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Post by tonebone on Mar 29, 2023 8:17:28 GMT -5
I wonder if some of that difference between Williamson and the others was due to a difference in ability. To my untrained eye, Williamson's work in general looks more accomplished and skillful than that of most comics artists from later generations. Of course he was working in a more realistic style too than most, so maybe that was part of it too.
I would not say there's a difference in ability (as in superiority), since Williamson's non-photo referenced characters (if we're talking about Star Wars) bore little resemblance to the actors, so he was as off-model as anyone else who illustrated anything based on the movies. Yep. And you can tell, in all his adaptations, when he "hits" a photo reference, and the likenesses are dead-on. It's the same with Star Wars, Blade Runner, Flash Gordon, etc. I'm even wondering if the likeness rights are different when the artist is drawing directly from a movie still... I mean, Lucasfilm certainly had the likeness rights for photos from the movie... But maybe not for original poses. So when you see Han Solo in the Empire adaptation, he's completely Harrison Ford... but only when drawn from the photos (as you said). I do know that the original lines of Kenner action figures did NOT have likeness rights for any of the characters' faces. That only came later with subsequent figure lines, in the 90's, and it was a big deal. So they were paying the actors for their likeness, and sculpting figures of what they looked like 20 years earlier... which is weird.
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Post by MDG on Mar 29, 2023 9:07:30 GMT -5
I'm a huge Williamson fan, but there seemed to be an over-reliance on photo reference during his last years on Corrigan. I think his return to comic books let him loosen up a little. (I kind've think he was wasted on movie adaptations)
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 29, 2023 12:00:04 GMT -5
As others have said, Al Williamson often drew the central cast in the Star Wars comic to look like the movie actors, and for my money his work on the series came hands down the closest to actually looking like the movies (but then I am a HUGE Williamson fan and really can't be terribly objective about his work). But one thing I do know is that Williamson always used plenty of photo references in everything he worked on, most of the time using his family and friends to pose for the photographs that he himself took. And, as kirby101 says, using photo reference as a tool is pretty common among comic artists and doesn't necessarily allow those artists to create likenesses as accurate as Williamson did. One thing I do know though is that when editor Louise Jones (later Louise Simonson) came onboard Marvel's Star Wars comic in 1981, she wanted the artists to try to make the comic more visually faithful to the movies in general, and that's why you get randon panels like this one below from Star Wars #47, in which Gene Day touches up Luke's face over Carmine Infantino's pencils in order to make him look more like Mark Hamill... That said, despite Jones' insistance that the SW comic should more closely copy the look of the movies, this kind of thing only happened in random panels and pretty infrequently. Most of the time, the likes of Walt Simonson or Ron Frenz just drew rough approximations of the actors' faces; I mean, you definitely knew who the characters were meant to be, but they never really looked all that much like the actors. So, I've never been entirely sure what the legal status of Marvel being able to use the likenesses of Ford, Hammill, Fisher etc in their Star Wars comic really was.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 29, 2023 13:50:43 GMT -5
I would not say there's a difference in ability (as in superiority), since Williamson's non-photo referenced characters (if we're talking about Star Wars) bore little resemblance to the actors, so he was as off-model as anyone else who illustrated anything based on the movies. Yep. And you can tell, in all his adaptations, when he "hits" a photo reference, and the likenesses are dead-on. It's the same with Star Wars, Blade Runner, Flash Gordon, etc. I'm even wondering if the likeness rights are different when the artist is drawing directly from a movie still... I mean, Lucasfilm certainly had the likeness rights for photos from the movie... But maybe not for original poses. So when you see Han Solo in the Empire adaptation, he's completely Harrison Ford... but only when drawn from the photos (as you said).I do know that the original lines of Kenner action figures did NOT have likeness rights for any of the characters' faces. That only came later with subsequent figure lines, in the 90's, and it was a big deal. So they were paying the actors for their likeness, and sculpting figures of what they looked like 20 years earlier... which is weird. Generally, that's not the way likeness rights work. Unless you have a rookie lawyer, who grants rights in very broad terms, the contracts are usually specific about what purpose the likeness may be used. Williamson, apart from the newspaper strip, worked on the film adaptations and Marvel likely had a license that allowed them to reproduce the likeness of the actors, as they appeared in the film, regardless of the source material the artist is using, for reference. In a license situation, in general, the client will usually dictate a look, either with something like a style guide, like the DC one developed by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez (PBHN), or the artist/vendor will provide a proof/mock-up for approval. As far as the regular series, I suspect (but don't know for fact) that they had the right to do new stories, using the characters, subject to Lucasfilm's approval, including the basic model for the character, which would then be a general approximation of the actor, rather than their specific, individual features. Beyond that, you then have the skill of the artist to reproduce a credible likeness, within the timeframe they have available. Looking at the newspaper strips that Williamson did, the likenesses are a closer approximation than an Infantino or Simonson; but, they aren't as specific as the movie adaptations. Certain panels may have a stronger approximation of the actor than others. I doubt they had likeness rights for that, plus, their deadlines would have been tighter (part of why Williamson did the adaptations and not the regular series).
