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Post by tingramretro on Sept 29, 2016 9:02:25 GMT -5
Surprised by the responses. I added a poll. I like polls. I don't like poles, though; I walked into one once, and nearly knocked myself out. I think I should stress, this was a metal pole, not a guy from Poland. I have nothing against Poles, only against poles. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Sept 29, 2016 9:40:39 GMT -5
In the panel crazyoldhermit posted is that Bruce and Clark? Yes it is (and Diana). I take it you haven't read the story? I have not. Though I do seem to remember seeing it at the library the last time I was there. So I may give it a chance. I plan on making a trip there this weekend. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 29, 2016 10:42:54 GMT -5
Surprised by the responses. I added a poll. I like polls. I don't like poles, though; I walked into one once, and nearly knocked myself out. I think I should stress, this was a metal pole, not a guy from Poland. I have nothing against Poles, only against poles. This is a very corny gag...but I like it.  |
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Post by brutalis on Sept 29, 2016 10:57:00 GMT -5
I like polls. I don't like poles, though; I walked into one once, and nearly knocked myself out. I think I should stress, this was a metal pole, not a guy from Poland. I have nothing against Poles, only against poles. This is a very corny gag...but I like it. Is any of this pole-itically correct at all? Or is it just pole-arizing viewpoints? Do i need to a-pole-agize for my pun-ishment of you folks?! |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 29, 2016 11:27:57 GMT -5
This is a very corny gag...but I like it. Is any of this pole-itically correct at all? Or is it just pole-arizing viewpoints? Do i need to a-pole-agize for my pun-ishment of you folks?! *Groan* That's simply a-pole-ing! |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Sept 29, 2016 11:42:34 GMT -5
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Post by MDG on Sept 29, 2016 11:52:52 GMT -5
I never read Marvels all the way through, but it was great to look at no doubt. I think Kingdom Come was a better story, and Ross really went after all the characters, but I've always thought his art was lacking in dynamism... Not an effective visual story teller for me... I've always felt that fully-rendered art like Ross's doesn't work as comics, especially action-oriented stories. It makes it hard to convey movement and the amount of visual information slows down the reading. It also doesn't help when speech balloons are pure white--they rip the page apart. (I think Dark Knight was the fist book to wisely, given the extended pallette, give balloons a slight grey tone.) |
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Post by brutalis on Sept 29, 2016 13:04:08 GMT -5
Marvels was the 1st time for me viewing any of Ross' artwork. While i can appreciate the skill and style he does it works best for posters and such. For Marvels his style was alright since what he was doing was essentially telling the Marvel birth from the viewpoint of the citizens of New York city. So the "ACTION" being static as a view or remembrance worked okay in that respect. Real comic book action he cannot draw at all. And his "realistic" take on some costumes works well and on others shows up the design faults of hero and villain costumes. He started the whole change from entertaining comic book designs to utilitarian reality based designs which i cannot stand for the most part. Comics are supposed to be childhood fantasy, i don't reality incringing upon my reading fun, thank you very much!
Kingdom Come while beautiful to look at and has some incredible costume designs falls flat for me as typical "fan wank" in that he is telling a story from stories he has read and giving his fanboy interpretation of what he thinks is cool. Which is great if you are doing this for yourself, but NOT OKAY when doing for a company and for other readers. This too is why Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis fails for me as it falls into fan fiction as far as i care.
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Post by Randle-El on Sept 29, 2016 13:26:00 GMT -5
And his "realistic" take on some costumes works well and on others shows up the design faults of hero and villain costumes. He started the whole change from entertaining comic book designs to utilitarian reality based designs which i cannot stand for the most part. Comics are supposed to be childhood fantasy, i don't reality incringing upon my reading fun, thank you very much! Realistic, yes. Utilitarian? I think that accusation is hard to sustain. He paints in a realistic manner, but the costumes he's painting are still the traditional spandex-based outfits. So in his artwork, he shows the folds and wrinkles in the spandex, and the costumes don't show every single rippling muscle, as if it were body paint. In that sense, I think his over-reliance on realism can be detrimental, as some of these costumes look pretty silly in anything approaching live action. But it's not as if he's dressing up Batman in a tactical, S.W.A.T. ,or military style suit of armor, which is what I consider to be a "utilitarian reality based design". |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Sept 29, 2016 13:29:30 GMT -5
I've always felt that fully-rendered art like Ross's doesn't work as comics, especially action-oriented stories. It makes it hard to convey movement and the amount of visual information slows down the reading. It also doesn't help when speech balloons are pure white--they rip the page apart. (I think Dark Knight was the fist book to wisely, given the extended pallette, give balloons a slight grey tone.) It kind of gets down to a ruling principle in drawing. The initial gesture drawing, the bare sketch of the body's movement and flow, is always going to be the most dynamic stage of the drawing. Every layer of detail built over that (form, anatomy, rendering, surface detail) is going to slow it down. Plain and simple. You can counteract that by making a much more exaggerated gesture to start with but the thing about Ross is he isn't just a painter, he's a photorealist. Photorealism isn't just painting images that look like photographs, it's painting images that look like photographs from photographs. So while he does push the gesture a little bit he's still mostly sticking to regular human poses. |
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Post by Randle-El on Sept 29, 2016 20:02:57 GMT -5
