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Post by rich on Nov 4, 2024 15:33:39 GMT -5
Editors get a lot of the blame because they are supposed to be the product's quality control. Like in every industry, books have to be pitched, ideas thrown around, scripts submitted and approved, so that when a customer buys a comic, the story has theoretically gone through multiple rounds of approval. If a book makes you question 'how could anyone approve this junk or think it was ok to publish?' that's on the editors for failing to do their jobs to either kill bad stories or work with the writers to make the stories better. A competent editor will bring out the best in their writers, while an incompetent editor will make writers look like they just published a first draft that was hastily written at 3 am without even a spellcheck. Agreed. When a writer and artist knock it out of the park it's hard for them to screw it up, so when we read a great comic we assume that's mostly what happened. Of course sometimes the editor will have massively improved a piece of work. Look what happened to George RR Martin's books since he because so famous as to be practically uneditable!
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Nov 4, 2024 15:35:59 GMT -5
Unless you just don't like when 2 panels use the same angle I don't really see what the problem is. Of course backgrounds aren't going to change in a split second when the action is entirely in the foreground. There's something jarring about seeing the same thing twice or more on the same page, and I dislike how it's common now because it's so easy to copy and paste. Move the view point around, change the distance, draw something new... Like I said, a personal bug bear, that can wreck *any* page for me. And yes, I know tracing used to occur in the past, but the uncanny valley effect was avoided unless a photostat was cut and paste right on to a page. That happened, but much less commonly. It was usually used to save drawing a building multiple times, for example, typically cut from a past issue. If it was characters I'd agree with you. But these panels are very clearly attempting to show very specific things happening in a short period of time, and to have them meet your standard would require going back into the script to remove these split-second sequences entirely. If the script doesn't call for a building to change, changing the building just to avoid 'copy-pasting' is just going to be more problematic and jarring. You wouldn't want a page of the president speaking in front of the White House to have the White House change size or color every panel, even if 2 panels are from the same distance and angle.
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Post by rich on Nov 4, 2024 15:43:47 GMT -5
There's something jarring about seeing the same thing twice or more on the same page, and I dislike how it's common now because it's so easy to copy and paste. Move the view point around, change the distance, draw something new... Like I said, a personal bug bear, that can wreck *any* page for me. And yes, I know tracing used to occur in the past, but the uncanny valley effect was avoided unless a photostat was cut and paste right on to a page. That happened, but much less commonly. It was usually used to save drawing a building multiple times, for example, typically cut from a past issue. If it was characters I'd agree with you. But these panels are very clearly attempting to show very specific things happening in a short period of time, and to have them meet your standard would require going back into the script to remove these split-second sequences entirely. If the script doesn't call for a building to change, changing the building just to avoid 'copy-pasting' is just going to be more problematic and jarring. You wouldn't want a page of the president speaking in front of the White House to have the White House change size or color every panel, even if 2 panels are from the same distance and angle. Somehow they avoided such repetition for over a century of comics, without it being 'problematic and jarring'. For example, during a speech: Show the President full length, show the crowd hanging on every word, show the President in close up, show a bird's eye view of the White House, show the President from the side, show the President's face in a close up at an emotive point, show an audience member crying, etc etc. it isn't hard for a professional, at least it wasn't before a couple of clicks let them take the easy path. Changing the 'camera angle' doesn't have to imply the President jumped to a different spot magically. Steve Dillon is an artist who liked repeating the same angle and focal length in 'talking head' pages, but I don't recall straight copying from him. His art on those particular pages was more functional than beautiful, though.
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Nov 4, 2024 16:03:02 GMT -5
Ok. So your problem is using the same angle for 2 panels in a row, which means these kinds of sequence shots will never work for you unless there is no background at all or some action in the background that distracts from the foreground. Those 4 panels of her teleporting the civilians out of harm's way and then saving the blue man from the demon would not make any sense or work if the backgrounds were to just change for no reason, and the split-second timing they try to convey would be lost, changing the flow of the entire scene, if they were presented differently. This sort of thing isn't new. For the Man Who Has Everything has a page with 4 near identical panels where the only changes are the direction Superman is flying in.
