Craft in Comics part 1.75
by Frank Santoro
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Hey everyone. I’m going through my notes on the panel (“Craft in Comics” with Jaime Hernandez, Jim Rugg, and myself), and honestly, they don’t capture the feelings I had about the panel, or how I feel about it a week-and-a-half later.
I guess the thing that resonated most with people is my rant about Alex Ross, and I just don’t feel like turning my recollections about this wonderful panel I was on into a bitch-fest about Ross, but … ah fuck it: It’s not just Ross, it’s this culture of photo-referencing in comics that grinds my gears. It’s true, I hate Ross’s work. He’s got great technical ability, but big deal. Why is copying the nuances of a photograph such an achievement? That’s not drawing! He’s the worst example for a young artist to have, the worst role model. No one has done more harm to the form than Ross. It’s not comics he makes. It’s fumetti. There are no real panel-to-panel transitions as there are in “pure cartooning”; he’s just putting photograph next to photograph in a way that some find pleasing. But it’s not comics.
His original sketches for his pages—which I’ve seen in person—are lively drawings that capture the energy and action of the figures. I remember thinking then, “Why doesn’t he just work those up into full drawings?” Instead, he’ll literally dress models up in a costume and take pictures of them dressed as Galactus or Batman. But that’s not Galactus, that’s some guy standing on a washer and dryer in a basement. How do I know? Cuz Ross and guys like P. Craig Russell love to publish those photos for some reason.
There was a Conan book recently that I was flipped through and I could immediately see that it was referenced, because the referencing takes over. Did John Buscema or Barry Smith let their references take over their style? No, they were original enough, wise enough, to incorporate the references, to subsume them into their overall style. P. Craig Russell most often does the same, he’s good enough to really USE the reference, but I always wonder why? Why bother? It distracts me as a reader, it ruptures the balance of his drawings, his lines, because it’s clear that the drawing is from a photo. It sends the other drawings on the page that are not referenced into high relief. Photos flatten the perspective, the shape of the body, the sense of depth. And worst of all it’s not Conan! Or Galactus. My suspension of disbelief is shattered at the moments I realize a photo is being used, and then that break is re-enforced when I see the photo that the artist was using, which they’ll often proudly display like a trophy! Do they think that should be applauded? It’s maddening!! When Kirby drew Galactus it WAS Galactus. Real. Manifest. Not some schlub in his underwear playing dress-up.
Think of Alex Toth. As far as I know he only occasionally lifted a photo straight. Like Neal Adams, he’d draw from it and then integrate it into his style so that it wasn’t so jarring. These days that concern seems archaic. The more photo-realistic the better. And on top of that, look close at the more recent vintage of photo-referenced comics. Generally each photo has the same focal length. You can really imagine the “actors” sitting there on their couches, at their kitchen tables, in the car. It’s so LAZY!! Point and shoot, ah, that panel’s done, next! “Honey, will you stand over there by the window and look off in the distance? I need to nail this Catwoman drawing.”
** More soon—also I’m not responding to comments on this one. On this subject, I have patience only to be dogmatic.
*** Photo-referencing isn’t just a problem in mainstream comics either, by the way. Those guys are just easy targets.
PREVIOUSLY: Part one and Part 1.5
NEXT: Part 2.0
Labels: Alex Ross, Alex Toth, Barry Windsor-Smith, Frank Santoro, Heroes Con, Jack Kirby, Jaime Hernandez, Jim Rugg, John Buscema, P. Craig Russell, photo-referencing
A note:
I don’t think Frank is saying Ross is destroying comics — just that the work is, in his view, a detrimental influence. It’s easy to attack a rhetorical stance, but more interesting to look at what is it about this kind of work that (a) resonates or (b) works or doesn’t work as comics. And then also interesting to discuss the diverse formal strategies available when drawing comics.
If you wanted to discuss craft pre Image/spec-boom/post boom, then this might lead to better over-all discussion of the issues of craft vs taste. Which is what this discussion is all about. There is a very big difference in the way current comics are done, processed and enjoyed before the Walled City arose and people on both sides to the table were more effected by money, and the effect big money had on taste or the taste of people left after the wall fell.
