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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 20, 2023 11:27:11 GMT -5
It's not a comic-book, but this customer feels like venting. Back Issue #121, focusing on Conan and other sword-and-sorcery characters, contains a disappointing amount of factual errors. What's more, when it's not making mistakes, it's pretty light fare. For fans of the characters or of the genre, I would definitely recommend the four issues of Alter Ego devoted to the subject instead. What took the cake was reading that Arak's adventures were set around the year 500. Arak was at Charlemagne's court, for crying out loud! That figure is several centuries off! Credit where credit is due, though: the article on the syndicated Conan strip was interesting. I didn't know that there had been friction between Roy Thomas and Len Wein after the latter penned a Conan comic for Power Records without so much as a by-your-leave. I'm pretty shocked about that. You should definitely shoot them an e-mail pointing out the inaccuracies. Never mind...I see it's three years old now. Man time flies. I remember buying Back Issue #1. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 20, 2023 20:17:39 GMT -5
It's not a comic-book, but this customer feels like venting. Back Issue #121, focusing on Conan and other sword-and-sorcery characters, contains a disappointing amount of factual errors. What's more, when it's not making mistakes, it's pretty light fare. For fans of the characters or of the genre, I would definitely recommend the four issues of Alter Ego devoted to the subject instead. What took the cake was reading that Arak's adventures were set around the year 500. Arak was at Charlemagne's court, for crying out loud! That figure is several centuries off! Credit where credit is due, though: the article on the syndicated Conan strip was interesting. I didn't know that there had been friction between Roy Thomas and Len Wein after the latter penned a Conan comic for Power Records without so much as a by-your-leave. I'm pretty shocked about that. You should definitely shoot them an e-mail pointing out the inaccuracies. Never mind...I see it's three years old now. Man time flies. I remember buying Back Issue #1. I picked up a collection of the magazine, in digital and came across an issue with a Jon Sable retrospective, including a bit about the brief tv series and the author had pinched my review title for the series from IMDB, where, for the longest time, I had the only review of the series up. Made me want to demand credit; but the issue was from several years before. My review was titled "So good it lasted 7 whole episodes!" and that became the section header in the article about Jon Sable, for that discussion. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 22, 2023 8:59:35 GMT -5
The Eisners were announced at the SDCC. The winner of the best Writer/Artist was Kate Beaton, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. Now I have not read this book, so I don't know how well written it is, but to win Writer/Artist, shouldn't the person be able to draw beyong a 5th grade level? Has the Eisners jumped the shark? Because this is just bad art.  |
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Post by tarkintino on Jul 22, 2023 9:45:31 GMT -5
The Eisners were announced at the SDCC. The winner of the best Writer?Artist was Kate Beaton, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. Now I have not read this book, so I don't know how well written it is, but to win Writer/Artist, shouldn't the person be able to draw beyong a 5th grade level? Has the Eisners jumped the shark? Because this is just bad art. I can see you post having the potential to be torch tossed into a dynamite factory, but I do agree with your position on the art. I know someone might say, "but _____is considered a comics legend, but early on, his art was deemed child-like and crude", but the sample posted here reminds me of the wave of artists who started their careers in independent and/or undergound satirical or sociopolitical comics of the 1980s, where for some, it appeared as if crude, appeal-challenged art was not so much about people who had a story to tell, but were not so good on the visual side, but more of an attempt to be as iconoclastic (which one might argue became a stylistic cliché over the decades) as their stories.
I am familiar with Beaton's book, and its an interesting tale, but one strong enough to take that prize? Eh. Its all very, very subjective, anyway.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 22, 2023 10:11:25 GMT -5
Maybe, but I guarantee they aren't considered a comic legend because of that crude, child-like art.
I am aware of the art movement that elevated unskilled artists beyond what their art should have. I always argued there is a vast difference between untrained artist who show ability, like folk artist or outside artists and artist who simply can't draw. This falls into the latter group for me.
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Post by tartanphantom on Jul 22, 2023 11:17:16 GMT -5
Maybe, but I guarantee they aren't considered a comic legend because of that crude, child-like art. I am aware of the art movement that elevated unskilled artists beyond what their art should have. I always argued there is a vast difference between untrained artist who show ability, like folk artist or outside artists and artist who simply can't draw. This falls into the latter group for me.
In that case, here's my very original idea for a new comic book team... "The Fanta-STICK Fore"!
and I signed the artwork, no less. Done digitally, of course, like all cutting edge modern comics! Official CGC-verified signed copies will be available soon.
Where's my freakin' Eisner? 
