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What's happened with comic book art?
10 years ago
For 25 years, I collected comics very regularly - mostly DC with some Marvel, Dark Horse and others in there. Due to financial concerns and not caring for the turn DC was taking with their New 52 marketing plan, I stopped buying for a couple of years. I returned to the comic store for the first time after finding out Marvel was publishing a series based on the Epcot Center purple dragon character, Figment, and picked up some other comics that had come out in the past couple of years that I found interesting. Once Figment was over, I stopped going to the comic store but would check the graphic novels section at Barnes and Noble where I was making frequent visits at the time.
Last week, I went back to B&N after not stopping in for a few months. A few things kinda piqued my interest but since Geoff Johns stopped working on Aquaman and Green Lantern, I haven't been interested in them, haven't care for the new Superman and have been confused by whatever's up with Batman when I try to peek through those books. I was curious about a series that should have been what I once considered a major event type story. I picked up the book and thumbed through the story only to put the book back down and walk away to check out the science fiction/fantasy section instead.
It might be pretty shallow of me but I tend to look first at a new comic book's art, especially when it's a pricey hardcover. If I'm going to spend the scratch publishers are asking for books these days, then I want to be able to understand the story visually first without reading a word. The art in this particular book (and a few others I looked at that day) seemed unfinished or too hastily pencilled and minimally inked, perhaps even the raw pencils scanned and "digitally inked" by messing with contrast and gamma settings. However it was done, the art felt like an incomprehensible muddle and without blobs of color, I couldn't tell who was who. It didn't help that the story supposedly involved similar characters from alternate timelines or other universes.
I understand that a lot of comic book publishers are trying new avenues to pull in new readers. I'm not against that at all but trying some of these new art styles isn't pulling me back into comics. For the record, I have been open to new and unique art styles before. Among the store I shopped at back in the day when Grand Morrison and Dave McKean's (artist on Vertigo's Sandman series) Arkham Asylum graphic novel first came out, I was seemingly the only one that appreciated the genius of the art in the story, though it took a few read throughs to understand all of what was going on. I was also one of the few to pick up the Batman: Digital Justice book back when art on computers was considered an oddity at best.
But some of the styles being published these days, particularly by Marvel, I find rather repulsive and stories I might otherwise look into, I don't because I just can't get past how nasty the art looks and how hard that makes it to read the story. It's as if, like cartoons these days, comic book publishers are out to win some kind of most atrocious abomination committed to print (or video or web) award. Sorry guys, especially DC whom I used to follow practically religiously, you're going to have to do better if you want my thirty-ish dollars for that book. Oh well, time to take my money and buy the Blacksad book currently missing from my collection instead. Now I know that'll have good artwork in it.
Last week, I went back to B&N after not stopping in for a few months. A few things kinda piqued my interest but since Geoff Johns stopped working on Aquaman and Green Lantern, I haven't been interested in them, haven't care for the new Superman and have been confused by whatever's up with Batman when I try to peek through those books. I was curious about a series that should have been what I once considered a major event type story. I picked up the book and thumbed through the story only to put the book back down and walk away to check out the science fiction/fantasy section instead.
It might be pretty shallow of me but I tend to look first at a new comic book's art, especially when it's a pricey hardcover. If I'm going to spend the scratch publishers are asking for books these days, then I want to be able to understand the story visually first without reading a word. The art in this particular book (and a few others I looked at that day) seemed unfinished or too hastily pencilled and minimally inked, perhaps even the raw pencils scanned and "digitally inked" by messing with contrast and gamma settings. However it was done, the art felt like an incomprehensible muddle and without blobs of color, I couldn't tell who was who. It didn't help that the story supposedly involved similar characters from alternate timelines or other universes.
I understand that a lot of comic book publishers are trying new avenues to pull in new readers. I'm not against that at all but trying some of these new art styles isn't pulling me back into comics. For the record, I have been open to new and unique art styles before. Among the store I shopped at back in the day when Grand Morrison and Dave McKean's (artist on Vertigo's Sandman series) Arkham Asylum graphic novel first came out, I was seemingly the only one that appreciated the genius of the art in the story, though it took a few read throughs to understand all of what was going on. I was also one of the few to pick up the Batman: Digital Justice book back when art on computers was considered an oddity at best.