I know for me, as a professional this is really true, and as a fan of the medium, just as true.
i think the ‘uncanny valley’
http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Uncanny_valley
theory helps describe the reasons why i have trouble maintaining my suspension of disbelief when reading a heavy photo referenced comic like ross’ stuff. if you replace robots with batman.
The interesting thing about both the Image/Boom style as well as the Ross/Photo style is that they both evolved out of Neal Adams.
With the Image/Boom approach the artists took rendering, particularly hatching to fetishist levels at the expense of clear storytelling and respectible anatonmy/figure drawing.
Ross and his followers were a reaction to this, an attempt to bring the look and feel of the stories back towards a new and more humble “realism”. In this case they employed either paints or heavy shadowing.
Both style have arrived at a considerable loss to the tradtions that preceded them. But hey, they wouldn’t be around if somebody didn’t like them.
I can’t believe nobody remembered the uncanny valley for over 50 comments. It is worth running the abstract from wikipedia. Read the Full entry. That does go a long way towards explaining the apparent revulsion factor here
“The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost, but not entirely, like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The “valley” in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s lifelikeness. It was introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970, and has been linked to Ernst Jentsch’s concept of “the uncanny” identified in a 1906 essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny.” Jentsch’s conception is famously elaborated upon by Sigmund Freud in a 1919 essay, simply entitled “The Uncanny” (“Das Unheimliche”). A similar problem exists in realistic 3D computer animation, such as with the film The Polar Express[1] and Beowulf (2007 film).”
A writer in The Comics Journal once stated that NOBODY liked Eightball AND Spawn. Well, back in the early ‘90s, when that was written, I was Mister Nobody. Sure, I liked Eightball more, but I still liked Spawn. I don’t just eat one kind of food either.
I really like the work of cartoonists such as Jim Woodring, Al Columbia, Dave Cooper, Chris Ware, and Joe Matt. But I’m also a fan of Michael Golden, Art Adams, Adam Hughes, Travis Charest and Alan Davis. To me the first group mostly draw INTERNAL stories, while the second (of which Alex Ross is a part) draw mostly EXTERNAL stories. The reason photo reference is not used by the first group is because you can’t take a photo of an internal “emotional” landscape, but you can take a photo of an external “objective” one. They are two different camps in one medium, and I’m glad both exist, and I’m particularly excited when there an artist who can combine both in a single story.
But getting back to topic, I think Ross has raised the bar in terms of draftsmanship (and shouldn’t be compared to people like Greg Land who copy photos from magazines) and is in no way lazy. The problem is that most other mainstream comics artists, working on a deadline, either don’t have the dedication, the time, or the talent to do what Ross does, so we get poorly conceived “realistic” art. One thing Ross is not is a copy of some other artist, as say Liefeld was a copy of Art Adams who was a copy of Michel Golden (not Neil Adams at all!). There may have been other “realistic” comic artist before Ross, but no one that did what he does.
The problem for me personally is that there seems to be too much emphasis placed on draftsmanship and not nearly enough on storytelling. And by storytelling I don’t just mean panel composition (the “widescreen” one-panel-per-tier seems to work well for photorealistic art), but the emotions of the characters, and the most neglected part of mainstream comics: how the characters interact with their own dialogue balloons. We are at an all-time low-point in comic lettering, and it was never very good to begin with.
Also for me, the more superheroes are made to seem realistic, or are put into a realistic world, the less realistic they seem. Alex Ross’ Superman to me is just a guy in spandex, but Frank Quitely’s Superman is a freakin’ god. That comes down to how the character interacts with his world and how the world compliments him.
And as far as I know there is no uncanny valley level of “realism” in comics, except maybe the few that are made using 3D computer models. The uncanny valley is as much concerned with motion as it is with looks, and in comics there is no motion. I’m not freaked out be realistic looking manikins in a department store, but would be if they moved and tried to talk to me.
