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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2016 21:25:22 GMT -5
Because when writers try to tell story without artistic consideration in comics using literary techniques to fill in for the art you get things in scripts like page one panel one the character kicks in the door rolls into the room and kick the gun out of the hand of the assailant while saying... (75+ words of dialogue to set the scene and fill in the gaps). Panel two.. he pulls his own gun fires a shot at the other crook escaping through the window and...where too much is packed into each panel (you can get 1 action and 1 small piece of dialogue per panel, you cannot depict multiple actions in a single panel, and too many panels on a page leave no room to do the actual lettering in each panel. There is only so much physical geography in a panel or on a page, and usually (especiually in Marvel method) it is up to the artist not the writer to parce out that geography as the story demands. When the image is at odds with the words (the artist uses happy dialogue but the artist depicts angry people, the image will inform perceptions more and change the reader's perception of how to read the dialogue or caption because that is how the human brain is hardwired (the truism behind the old adage a picture is worth a thousand words) and the arrangement of the panels on the page (their size, size of the gutters, the shape, the sequence of panels, how the eye is guided through the page form left to right or top to bottom) all impact the reader's perception more than the words, captions, dialogue or plot of the story. When the literary works at odds with that reality, or tries to compensate for artistic shortcomings in those areas, it only serves to muddle up the telling of the story more, making it less effective, not more. When writing prose, some of the tools available to the artist is to be able to influence the pacing of the reader's interaction through the use of sentence length and structure (long sentences slow the reader down, short succinct sentences speed the reader up for example, and diction pertaining the the size (and type of words used) can influence that as well-prose writers can use that to set tone, mood, build suspense, etc. but in comics, when the panel size limits the words per panel, when it is the artistic layout of the panels on the page that control the pacing and mood much more than the words on the page, those tools are literally not available to the writer because they are superseded by the visuals-whether the visuals are good or bad they undercut the effectiveness of those literary tools by the writer. It's not that there are extremes involved, it's that the tools don't work when taken out of the medium of prose and mixed with a visual component of the storytelling.
And then there are writing tricks you use to shortcut moods or characterizations where you write something like- he heaved his shoulders and uttered an audible sigh-something that can be done in prose or in a motion picture, but not with a single silent image that comprises a panel or even a sequences of panels with dialogue balloons comics.
These types of literary tools used by prose writers don't work in comics because they are superfluous if the art is up to snuff and are undercut and ineffectual if the visuals are not up to snuff in terms of visual storytelling. Some writers learn how to write visually and work well in collaboration with the visual artist, but if they don't write visually, they are entirely dependent on the visual artist to interpret what they wrote and translate it into a visual narrative. Much like a director takes the screenplay done by a writer and translates it into a film where the final product is as much the creation of those who worked on it after the writer has finished his job, the final form of comics are as much the creation of the other creators who work on the book after the writer has finished the script. Hell, even the letterer can influence the way the writer's words are perceived by the reader in the font he chooses, the style of lettering, what he/she chooses to bold or emphasize, etc. and if those decisions are made post-writer contribution, they are out of his or her hands. Some writers oversee the book until it goes to the printer, some are cut out of that process by editorial, but a vast number of creative decisions about a comic are not made by the writer and have as much (if not more) influence on how the story is told and perceived by the reader than the actual writer's contribution-at least in big 2 assembly line comics-creator-owned books and cartoonists doing both jobs change the dynamics of that.