I've always felt that fully-rendered art like Ross's doesn't work as comics, especially action-oriented stories. It makes it hard to convey movement and the amount of visual information slows down the reading. It also doesn't help when speech balloons are pure white--they rip the page apart. (I think Dark Knight was the fist book to wisely, given the extended pallette, give balloons a slight grey tone.) It kind of gets down to a ruling principle in drawing. The initial gesture drawing, the bare sketch of the body's movement and flow, is always going to be the most dynamic stage of the drawing. Every layer of detail built over that (form, anatomy, rendering, surface detail) is going to slow it down. Plain and simple. You can counteract that by making a much more exaggerated gesture to start with but the thing about Ross is he isn't just a painter, he's a photorealist. Photorealism isn't just painting images that look like photographs, it's painting images that look like photographs from photographs. So while he does push the gesture a little bit he's still mostly sticking to regular human poses. Yes. Now that I think about it, in the collected editions of KC he shows his process, and he relies heavily on photo references. He basically takes a bunch of photos of models wearing costumes in the various poses, and uses those as a reference for his panels. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 29, 2016 21:32:33 GMT -5
It kind of gets down to a ruling principle in drawing. The initial gesture drawing, the bare sketch of the body's movement and flow, is always going to be the most dynamic stage of the drawing. Every layer of detail built over that (form, anatomy, rendering, surface detail) is going to slow it down. Plain and simple. You can counteract that by making a much more exaggerated gesture to start with but the thing about Ross is he isn't just a painter, he's a photorealist. Photorealism isn't just painting images that look like photographs, it's painting images that look like photographs from photographs. So while he does push the gesture a little bit he's still mostly sticking to regular human poses. Yes. Now that I think about it, in the collected editions of KC he shows his process, and he relies heavily on photo references. He basically takes a bunch of photos of models wearing costumes in the various poses, and uses those as a reference for his panels. I know that it all comes down to personal taste, but, as a rule of thumb, I like my comic art to be as realistic looking as possible (with the ultra-unrealistic conventions of superhero comics aside, natch!) That is to say that, generally, my favourite artists are not ones that have wildly stylised drawing styles. And I like detail...a lot. It's why I'm much more of a Ditko or Romita man, than a Kirby guy, when it comes to figures. As for Alex Ross's extremely photorealistic style, I can certainly understand why some might not like it, but I think it's excellent. I also think that when he needs to, Ross is amazing at showing the dynamic, kinetic power of the heroes in the story. I'm just thinking of that scene in Marvels where Phil Sheldon sees Captain America for the first time, bounding effortlessly across moving traffic. The power and sense of fluid movement that Ross packs into the drawing of Cap in that sequence is awe inspiring. So, I really have to disagree with your suggestion, crazyoldhermit, that additional detail detracts from the dynamic essence of a figure. A good artist should be able to preserve and hone their original intent in a panel, as they add detailing. As for Ross taking photos of people posing in the way he wants for a particular panel and then using those photos as a reference for what he draws on the comic page, I don't think that's that uncommon. Certainly, I know for a fact that both the late, great Al Williamson and Hergé did it too. And I consider them to be absolute masters of comic book art. |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Sept 29, 2016 22:52:02 GMT -5
So, I really have to disagree with your suggestion, crazyoldhermit , that additional detail detracts from the dynamic essence of a figure. A good artist should be able to preserve and hone their original intent in a panel, as they add detailing. It's really just the reality of figure drawing. The gesture drawing is the absolute most dynamic the drawing can be, because it's made with the fewest lines and they define lines of action along the figure. By adding layers of detail you are adding complications to the very streamlined gesture drawing, which slow down the eye and reduce the sense of movement. It's just how it works, it's how the human eye reads a picture. It's why a traced photograph looks so flat and lifeless. But of course, good artists know how to counteract this. They make gesture drawings that are much more exaggerated than the real pose would be, so that by the time they're done adding all the detail they want the finished drawing is more exciting than a traced photograph. Alex Ross is no exception. There are side-by-sides out there of his photo reference and the finished painting and it's easy to spot the differences. He just takes the model and makes everything "more." But there is still a limitation when you have such delicately rendered paintings. His penciled pages lose something when he paints over them. It's like an obfuscation. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2016 8:10:53 GMT -5
UPDATE: The more I think about it the more that I liked MARVELS better than KINGDOM COME. Originally back a page or two - I decided to remove my vote of MARVELS and left it alone and I do have the "rights" to change my mind ... so I'm voting MARVELS because the art is better than Kingdom Come. Sorry Alex Ross Fans ...
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Post by coke & comics on Oct 4, 2016 21:34:39 GMT -5
Marvels is one of my favorite comics ever. Top 5 or so. I've read it dozens of times. It's reframed how I think about the Marvel Universe and about storytelling. It served as the precursor to one of the greatest superhero series of all time, Astro City. There are several moments and scenes and images that resonate in my head years later. A mutant girl hiding the basement corner, the panels flashing back and forth between her face and the man who found her; an optimistic young girl's rapturous look at the rainbow-hued water raining down upon them in the wake of an invasion from beneath the sea; a recreation of the classic battle between Silver Surfer and Galactus.
I read Kingdom Come once a couple decades ago. Seemed like a decent enough story, I guess.
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