Alex Ross is destroying comics ! Yeah…whatever. I love Alex’s work…I really like seeing my favorite heroes in each frame as if they had been photographed. If you dont like the style you dont have to read it. I hardly think his work is destroying the quality of comics as a whole. Not everyone loves the artsy fartsy drawing….I personally have difficulty staying with a title when the art is just to artsy. Actually your whole rant comes off as slightly elitist in my opinion. Anyway….lets all just enjoy the comics and be glad that we have eyes that allow us to see and love (or hate) the artwork.
I think after more than one person chimes in with “well you don’t have to read it” it’s well time for an admin to step in with some comments about stated purpose. Since they have yet to, I’ll take that liberty.
Simply put, Comics Comics is not elitist by virtue of the fact that it is open to absolutely anyone to comment. It is not a filtered news organ of a media corporation and it is not a private board for comic professionals (who do make up the admins and most of the commentators). As the interests of these people to the content and presentation of comics goes well beyond if it is something they might enjoy reading, to cover issues of the art and craft of creating comics, the business of publishing and distribution, and the perception of it by readers and colleagues and the general public, I think a little respect is due towards the nature of this forum. This is a special thing, and I would like to see it continue.
Just three more things.
I think we all need to salute Frank Santoro for promoting a heroic ideal of the cartoonist in a model not dissimilar to Kirk Douglas in Lust For Life and the two-fisted hard drinking New York artists of the 1950s. Cartoonists could definitely deal with a little image reform in that direction.
There has been little discussion or acknowledgement here of other uses of photo reference to the artist. Granted, sometimes it is still due to laziness, but often it is necessitated by circumstance that–lacking a proper model, mirror or convenient setting–the photo is of great use for referencing contour (posture, whatever), expression and environment (OK, backgrounds, if you like). Say you need your story to take place on a WWII submarine…
Public perception, or more specifically, the potential damage done by first contact with this particular work to a potential comics reader or more importantly a potential cartoonist, is a point that Frank made that got far too little play in the comments. It deeply disturbs me that Randy had the experience he had at SVA. He was apparently there much later that I was, and I’m really, really sorry anyone ever encountered that sort of garbage in a dearly paid for private education. I was lucky to have Harvey Kurtzman and Joe Orlando (among many other greats) while there. I can just imagine their disgust at that sort of garbage. Kurtzman was possibly the greatest advocate of research, reference and accuracy that there has ever been in comics, but none of that ever would have translated into this weird hyperreal-but-not gloss that Ross promotes.
In this age of manga-dominance, especially among younger readers and artists, it is unlikely that Alex Ross would be the point of first contact. I suspect it is more likely that his books may be this generation’s “Drawing Comics the Marvel Way”, probably given to an aspiring artist as a present by a well-meaning aunt.
You are brave plus you are right!
Ross’ looser sketches are way better and more alive than the finished results.
Did you add Greg Horn to your list? The guy just puts costumes on centerfold pics!
Good luck in your battle against the Baby-men and let’s keep comics rock ‘n roll and not art rock!
Ok, my 25¢ is this, Modern comics characters don’t act, they pose.
next time you go into a shop, stand back about 3-4 feet and scan the covers and you’ll see most covers have the characters standing in a cool, pose, voguing if you will. Or a big face.
I don’t care what style, this is almost universal. How many faces in half shadow, dark grim, etc. This is serious man, this is hard core, not you daddies Punisher. To me, Gorlon Parlov is way more interesting that the over artist on those books. But I bet the average fan would prefer it was the same type of art inside. Parlov’s characters act, the are exaggerated, I like him almost as much a Jordi Bernet on Hex. talk about having it all, acting, storytelling, great drawing and cartooning, a vibrant line.
but the average fan would say–’Feeh, too cartoon like.”
This ‘realistic’ wave is the ‘default” approach now for the most part. Now dial back 20 years and look at the covers, very different, a lot more action, a lot more variety, and the cover was a tease, the characters in a battle or dieing, being defeated, often an imaginary scene that doesn’t happen in the story (often to my regret as a young reader). Go back further and in the mainstream compare the covers by the cover kinds Kane, Buscema, Cardy, Adams and Kirby, the classic run of covers by Romita Sr., Kirby’s run on the FF. Sure, easy to pick the best stuff, but the covers had more variety and told or teased the story more, they were not stock poses of people standing. These characters acted and were exaggerated. Now, so often the cover is just a pastiche of figures standing, muscles flexed, and the image relates nothing to the story inside of the book.
