Such an interesting dilemma you’re talking about. I feel like anyone who draws in black and white has to grapple with this issue at some point. The issue is further compounded by the modern convention that colorists should do additional rendering/ description of form. Should the line art do the majority of the heavy lifting when a colorist can achieve a more convincing illusionistic sense of volume? At what point does comic art lose its power and effectiveness as it heads towards “realism”? Also, completely agree about looking back on one’s work with a critical eye. I feel like that’s the opportunity for real improvement.

@gerimi

3 жыл бұрын

I definitely feel like we live in an era when colorists are more appreciated and given more room to actively render and model form. But with all things, it’s a matter of appropriately matching collaborators and what fits well. If an artist has a Jim Lee-level of hatching in the line art, too much rendering might fight with it. Even with open line artwork, I could see someone like Skottie Young being colored with a ton of rendering but Ty Templeton, with his classic animation look would still look best with flats and minimal rendering. Then there’s the tone/genre of the comic to take into account. While some pencilers/inkers may lend themselves to more or less rendering, on the right project, I can totally see a highly detailed line art successfully melded with high rendering or open lines/simple art with flats. I try not to be too dogmatic about any of this stuff. Even if I reach a point where I can predictably achieve satisfying results, I’d still want to tweak an experiment. In fact, I think improving is what gives most creatives the confidence and courage to experiment. And there’s the final decider of, does the end result look cool. If it does, all bets are off. On the question of whether the line art should do the heavy lifting, in the case of someone like Frank Quitely, I would no. Jamie Grant’s Colors on All Star Superman are where all the volume happens. With everything in comics, it collaboration and communication. I also wouldn’t say that comic art looses its power as it approaches realism. I love Alex Ross’s art, even though I have no desire to attempt that level of realism. Phil Noto’s work really inspires me, in that the faces feel like realistic, classic 50s illustration, but his overall rendering is highly stylized. This is a bad rabbit hole for me to fall down because I will never give you a definitive answer. I love all styles of comic art, from Eisner and Toth, to Frazetta and Wally Wood, from Image Founders to Manga, Kyle Baker to Frank Miller. I’m a comics Omnivore.

@billcrabtree8700

3 жыл бұрын

@@gerimi man, at some point we should just have a chat on FaceTime or something so you don’t have to type so much! Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, although I’m not sure I’m a fan of the airbrush style used on Quitely. Ultimately, it’s a question of taste. Just to clarify, I think when I talk about power, I mean, the power of functioning effectively as sequential art. To me, as comic art approaches realism, it stops working as effectively as a comic book. Art like that can look great as a single static image, but prevents immersion at some point for me as a reader. All very subjective, to becc by sure.

@gerimi

3 жыл бұрын

@@billcrabtree8700 I’m totally down for a FaceTime chat. Maybe some time in the next week or two. My email is Gerimi at Gerimi dot net. Shoot me a message and we’ll figure out a good time. Realism is comics is interesting, in that everything stylistic is subjective according to both taste and level of execution, but there is a strong historical precedent for expressionistic, illustrative art to work better for sequential storytelling. There’s only a hand full of artists that have the level of realism that Alex Ross is capable of. I would say that he’s an outlier, rather than an example of how well realism works in comics and it’s a testament to his draftsmanship and storytelling that he can make such realism work in comics. At the other end of the spectrum, I think about someone like Ted McKeever, who’s about as far from realism as you can get, yet is an amazing storyteller (yeah, his style might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I dig him). But to your point, I agree comics as a medium leans more towards stylized work.