If I had to nitpick, I'd say the 4 background characters in the first 2 panels should move a little between panels. Maybe 1 could try to open a door or a window to change something about the building. But outside of that 1 tiny thing, I don't see any problems with those 4 panels as presented, and even moving as much as trying to open a window would likely be too much for the split-second nature of the motion.
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Post by rich on Nov 4, 2024 16:51:01 GMT -5
Ok. So your problem is using the same angle for 2 panels in a row, Umm, no. That's not good at all, sure, but it's bad if they're in a row or repeated in different places across a page or two. Some otherwise excellent artists do this almost endlessly. In fact it's worse if they reuse the exact same face across a couple of pages half a dozen times, because there's little way of excusing the laziness with claims that "time didn't move between the panels". a) I dislike the uncanny valley effect you get from copy and pasting panels b) I dislike the laziness of copying panels in general- characters or backgrounds. c) When drawing a character multiple times on a page preferably change expressions, angles or distance from the 'camera', or all three at once. No copy and paste even if expressions are changed because you'll still get the uncanny valley effect. d) Try not to use the exact same background across multiple panels too, but if you do at least mix it up by enlarging or diminishing the background, because that disguises the lazy shortcut nicely. e) The same angle at the same size is dull and unexciting and is what gives 'talking head' pages a bad rep. A few points, and clearly much more to it than 'disliking the same angle twice'. Edit: It's worth restating that tracing elements was less obvious and distracting in the past due to the small imperfections the process produced, only to change more again when inked by hand. Not that it was ever a good idea to copy the same imagine at the same scale on the same page...
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Post by kirby101 on Nov 4, 2024 18:01:51 GMT -5
I agree with rich, the changing camera angles from panel to panel back the page flow much better. The same background and characters in the same place make it static.
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Post by kirby101 on Nov 4, 2024 18:02:30 GMT -5
I feel like I'm in a weird place because when it comes to Marvel in particular, I think the comics they produced before I was born are much better than the stuff they've published during my lifetime, with some exceptions like Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias. X-Men, Spider-Man, Avengers, I'd much rather read the stuff from the 70s and 80s than most of the stuff from the 21st century or even the 90s. With DC at least I still think their peak was when I was a very little kid and not well before I existed. Include the 60s, and they were.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 4, 2024 22:35:42 GMT -5
Writers and artists like to blame editors when the straight fact is that the audience rejected their work. If a comic doesn't sell well, it's because it didn't connect with the intended audience. The rest are excuses. That said, there are things that can affect how and if the audience connect. There are books that were hobbled by distribution problems, such as Simon & Kirby's Mainline, where the distributors were getting spooked by crusading groups, in the 50s and they were sending back bundles, unopened, of titles from smaller and unproven companies, like theirs (but not the popular companies). There were legit paper shortages at times, which affected how many copies were printed and distributed. There were companies with distribution problems, in some regions, like Atlas/Seaboard and Charlton (though they self-distributed and have themselves to blame). There were editors who treated talent like slaves and messed with them to exert power (Mort Weisinger, most famously). There were writers and artists who butted heads, like Claremont and Byrne and who got their way more depended on the editor.
Then there are editors like Archie Goodwin, about whom no one had a bad word to say. He brought the best out of his people, took chances, kept a high level of quality in his titles, gave constructive feedback and could flat out out-write 99% of the talent he edited, and they were the first to admit it. However, he encouraged them to write like themselves, not like Archie, except to make the story the best it could possibly be, within the limitations of the industry.
In any collaborative field, you will find people who will blame others for failure; and, sometimes they are telling the truth and others they are just making excuses, instead of accepting responsibility. It's usually easy to tell; if they are always running into bad editors or publishers, then the common factor is them. If it seems to be an aberration, then maybe it was the editor or collaborator or publisher, or some phenomena out of their control.
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Post by impulse on Nov 5, 2024 11:05:07 GMT -5
On the other hand, there are definitely cases where interference or directives from management negatively impact a title. It’s not all excuses.
Peter Allen David’s 00s X-Force book was largely excellent, and he mostly did his own thing. It was jarring when he was mandated to include the annual big X-Line crossover plot into what he was doing. He did it well enough, but it often obviously disrupted what he had going on. The book would have been better if he didn’t have to pay the crossover tax for just one example.