Also go back that far and a wider variety of readers read comics than do now.
John Romita Jr.s characters act, Buscema too. Adams was the first artist to do art that had the ‘cool shot”. His comics were full of these cool shots. His covers were better than his comics. look at the great run of covers on a series like House of Mystery, many laid out by Orlando ideas I think.
Now Adams used photos, and like Williamson he shot and posed them himself, so the photos were of him or the model ‘acting”.
There is nothing that is a cheat about using a photo, just like there is no cheat to using a model in a life class, the point is to get the info you need. now some artists might be stiff, or bad actors, or cheesey like Shatner. that is not a crime and in no way ruins the medium. Having an editorial edict to draw in a poor style made popular by a certain artist because it sells, does more to hurt the main stream medium than using a polaroid camera and a Art-o-graph.
In no way is Ross’s work going to be a basic primer like “How to draw Comics the Marvel Way. It’s too complex and idiosyncratic a way to work, advanced way beyond the novice or hobbyist-fan.I think his work appeals to a certain type of fan, just like animae does.
I don’t know how much it has to do with Ross (I mainly avoid any superhero stuff made after ’87 ie. ‘dark age’ and all that Image garbage), but I’ve noticed the ‘widescreen’ trend in layouts – obviously to emphasise their potential as film/game franchises. They also seem to ‘cast’ well-known characters to look like movie stars. Is this Quesada’s corporate policy now? For artists to work with one eye on movies games and TV?
The overuse of photoshop mimics cgi fx too – all those blurry clouds, explosions etc!
I’ve read some of Ross’ stuff – I’m neutral on the art because I’m distracted by the terrible stories – didn’t Ross ‘cast’ his own dad as the Spectre’s pal or something? As the Christian concsience of the story? Pass the sick bag… and yeah, his ‘realism’ just makes Spider-man, Captain Marvel etc. look like bad 70s TV versions of them (he couldn’t put a candle to the wonderful Lynda carter though)
Oh, and I’ve noticed that Howard Chaykin is starting to get kudos from people who’s opinion I usualy respect. BUT CHAYKIN EMBODIES EVERYTHING NOW WRONG WITH MAINSTREAM COMICS. Blur your eyes slightly and the page looks like Xmas wrapping paper. Posing not acting. Joy, love, laughing, rage, hate – all ‘acted’ in a similar manner with gritted teeth. Women posing (and gritting their teeth) in thongs/undies while basically having men’s faces. Pointless ‘design’ flourishes that have nothing to do with storytelling. Ugly sex/violence (with gritted teeth) in the absence of coherence. Crypto-facist bloodlust posing as left-liberal ‘irony’. Ugly garish colouring. Childish ‘darkening’ (rendered psychos, perverts with gritted teeth etc.) of pre-silver age characters. Ugly font frenzy computer lettering/sound fx. Flat angled layouts of endless talking heads (with gritted teeth). Photoshop to cover the fact that he draws everything in the same unvarying line weight. Dull mid-shot covers of the hero face on, gritting his teeth smugly with his arms crossed/holding a gun. And of course, a desperate desire to get into the movie business! In short, the poor man’s Frank Miller – not that we even need the rich man’s one…
So what’s the bad stuff about Chaykin?
Very funny.
I forgot to mention he found fame via ‘Star Wars’ too…
I think we should probably try to leave Chaykin out of this for now, just to keep the thread a little focused. (Sorry about that, Tom. I know you wanted to hear more.)
And in that spirit, here’s another video of Alex Ross talking about his methods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlC9Q8Vr90M
Let’s not forget that a central problem with Ross’ approach is that it undermines the believability in his stories since it actually plays up how ridiculous a paunchy old man would look in a skin tight outfit which is why modern superhero movies have turned the spandex costume into suits of armor. Only when Hollywood quit trying to mimic the ridiculous skin tight costumes did people finally start “believing” the characters on the big screen. Ross actually plays up the most ridiculous aspect of the medium. But I would also add that given his work on Uncle Sam and some art of his I’ve seen, I don’t think he does it in a completely unironic way, though I admit to not knowing much about how he thinks about his work or ever having read more than a few pages of it.