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 29, 2023 15:01:32 GMT -5
Speaking of Simonson. While not perfect portraits, he did a good job of capturing the likenesses of the actors in his Alien adaptation.
The only one he was consistently off with was Ian Holm.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 29, 2023 15:09:47 GMT -5
Speaking of Simonson. While not perfect portraits, he did a good job of capturing the likenesses of the actors in his Alien adaptation. (...)
The only one he was consistently off with was Ian Holm.
Goodwin & Simonson's Alien adaptation is fantastic. Even if Simonson hadn't been able to capture the likenesses, I don't think it would have mattered, since the whole thing reads so much like it's own thing and not just a simple movie adaptation.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 29, 2023 17:00:48 GMT -5
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Mar 29, 2023 18:20:59 GMT -5
Speaking of Simonson. While not perfect portraits, he did a good job of capturing the likenesses of the actors in his Alien adaptation. (...)
The only one he was consistently off with was Ian Holm.
Goodwin & Simonson's Alien adaptation is fantastic. Even if Simonson hadn't been able to capture the likenesses, I don't think it would have mattered, since the whole thing reads so much like it's own thing and not just a simple movie adaptation. Count me as another big fan of the Goodwin/Simonson adaptation of Alien. It really is excellent. It's a pretty faithful adaptation of the film, which manages to retain the suspense, creepiness, and claustrophobic horror present on the scroon (not necessarily an easy task). One slight criticism would be that it's a fairly quick read, but it's certainly not lightweight; it carries the gravity and sinister mood of the film extremely well.
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 29, 2023 23:38:29 GMT -5
Speaking of Simonson. While not perfect portraits, he did a good job of capturing the likenesses of the actors in his Alien adaptation.
The only one he was consistently off with was Ian Holm.
George Perez--or rather Marvel--did not have likeness rights in their adaptation of 1976's Logan's Run, but Perez still captured the essence of the film's characters (and everything else), despite his "superhero-ing" of the actor's physiques:
Other artists, such as Alberto Giolittii, used random photo references--seen below (right) in his Gold Key adaptation of Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), yet still avoided the appearance of tracing as his style made the book his own:
When his own creative direction shaped the book, it mixed his distinctive style with the heart of the film in key scenes (despite an editorial change to the fate of certain characters):
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 30, 2023 2:39:33 GMT -5
George Perez--or rather Marvel--did not have likeness rights in their adaptation of 1976's Logan's Run, but Perez still captured the essence of the film's characters (and everything else), despite his "superhero-ing" of the actor's physiques: (...)
The Logan's Run comic - specifically the issues based on the movie - is another instance of an adaptation transcending its purpose. If I'm being honest, I'd say it's actually better than the movie, even if I like the movie in all of its campy glory. I like it so much that I had my copies of the entire Marvel series bound.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 30, 2023 7:55:45 GMT -5
I was also a fan of the Logan's Run book. superb early Perez art. It made me seek out and read the original novel, which was far superior to the movie. Though the novel did not have a nude Jenny Agutter. Giolitti is underappreciated these days, probably because most of his work was for Gold Key.
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Post by tonebone on Mar 30, 2023 8:14:44 GMT -5
George Perez--or rather Marvel--did not have likeness rights in their adaptation of 1976's Logan's Run, but Perez still captured the essence of the film's characters (and everything else), despite his "superhero-ing" of the actor's physiques: (...)
The Logan's Run comic - specifically the issues based on the movie - is another instance of an adaptation transcending its purpose. If I'm being honest, I'd say it's actually better than the movie, even if I like the movie in all of its campy glory. I like it so much that I had my copies of the entire Marvel series bound. I am trying to work up the nerve to self-bind my collection of Logan's Run. I have done one binding, but it was a series I didn't care about, as practice.
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Post by impulse on Mar 30, 2023 8:18:13 GMT -5
It amazes me how breathtaking raw penciled pages or pencils and ink only can look, and not for the first time, I'm both amazed and disappointed at how much is lost in the conversion to color so many times, particularly before printing and coloring techniques got more advanced.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 30, 2023 8:44:25 GMT -5
As a collector of these Artist Edition books, I agree with you impulse, there is so much power and beauty in the original art. Some artist suffer more than others. Kirby original art looks great, but it lends itself to the printed comic page (something Kirby was probably well aware of). But there are artist like Dave Stevens, Mark Schultz, Al Williamson and especially Bernie Wrightson, whose art cannot be really appreciated without seeing it in the original art format. Here is an astonishing page from Swampthing. But look at in in the original art.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 30, 2023 8:54:26 GMT -5
It amazes me how breathtaking raw penciled pages or pencils and ink only can look, and not for the first time, I'm both amazed and disappointed at how much is lost in the conversion to color so many times, particularly before printing and coloring techniques got more advanced. That's why I love collecting the Essential and Showcase Presents books, even those containing stories I already have either in the original floppies or in Masterworks/Archives format. You really can't appreciate the beauty of some artists' work (like Gene Colan, Russ Heath, Bruno Premiani, et al) until you can view them unobscured by crappy Silver Age coloring.
Cei-U! I summon this artist's appreciative eye!
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