-M
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Post by Ozymandias on May 31, 2016 0:16:13 GMT -5
You mainly describe how things work in the big two, there're other ways. Overall, a writer should have in mind, when dealing with an artist who can do some things, but not others, to choose the former to be in the story, not the latter. This can always be done. You can also always adjust the amount of words, to speed up or slow down the pace, even under panel constrains. But overall, you need a modicum of complicity with the artist, so he will follow a detailed plot, otherwise, he'll be doing part of the script. And here's where our concepts may differ, storytelling is part of the writing, no matter who's responsible for it. When I talk about bad art, I mean just the art, not the panel and page composition, that should be part of the script. A detailed plot, will be handed to the artist with everything he needs to render the page as imagined by the writer. The fact that this isn't usually the case, is clear enough indication of a lack of respect for writers, in the comic book industry.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2016 16:03:22 GMT -5
You mainly describe how things work in the big two, there're other ways. Overall, a writer should have in mind, when dealing with an artist who can do some things, but not others, to choose the former to be in the story, not the latter. This can always be done. You can also always adjust the amount of words, to speed up or slow down the pace, even under panel constrains. But overall, you need a modicum of complicity with the artist, so he will follow a detailed plot, otherwise, he'll be doing part of the script. And here's where our concepts may differ, storytelling is part of the writing, no matter who's responsible for it. When I talk about bad art, I mean just the art, not the panel and page composition, that should be part of the script. A detailed plot, will be handed to the artist with everything he needs to render the page as imagined by the writer. The fact that this isn't usually the case, is clear enough indication of a lack of respect for writers, in the comic book industry. The quality of comic art is determined by its storytelling, it is narrative art. The aesthetics of the art are subjective, how well it tells the story is not. If you listen to what the giants of the industry say-the Eisner's the Kirby's, the Kubert's (i.e. the people who laid the foundation for American comics) the one thing they all agree on is that the measure of comic art is in the quality of the storytelling. It doesn't matter if its pretty or not, it only matters if it tells the story. Mignola's more impressionistic style will please some and horrify others, but the measure of the quality of his comic art is how well he tells a story. Perez's photorealistic art attracts many but loses some, but the measure of the quality of Perez as a comic artist in in the narrative storytelling. Art that doesn't tell a story is not comic book art. Panel and page composition is the artist's primary job when drawing a comic. You cannot separate that from comic book art and still be talking about comic book art. Fine art and illustration maybe, pin ups, sure, but not comic book art. The artist is just as much a storyteller as the writer, just as in film the director is as much a storyteller as the screenwriter. You can dislike the art, you can say it is technically bad if anatomy or perspective is off, but even stick figure art can be effective comic book art if it tells the story (see The Order of the Stick webcomic by Rich Burlew for example). The primary measuring stick for comic book art is how well does it tell the story. If you are taking that out of consideration, you have nothing of merit to say about the art of a book, and if you discount that portion of the creative process form comics, you might as well just go read prose because it is what defines the medium of comics. And that is not all in the hands of the writer, nor should it be because many writers do not think in terms of visual storytelling and need the skills of the artist to execute their story ideas in a visual medium. The balance of the creative contributions will vary with each collaboration, but looking at some writers output when paired with different artists can give you some sense how dependent their contributions are on the artist they work with (look at say the difference of Grant Morrison working with Howard Porter vs. working with Frank Quitely or Ed Brubaker working with Scott McDaniel vs. working with Sean Phillips, or Lee with Ditko on Spider-Man vs, Lee with Romita on Spider-Man and you see the artist very much impacts how the script of the writer in perceived and received by the audience. Comics are a visual storytelling medium. Unless the writer is also artist (i.e. a cartoonist) there is no escaping that his or her contribution is going to be filtered through the lens of someone else's contributions to some extent no matter how the collaboration works. Good writing can work with ugly art if the art still has quality storytelling, but good writing can be destroyed by pretty art if the art lacks good storytelling components. If the art is lacking on the storytelling front, i.e. in panel to panel and page to page structure, in panel composition, in narrative flow, etc. then there is very little writing can do to compensate for it, especially if the writer is not strong on the visual elements of comics. The hope is you have good writing, pretty art and art with strong storytelling, but that doesn't always happen. You can still have decent comics when one or more elements are missing, but usually only when the strong storytelling element present in the art is the one that is present. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on May 31, 2016 16:51:25 GMT -5
Remember to vote in the Jamie awards! Todays the last day.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 1, 2016 2:03:57 GMT -5