From interviews I’ve read, Ross comes across like a nerd version of Captain America – he wants Americans to respect their heroes, father figures etc. without enough Englehart-esque ambivalence about what ‘heroes’ and ‘America’ may represent.
Check out those horrible story-book pamphlets (?) he did – Peace on Earth, War on Crime,Power of Hope ad nausaem. – they read like presidential campaigns.
Is he now DC’s ‘public face’ for non-fanboys? He seems to feature in a lot of their mainstream publicity (and his versions of the JLA etc. cover the windows of my local comic shops).
ps. Apologies for going off-focus on Chaykin – I recently blew my comic budget trying to ‘re-assess’ him when I could have bought ‘Omac Archives’ instead…
It’s amazing to me to read how people jump to conclusions about things in comics. Joe Q has no overbearing edict. I may not enjoy most of what is produced today within the mainstream business, and I am aware of certain trends, styles, and tastes, but the over riding fact is that if Jack Kirby styled art sold today, that the majority of fans liked more cartoonish work, marvel and DC would seek out artist to do more of that look.
I know for a fact, guys like Herb Trimpe were urged to work in the “Liefeld style”, to try and sell books back in the pre-Image days. The sales on the book Quasar I drew were doing the normal slipping most comics do, so the editor thought having Jim lee and Todd MCFarland do covers would boost sales.
It didn’t work. You can not like somebody’s work, but you can’t blame them for being popular, you can only lament peoples tastes.
In my opinion most comic fans have bad taste in the direct market.
On a side note in regards to using cinema style or wide screen layouts, that had been done before by guys like Steranko, and I dare say, really by Kirby, who did his big double page splashes starting back on Boys Ranch. The modern purvayer of that technique who had the most impact with that was Miller, starting on his first Dardevil Run, and Miller was also one of the main guys to make comics darker in tone. Still, his early runs of comics have a lot more humor in them and he’s certainly a cartoonist, not a realist.
I also think the crits of Chaykin are off the mark.
I agree with Frank!..Since Alex Ross,nearly every comic book by Marvel or DC looks like those horrible “movie adaptation” comics.
I agree with Trashman and Frank!
Steranko, Kirby and Miller all had a much more dynamic sense of design, composition and movement. I can still remember how Kirby’s double-spreads seemed to almost smack me in the face (pages 2-3 of ’2001′ # 4 are what got this Brit hooked on US comics and I’ll never forget it).
Apart from certain business practices, Miller wasn’t the ‘first’ anything. Any number of silver/bronze age guys had a fair share of ‘dark’ – Gene Colan? Ditko? Englehart? Don Mcgregor? Joe Kubert? Denny O’Neil? His Name is Savage? Conan? Tomb of Dracula? Jonah Hex?
Miller’s ‘dark’ was adding the tone of 70s cop shows to superheroes (and ‘Sin City’ is Chester Gould with tits)- just like Buscema’s Silver Surfer reads like ‘The Fugitive’ from space.
Apart form those guys, the main influence on the ‘Dark Age’ sensibility were the influx of british creators of the 80s – but I reckon Ross and his ilk are trying to reclaim superheroes from all that ’2000ad’-based drug/occult/left-wing/green/sex/sadism/mistrust of authority stuff.
A lot of the ‘widescreen’ guys just use that panel proportion without rhyme or reason (just faces talking, opening a door etc.) apart from looking more like a ‘screen’, especially in a lot of those Vertigo/Max titles.
I’m not too ‘up’ on current superhero stuff, but a cursory glance at the racks shows the ‘dark ‘ age has ended – silicone age? Ross (and all those 50s/60s pastiche-meisters) seem to be about making heroes a lot more wholesome and mainstream-friendly… it uses comics icons as a vehicle for commercial art. Nothing really new there, even if it is an aesthetic dead end.
Speaking of photo use – what about Drew Friedman?
He once claimed he didn’r use photos, but I wasn’t that convinced – that doesn’t take away from his genius, however.
