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Post by Reptisaurus! on May 10, 2014 15:26:13 GMT -5
Well, "making it up" is what Kirby did too, and I'm fine with that.
Which isn't to say I don't agree with your overall poitn! Miller is leagues better as a storyteller, and thinks about the whole page as a composition, where MacFarlane just drops random panels.
(Still haven't been able to bring myself to read Holy Terror, though.)
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 10, 2014 15:40:33 GMT -5
I don't think Kirby made it up as much as he just ignored the rules. I've seen enough of his artwork to know that he knew what he was doing. It was the "you have to know the rules to break them" thing.
Kirby also gets a break because of his sheer speed. McFarlane and the Image boys tripped over their deadlines so hard it was like a nuclear bomb being dropped on the direct market. Whereas "breaking the Kirby Barrier" is when an artist draws a quality book inside of a week. When you're that fast a little sloppiness can be excused.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 18:09:23 GMT -5
I think Miller makes everyone look ugly on purpose though. I actually like his art. Even in DKR (although I prefer it in black and white) and Holy Terror. I flipped through Holy Terror at Barnes and Noble and I carefully put it down and backed away slowly, never taking my eyes off it until I was out of the store. I haven't read it, just seen images from the series online. I was just at the bookstore today. They used to have a fantastic graphic novel section. It was three shelves long. One manga shelf, one Marvel and DC shelf, and one indy shelf with a ton of interesting stuff. They had the nice Complete Calvin & Hobbes, I think every Peanuts volume, neat Crumb and Spiegelman books, a lot of interesting stuff. It's been downsided to two shelves, one still manga, one still about 90% Marvel and DC, with some Walking Dead and Avatar sprinkled in. I guess the locals weren't making that third shelf worthwhile. Now that third shelf is little bathroom books. Jokes, trivia, that sort of thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 18:12:07 GMT -5
I'm thinking either DKR or an issue of DD was the first I saw of his work. I didn't read DKR when it came out but sometime in the mid to late 90s as I was buying a lot of Batman, first getting into comics. I think the DD issue was bought in attempt to get Starlin's DD issues. I never like DKR art but at that time being new in comics I thought the story was great. I feel the same about Sin City. I don't think his people look any less "monsterous" than McFarlane. I liked his Hulk but his Bruce was a character better for an actually funny book than superhero. Millers are too extreme too and they all look like hardened and ugly. Even his gals. Of which McFarlane is no good at either. It's the lesser of two evils and really hope that never becomes a real life choice. The thing with Miller vs McFarlane is that Miller knows how to draw and McFarlane doesn't. Both are very stylized but if you don't know how to draw then you can't stylize as effectively. Knowing how to draw something is a matter of understanding it. When McFarlane draws figures he makes up a lot of the anatomy. He wants to draw a hyper muscular look but he doesn't understand the anatomy so he has to fake it and it detracts from the work. Whereas Miller's intense chiaroscuro work in Sin City reveals his draftsmanship, as doing that heavy lighting is impossible if you don't understand the forms. As far as aesthetic goes, Miller has had this to say: It can be ugly at times but its power is never diminished. One of the most interesting things about Miller's work is the inking. There are three maker inkers in his career: Klaus Janson, inker on Daredevil and Dark Knight, Joe Rubinstein, inker on Wolverine and himself. Janson used a very energetic and almost chaotic line, while Rubinstein went for a much more conventional approach. The weirdest thing is that Miller inks himself with a very dead line with little line variance. I wonder how Daredevil, Wolverine and Dark Knight would have looked if he had inked himself with that dead line, as his self-inked work is usually the stuff that is most often referred to as ugly. I don't like the practice of multiple illustration duties passed out to multiple people. There's no reason for an accomplished artist to pass a page along to be inked by someone else. None at all. it's one of my least favorite practices in mainstream comics. I universally like comics where one illustrator is responsible start to finish, and most often when that illustrator is the writer as well.
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on May 10, 2014 20:45:27 GMT -5
McFarlane had a way of making people look a bit odd but it worked. I like his work in general, especially on ASM and Spawn. Liefeld took that and added muscles on muscles on muscles. He also cannot draw feet to save his life (seriously, take a look they ALWAYS look screwy). And if you invent or are part of creating a character like this, you are bottom of the barrel for me. Attachment Deleted
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 11, 2014 2:35:56 GMT -5
I don't like the practice of multiple illustration duties passed out to multiple people. There's no reason for an accomplished artist to pass a page along to be inked by someone else. None at all. it's one of my least favorite practices in mainstream comics. I universally like comics where one illustrator is responsible start to finish, and most often when that illustrator is the writer as well. I know what you mean. I know I would feel uncomfortable passing my artwork along to someone else to be finished. I think there is one very good reason and that is time. But artistically I don't get it. If a penciller doesn't ink himself then none of his actual work makes it to the page.
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Post by Ozymandias on May 11, 2014 3:21:39 GMT -5
I don't like the practice of multiple illustration duties passed out to multiple people. There's no reason for an accomplished artist to pass a page along to be inked by someone else. None at all. it's one of my least favorite practices in mainstream comics. I universally like comics where one illustrator is responsible start to finish, and most often when that illustrator is the writer as well. I know what you mean. I know I would feel uncomfortable passing my artwork along to someone else to be finished. I think there is one very good reason and that is time. But artistically I don't get it. If a penciller doesn't ink himself then none of his actual work makes it to the page. But the money makes it to their bank account.
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 11, 2014 3:41:09 GMT -5
Thats true, but if they ink their own work they get more money in their bank account AND their hard work makes it on the printed page.
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Post by the4thpip on May 11, 2014 3:45:17 GMT -5
Fun spoof by Grant Morrison and Mike Mignola:
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Post by Ozymandias on May 11, 2014 3:47:54 GMT -5
Thats true, but if they ink their own work they get more money in their bank account AND their hard work makes it on the printed page. That depends on much, and how fast, they make money in pencils and inks. I'd like to think they can at least do that math.
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Post by the4thpip on May 11, 2014 4:00:46 GMT -5
Thats true, but if they ink their own work they get more money in their bank account AND their hard work makes it on the printed page. That depends on much, and how fast, they make money in pencils and inks. I'd like to think they can at least do that math. Some of the art published today doesn't get inked at all. The artist does "finished pencils" and then they digitally color those. Here is an example by the lovely Dale Eaglesham:
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Post by Ozymandias on May 11, 2014 4:30:48 GMT -5
That depends on much, and how fast, they make money in pencils and inks. I'd like to think they can at least do that math. Some of the art published today doesn't get inked at all. The artist does "finished pencils" and then they digitally color those. True. If I'm not mistaken they started that trend with X-Treme X-Men #1. Didn't like Larroca's art there, and while I prefer Eaglesham's in the page you post, I'm still not totally sold on the technique. I don't see any reason why, this couldn't end being the way things get done, but we aren't there yet.
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Post by the4thpip on May 11, 2014 4:51:58 GMT -5
I think there were some examples of that even in the pre-digital age: Colan's Nathaniel Dusk at DC comes to mind.
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Post by Ozymandias on May 11, 2014 5:27:18 GMT -5
Maybe, but was that ever intended as a trend?
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Post by Icctrombone on May 11, 2014 5:37:07 GMT -5
McFarlane had a way of making people look a bit odd but it worked. I like his work in general, especially on ASM and Spawn. Liefeld took that and added muscles on muscles on muscles. He also cannot draw feet to save his life (seriously, take a look they ALWAYS look screwy). And if you invent or are part of creating a character like this, you are bottom of the barrel for me. I think that picture is from a Savage Dragon comic. Erik Larsen Artwork.
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