The quality of comic art is determined by its storytelling, it is narrative art. The artist is just as much a storyteller as the writer, just as in film the director is as much a storyteller as the screenwriter. You can dislike the art, you can say it is technically bad if anatomy or perspective is off, but even stick figure art can be effective comic book art if it tells the story [...] many writers do not think in terms of visual storytelling If you mean that only storytelling is intrinsic to comics, that's pretty obvious, but you could use the same logic for writing (i.e. if the comic has bad storytelling, the writing is bad, it all depends on who is responsible for the storytelling in a particular comic). That is, if you want to equate quality with storytelling. Comics are a sequential art, but that doesn't imply that storytelling determines the quality, it's just the defining characteristic, the one that sets it apart from neighbouring arts, but those are also present, and they bring along their standards. The analogy is valid in theory, but considering how the industry works, both for comics and movies, it breaks down. Directors choose a writer or write their own scripts and film with very loose length constrains, that's why it makes sense that they would be responsible for the final product. They can work on a long novel and film many hours, editing the result to fit the 90-180 min standard. They can even split the product into several parts, trilogies aren't unheard of. Comics must conform to a much stricter page count, the writer must have a very good idea, about how long it will take to tell the story, otherwise there's no way for the artist to meet the requirements. This means that the writer, must be a comics writer. He needs to run the story in his/her head, before passing the plot along. With a detailed plot, or a full script (however you may want to label it), you don't need a comics artist, to draw a comic. The biggest contradiction in the comics industry, is the preponderance given to artists and the oversight about their storytelling abilities. They should just hand the task over to writers, see what happens. Maybe stick figure art can be effective for you, but it would completely ruin my aesthetic experience. If they can't "think in terms of visual storytelling", how come they don't hand over 100 page comics? Or 8 pagers? How come the artist can (in general) be capable of outputting such a precise number of pages? It's my belief, that writers (editors?) have a pretty good idea about how to tell the story, so the artist won't be handed an impossible task. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2016 7:26:57 GMT -5
The writing and characters are very important to me, and may be more important to me than artists in the long run. However, if I find the art unappealing, I'm unlikely to pick up the story. Same here - writer attracts but it's very rare for the art to sell me on a book, though they can turn me off it. |
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Post by MDG on Jun 1, 2016 12:50:41 GMT -5
I just saw this: 5. Comics are equal parts drawing and writing. With writing being a bit more equal. However, always remember that "writing" ≠ "words". |
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 1, 2016 17:32:40 GMT -5
You mainly describe how things work in the big two, there're other ways...ETC... The quality of comic art is determined by its storytelling, it is narrative art... Etc... -M Oops... There you go falling down the black hole  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 1, 2016 18:39:12 GMT -5
I just wanted to make one other comment about 'letterer' being on there. I know it was mostly meant as a joke, but I'll Todd Klein in the 80s and early 90s sure did add to a book for me... I'm not sure I'd buy a book because he was lettering it, but it definitely added to the appeal.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 2, 2016 3:27:36 GMT -5
I just wanted to make one other comment about 'letterer' being on there. I know it was mostly meant as a joke, but I'll Todd Klein in the 80s and early 90s sure did add to a book for me... I'm not sure I'd buy a book because he was lettering it, but it definitely added to the appeal. Van Lente and Pak's Incredible Hercules is another book where the lettering was a large of the appeal. Also Phonogram (luckily the trades include a lot behind the scenes stuff, where you get the conversations between writer, artist, letterer and colourist.) |
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Post by marvelmaniac on Jun 2, 2016 8:55:01 GMT -5
I was first attracted to comic books by the Cover and could look at Great Covers all day long.
If not for the covers I never would have been interested in comics and never would have gotten to the story inside.
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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Jun 3, 2016 13:58:55 GMT -5
I just wanted to make one other comment about 'letterer' being on there. I know it was mostly meant as a joke, but I'll Todd Klein in the 80s and early 90s sure did add to a book for me... I'm not sure I'd buy a book because he was lettering it, but it definitely added to the appeal. ... I did buy books solely because those were lettered by Kevin Nowlan... I also bought books solely because those were colored by Grant Golesh or Ted McKeever. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2016 3:27:31 GMT -5
I just wanted to make one other comment about 'letterer' being on there. I know it was mostly meant as a joke, but I'll Todd Klein in the 80s and early 90s sure did add to a book for me... I'm not sure I'd buy a book because he was lettering it, but it definitely added to the appeal. Good lettering makes the Comics more readable and easier on your eyes and I totally agree with you wildfire2099 that a book with great lettering definitely add appeal to it. |
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Post by rom on Sept 17, 2016 21:58:44 GMT -5
In a perfect world, all comics would have excellent art & equally excellent writing. However, if I had to choose - I would have to say art definitely trumps writing when it comes to comics.
I.e., I have read comics with crummy art & great writing, and despite the solid writing - the comics aren't enjoyable to read because the art is so poor. I.e., who wants to read a comic with shitty art?!
Conversely, I have read comics in which the writing/story isn't necessarily that great - but, the comics have incredible art - so, I enjoy reading them because of the art & in spite of the mediocre writing.
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RikerDonegal
Full Member
Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
Posts: 128 
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 17, 2016 23:13:25 GMT -5
For me, as a lifelong Marvel reader, it's always been 100% about the writer and never about the artist.
Sure, as a kid, I liked artists like Byrne, etc. But it was Claremont, etc. who told the stories and made the characters interesting as far as I was concerned.
I liken it to episodic TV. The director is vital to telling the story, coaching the actors, choosing the shots, etc. But who would care if there wasn't a good script?
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