But some of the styles being published these days, particularly by Marvel, I find rather repulsive and stories I might otherwise look into, I don't because I just can't get past how nasty the art looks and how hard that makes it to read the story. It's as if, like cartoons these days, comic book publishers are out to win some kind of most atrocious abomination committed to print (or video or web) award. Sorry guys, especially DC whom I used to follow practically religiously, you're going to have to do better if you want my thirty-ish dollars for that book. Oh well, time to take my money and buy the Blacksad book currently missing from my collection instead. Now I know that'll have good artwork in it.
it was a "nerd hobby", but it gained media attraction and became the "in-thing". Due to this popularity, people who knew NOTHING of the medium suddenly gain power and sway over the situation.
Censorship issues, "equality' crap, political agendas that have no place in the realm of fantasy where a guy gets bit by a radio active spider then fights crime.
Filter and strain it through the years and the only thing the "media" permits is tumblr artists who are terrible, but think and are told they are great, making random fat unattractive characters, who are painful to look at, center stage. banter becomes talks of "gender equality" and other innane bullshit. it isn't even "so bad it's good", it's just a flat insult with no punchline.
One of the most recent situations that got shit on was a comic book cover of Barbra Gordon as batgirl, tied up in a chair by the Joker. You know, because the Joker is a BADGUY and the cover was to convey that batgirl would run into trouble in the book.
Oh that was "simply too much for the triggered tumblr tards". Commence backlash from shitloads of people WHO WOULD NEVER BUY THE BOOKS ANYWAY, and the cover was changed to batman/robin tied to the chair, despite them not showing up in the book.
Spoiler: the book sold like shit after the change, partly because of "false advertising".
It's all due to catering to a crowd who never impacted the scene in the first place beyond the media circus.
In conclusion, I miss Sandman Mystery Theater, and also hate transitional periods because people on the edge of categories chatter on about how new things are Evil and Scary because they have to see that, yeah, the assumptions of everyone being white and West European were unfounded in reality.
Comics have generally been pretty variable (and prone to swiping, as I learned) and that is just the nature of the beast. (See the Yellow Kid controversy and the Yellow Journalism that emerged there from.) Oh and you ought to read Mister Kitty's Stupid Comics. If you love comics at all it's important to laugh at the drek that emerges from the industry.
I'm afraid my collection doesn't go as far back as the Yellow Kid but I do know of him and a few other older characters. I'm also well aware of the less than stellar examples of ideas that comic publishers can put into print from the independents to the mistakes made by Marvel and DC. Chances are I even own a few of them.
Personally, I LIKE the variable styles comic have these days. No, they aren't all great...but they never were. The thing is, artists with different styles are finally getting a chance to take on mainstream comics/subjects -- those styles have always been there, but now people are finally noticing them (and some people are enjoying them!). I may not like the art, but I appreciate the effort the artist put into it...if that makes any sense? I *do* tend to judge art more harshly than story, probably because I've been an artist as long as I have.
If you don't mind sharing (feel free to PM if you don't want to knock the artists publicly), what kind of styles are a big turn-off for you? I haven't found anything that makes me gag outright, but then, I tend to stick to titles, series, and artists/writers I'm already familiar with. Double-edged sword there: usually enjoy what I already like, of course, but missing out on new and interesting things.
Comics I've enjoyed recently that you can find at your local comic shop: The Midas Flesh, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Empowered (I'm only 2 books in, though...it's way cuter than I thought it would be...lots of, uh, eye candy though, but I swear there's story there *blush*), Rat Queens, and Wayward (Jim Zub's current non-Disney project). I've heard great things about Lumberjanes but I haven't picked it up yet, and I've passively combed through the new Harley Quinn series and it's pretty decent.
I'm not against variable styles but when those styles hamper the story telling process and makes it difficult to understand what's going on, then it takes me out of enjoying the story and reduces it to a visual mystery to be figured out in a story that usually isn't a mystery. Much of what I don't like looks to be hastily scribbled just to put out a quantity of product than a quality product. Though I've been an artist, I tend to be really easy-going, liking other things people generally don't, like the Star Wars prequels or Star Trek The Motion Picture and Star Trek V.
Examples of the styles I don't like can be found in many of the Marvel Now titles, especially Rocket Raccoon and Ghost Rider, both concepts that I would normally enjoy looking into but I can't get past how much the artwork turned me off trying see if I'd like the story. In the specific instance I was bringing up in the journal, it was the DC series, Convergence - all mainstream titles I know (or as mainstream as comics get) but I wasn't collecting much in the area of independents towards the end of my comic collecting days as it was after Diamond Distribution quashed the small press guys nearly out of business.
Have you ever thought of trying your skill-set at duplicating a scene or panel for the various comics you like? Or drawing int he different styles for different eras, your characters? Shrivel came to mind with all the dried mummification and his victims, like it was something fro Tales fro the Crypt type horror.