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 22, 2023 11:26:34 GMT -5
Maybe, but I guarantee they aren't considered a comic legend because of that crude, child-like art. I am aware of the art movement that elevated unskilled artists beyond what their art should have. I always argued there is a vast difference between untrained artist who show ability, like folk artist or outside artists and artist who simply can't draw. This falls into the latter group for me.
In that case, here's my very original idea for a new comic book team... "The Fanta-STICK Fore"!
and I signed the artwork, no less. Done digitally, of course, like all cutting edge modern comics! Official CGC-verified signed copies will be available soon.
Where's my freakin' Eisner?
Was the coloring done with Orange Fanta? |
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Post by tartanphantom on Jul 22, 2023 11:52:57 GMT -5
In that case, here's my very original idea for a new comic book team... "The Fanta-STICK Fore"!
and I signed the artwork, no less. Done digitally, of course, like all cutting edge modern comics! Official CGC-verified signed copies will be available soon.
Where's my freakin' Eisner?
Was the coloring done with Orange Fanta?
Indeed; and notice how I used the the double logo circle on the "Flaming Matchstick" to convey the blurring motion of flight...
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Post by MDG on Jul 22, 2023 13:08:25 GMT -5
Maybe, but I guarantee they aren't considered a comic legend because of that crude, child-like art. I am aware of the art movement that elevated unskilled artists beyond what their art should have. I always argued there is a vast difference between untrained artist who show ability, like folk artist or outside artists and artist who simply can't draw. This falls into the latter group for me. I haven't read the book, but I don't think its crude. It's effective cartooning, with clear actions and expressions (see panel 8). Also, the perspectives in panels 5, 6, and 7 are well done and not easy to pull off. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 22, 2023 13:10:30 GMT -5
The Eisners were announced at the SDCC. The winner of the best Writer/Artist was Kate Beaton, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. Now I have not read this book, so I don't know how well written it is, but to win Writer/Artist, shouldn't the person be able to draw beyong a 5th grade level? Has the Eisners jumped the shark? Because this is just bad art.
I won't say "those are fighting words" because I didn't know Beaton before reading Ducks (I only ever saw a handful of her Hark! A vagrant strips), but I disagree with the idea that this is bad art. It is not photorealistic, that much is obvious, even if the many characters are all easily identifiable thanks to their facial characteristics and body language. As in most autobiographical comics nowadays, the artist goes for a clean and simplified, almost rushed-looking style that gives an impression of urgency, as if every scene was drawn as it was happening; that's a feature, not a bug.
Beaton is furthermore quite good at rendering emotions in a subtle way, using nothing more than a slightly hanging head, a stooped shoulder, a barely arched eyebrow or a very thin line under an eye. She clearly knows what she's doing.
I don't know who else was in the running, but Ducks, in my view, absolutely deserved a nomination for its writer/artist's accomplishment. Kudos to the victor.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 22, 2023 16:24:55 GMT -5
Maybe, but I guarantee they aren't considered a comic legend because of that crude, child-like art. I am aware of the art movement that elevated unskilled artists beyond what their art should have. I always argued there is a vast difference between untrained artist who show ability, like folk artist or outside artists and artist who simply can't draw. This falls into the latter group for me. I haven't read the book, but I don't think its crude. It's effective cartooning, with clear actions and expressions (see panel 8). Also, the perspectives in panels 5, 6, and 7 are well done and not easy to pull off. I am not going to give an art class here, but you are very wrong. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 22, 2023 16:31:25 GMT -5
There are so many cartoonists in the history of comics who did simple but non realistic work that wasn't lacking in skills like this. From Herman to Kelly to Barks to Crumb to Speigleman to Jeff Smith.
This is simply bad, grade school level art.
And this award I am talking about was not for best GN, which it might have won on the power of the writing. It was best Writer/Artist.
Will Eisner is turning in his grave.
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Post by commond on Jul 22, 2023 16:36:01 GMT -5
There's been a trend in cartooning toward a simple line. I've encountered it in a lot of the books I've read in the Eisners thread. I'm not a huge fan of it myself, but you tend to get used to it if the story is interesting. Ducks also won an Eisner for Best Graphic Memoir.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 22, 2023 17:32:36 GMT -5
The category is Writer/Artist, not Best Artist. That would be taken as the total of the writing and art, not just the art. You don't have enough here, for context. Neal Adams drew amazing visuals but his writing was horrible, as witnessed across the Continuity Comics line. From what little I see here, Beaton comes across as a good storyteller, which is what I would want in a Writer/Artist category.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 22, 2023 19:33:44 GMT -5
I agree about Adams, But I think one should be both a good writer AND a good artist, not just one of the two.
Look at last years winner, Barry Smith. Or Junto Ito the year before that.
No need to list here all the great writer/artist in comics through the years, who could both write AND draw.
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