add this oddity to it?
Cei-U! I summon the compromise!
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Post by Icctrombone on May 27, 2018 9:15:05 GMT -5
It's a good thing Spider-man told us to have unprotected sex, because you know it worked...
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Post by MDG on May 27, 2018 9:56:32 GMT -5
Please summon the four-color contraceptive! ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png) Talk about redundancy!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,712
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Post by Confessor on May 27, 2018 10:10:44 GMT -5
It's a good thing Spider-man told us to have unprotected sex, because you know it worked... "Spider-Man made me do it!" is an excuse I've used more often than you might think.
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Post by tarkintino on May 27, 2018 11:58:51 GMT -5
Still, he operated in a crowded, gritty world that ignored perspective and logic. Its due to his photographer's eye which produced the kind of accuracy seen in the examples posted. If I had the time, I could post comparison photos of random building and city shots (with or without people), and easily checklist the proper perspective employed in his layouts. It was Romita's attention to that kind of detail that resonated with innumerable fans, playing a part in why his tenure on ASM rocketed the character to heights few comics titles have enjoyed, and certainly did not happen under Ditko before him, or Andru after him. What you described (the "looking cool" part) accurately applies to the pin-up artists of the late 80s / early 90s--the Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee types, who suited an arguably cartoony, erratic, silly era of comics where accuracy in anatomy and perspective were as extinct as dinosaurs. It was in that period where any attempt to present realism was drop-kicked out of a window by too many artists. Some sort of realism is par for the course for superhero comics; I seriously doubt the superhero genre would have survived to see 1970 if the work--on average--were forms of Moldoff (for one example). Part of maturity of the medium was presenting the four-color world in a way that the reader could not instantly write off as silly, crude or where characters were concerned, anatomically incorrect to the point were it was not much better than your average Archie comics of the era penciled by Bill Vigoda or Sam Schwartz. In a visual medium, if that failed, one could hope that the strength of the stories could carry readers, but that was no guarantee--of a strong story or the readers' ability to endure less than dynamic, story-supportive art. [/quote]
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Post by spoon on May 27, 2018 12:39:33 GMT -5
It's from a very weird educational comic that Marvel put out in 1976 for the Planned Parenthood organisation. Basically it was a sex education and anti-teenage pregnancy comic that was available throughout the U.S. at Planned Parenthood clinics. Please summon the four-color contraceptive! ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
Howzabout I summon my want list instead, so I can add this oddity to it?
Cei-U! I summon the compromise!
A little google research reveals, it's titled Spider-Man vs. The Prodigy. www.ebay.com/sch/Bronze-Age-1970-83/12590/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=spider-man+prodigy Various ebay copies.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 3, 2018 16:49:30 GMT -5
DC must really hate John Byrne if they snubbed him for Superman # 1000. IMHO, he's one of the most important creators to work on the book in the last 40 years.
There I said it.
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Post by rberman on Jun 3, 2018 17:38:19 GMT -5
DC must really hate John Byrne if they snubbed him for Superman # 1000. IMHO, he's one of the most important creators to work on the book in the last 40 years. There I said it. Do we know that they snubbed him? He may have declined to participate.
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