Awesome. THAT’s how you do a walk-on.
I’m not saying Miller invented the wheel, he did not. What I am saying is his work being so popular seemed to invent it to most people. Kiry didn’t invent superheroes, but he rewrote the language so anyone after him uses his speech/his language to a great degree–most fans, hell, many artists are poor historians of the craft. Comics a an industry is pretty disjointed there. Comics has mostly been a “First to be second’ industry, quick to jump on what’s popular. If it’s Dirty Harry, sci-fi, westerns, Buffy, you name it.
Still, I am surprised some here jump to conclusions about what a certain artist is trying to do, or that anyone in comics today has the power to doom the medium. Stink up a room, stink up a bunch of comics, sure. But I think you have to step back and look at comics as a global medium, and Superhero comics are a pretty small nitch now within the whole. A sort of “Frankenstein quilt” as Moebius called them when I interviewed him years ago, every artist sort of stitching his or her part onto the body.
If you are not aware of Sergio Toppi, Alberto Brecchia,to name but two great non-American artists as well as Bob Peak you might think many artists in the states during the 80′s suddenly invented ways of working. Most people reading comics don’t know the history of American comics, illustration, or art in general outside a few house hold names, let alone global comics.
Most kids reading manga don’t know who the Flieshers were, or that the artists like Tezuka were heavily influenced by those cartoons and the early Superman comics,and they in turn influenced that manga of today and like most people, are not interested in history..period. They just like what they like. I see this all of the time as a teacher.
Bob Peak, Breccia, Toppi? Pretty slick trying to steer this towards Sienkiewicz, Mike M. ;)
Boy, there’s a germ of a good conversation here, but some of the over-the-top statements are killing it. (Comparing Ross to nazi propaganda? It’s just a painting of Batman, for cripe’s sake.)
The truth is, Ross is a spectacularly talented illustrator, working with the classic techniques of the golden age of commercial illustration. I think where the disconnect comes in is because he uses those techniques in comics. He’s an illustrator, not a cartoonist. (Is that appropriate? There’s your argument.)
He’s certainly capable of doing those books without photo reference; his thumbnails and sketches are beautiful, perfect in their composition, anatomy and dynamics. I think he just enjoys the process of creating those costumes and photographing his friends wearing them.
If you don’t like his work, that’s fine. But he’s “destroying comics?” C’mon, dial back the hyperbole. Comics are just fine.
Artistically, comics are at an all-time high point right now, with a wealth of great currently-working artists, both newcomers as well as seasoned old hands. It has never been easier to access all the great comics of the past, with great new collections of classic material being published almost weekly.
You’re missing my point. If you don’t like Ross, there is a wealth of other stuff to enjoy more that is in line with your aesthetics. If Ross likes to paint pinups of Batman and spend hours carefully rendering every wrinkle in his tights, that’s his idea of fun, not yours. So why get upset about it?
Comics isn’t a mighty oceangoing ship, and Alex Ross isn’t the drunk captain steering us all towards an iceberg. Comics is more like a bunch of little boats bobbing around in the waves, each holding a cartoonist or two. Maybe a few of those boats only have one oar, a hole in the bottom and no rations,
but the vast majority are shipshape and well-equipped for survival.
I think at this stage we’re going to close down the thread. It’s pretty clear that it’s turned less into a dialogue and more into people just saying either (a) the same thing or (b) not addressing the topic. Once again, the topic was photo-referencing, and its affect on storytelling in comics.
We’re not interested in anything else, really.
I should note that the “if you don’t like, don’t read it” stance is utter bullshit. Critical thought is necessary for a medium to grow, and everyone is entitled to write critically (and, like Frank) knowledgeably about the form.
Frank is a great conversation starter (clearly), but once the prankers and the people clearly not reading the preceding posts waltz in this conversation loses its usefulness. We’re not interested in turning this into tcj.com or in courting the cranks, which is what the last 12 hours have been. We welcome open and helpful debate about these ideas, but it needs to be focused, polite and constructive.
This has been great, and it’s a thrill to read so many well considered takes on the issues.
No further comments will be accepted for publication.
Thanks for a fun read.