Regarding copy pasting, I don’t mind it in certain circumstances. Specifically in the example provided of showing things happening extremely quickly in super slow motion, I think it’s totally fine. It’s better when there are small differences in each panel, but for that specific situation, I don’t see any problem with it.
Generally, I don’t like it when it’s done in an obvious manner just to save some time. That said, I’d rather see that than some of the hideous rushed art that has been published in the past.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 5, 2024 11:18:54 GMT -5
The chances of me actually paying attention to the background of the average super-hero funnybook is somewhere between zero and none.
There. I said it.
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Post by rich on Nov 5, 2024 11:45:01 GMT -5
Regarding copy pasting, I don’t mind it in certain circumstances. Specifically in the example provided of showing things happening extremely quickly in super slow motion, I think it’s totally fine. I'd also be happy in that hypothetical example- maybe with the Flash or Quicksilver darting around. I've yet to see it used that way, however. (I have read few digitally drawn comics) Even if you rated a panel of original art a 1/10 for being miserable rushed crap, that's still better than the 0/10 a copy and paste would earn. It's almost like being a crappy student who gets a bad grade, vs a student who nonsensically submits the same assignment a second time in the same semester. Both are bad, but one is worse, for me personally.
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Post by rich on Nov 5, 2024 11:48:21 GMT -5
The chances of me actually paying attention to the background of the average super-hero funnybook is somewhere between zero and none. There. I said it. It's not a conscious decision on my part- I've got an eye for detail and duplication jumps out at me. I also notice what everyone walking past me looks like and is wearing, and can visualise scenes/people/places/remarks that stood out to me from decades ago. 🤷🏼♂️
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Post by impulse on Nov 5, 2024 11:53:03 GMT -5
Even if you rated a panel of original art a 1/10 for being miserable rushed crap, that's still better than the 0/10 a copy and paste would earn. It's almost like being a crappy student who gets a bad grade, vs a student who nonsensically submits the same assignment a second time in the same semester. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point. IMO, a 1/10 piece of miserable rushed crap is a 1/10 piece of miserable rushed crap. A copy of an 8/10 drawn right the first time still looks good. They may lose the A for effort, but at least they drew it well once. Ugly/unclear art is still ugly/unclear even if hand-drawn.
This is academic for me at this point as I dropped my subs and have all but stopped reading new comics a decade ago. I'm sure it's gotten more pervasive as more and more things move to pure digital.
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Post by rich on Nov 5, 2024 11:57:59 GMT -5
Even if you rated a panel of original art a 1/10 for being miserable rushed crap, that's still better than the 0/10 a copy and paste would earn. It's almost like being a crappy student who gets a bad grade, vs a student who nonsensically submits the same assignment a second time in the same semester. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point. IMO, a 1/10 piece of miserable rushed crap is a 1/10 piece of miserable rushed crap. A copy of an 8/10 drawn right the first time still looks good. They may lose the A for effort, but at least they drew it well once. Ugly/unclear art is still ugly/unclear even if hand-drawn.
This is academic for me at this point as I dropped my subs and have all but stopped reading new comics a decade ago. I'm sure it's gotten more pervasive as more and more things move to pure digital.
It's just a personal preference of mine. Clearly it's well enough tolerated or publishers would have forbidden it. I think it was Mr. Miracle where two panels were duplicated 3 or 4 times each on a single page, where it really annoyed me, and now I can't not see it when it happens even once. A great book, otherwise really well drawn, just with a "quirk" that bugs me. It's now unusual to see a modern comic that doesn't use that crutch- unless I'm just unlucky with the books I've read! (Like I said, I've also not read a great deal published in the past 20 years, and certainly not much digital art.)
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Post by rich on Nov 5, 2024 12:06:50 GMT -5
Here's an example from Gerards' Mr.Miracle. Perhaps an artistic decision, but it's suspicious when the same artist does it ad nauseam... A nice artist- I just wish he didn't feel the need to use this trick on every other page. It makes innocuous little errors, like the line on the cape that escaped the boundaries, stand out in a negative way (bottom 3 panels).
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