[me.]

A few graphic novels i've enjoyed,

Armin Greder - The Island (think this is a kids book-but the art is great)
Rutu Modan - Exit Wounds
Etgar Keret - Pizzeria Kamikaze
Yoshihiro Tatsumi - Abandon the old in Tokyo
Andrzej Klimowski - Horace Dolan

thats only 5, i need to read more...

[Rob Instigator]

frank miller's ART rules

 

 

 

 

[pop punk will eat itself]

Peter David and Gary Frank's run on The Incredible Hulk in the early 90's
Cerebus
JSA
The Watchmen
Cable & Deadpool
JLA
Infinite Crisis
Grant Morrison's Animal Man
Firestorm
Black Hole

[viewtiful_alan]

Ah a dc person?
Where did you go?
YOu haven't posted in a while I don't think.

[pop punk will eat itself]

I converted to DC right before Infinite Crisis; Marvel isn't what it used to be.

Oh, I've been lurking....

[viewtiful_alan]

Eh Marvel is picking up again.
Secret Invasion is fucking amazing.

Not around my bushes I hope.

[pop punk will eat itself]

I've been burned by Marvel many times, and the last few years have been so horrid, e.g., House of M, Civil War, World War Hulk.

Secret Invasion is garnering a lot of praise, but i sampled it at my local comic shop and the artwork is not to my liking.

DC is consistent quality-wise and usually comes through on all of its promises -- except with Countdown, ugh, A Great Disaster, indeed -- so, I think i'm through with marvel.

[viewtiful_alan]

Eh I just like marvel having a more consistent universe.

World war hulk was pretty thouroughly dissapointing... I mean that had no lasting impact on much of anything.

[pop punk will eat itself]

Originally Posted by viewtiful_alan

Eh I just like marvel having a more consistent universe.

World war hulk was pretty thouroughly dissapointing... I mean that had no lasting impact on much of anything.

"more consistent universe"? ummm, ask 10 marvel fans about the origins of Wolverine, heck the origins of anything in the Marvel universe, and each fan will give you a different answer.

The DC universe has an estabilished history, for the most part, and that's one of the reasons I love them so much.

[viewtiful_alan]

I always thought dc reboots alot?

[pop punk will eat itself]

Well, they do make small changes to the universe with the "Crisis" events, but after the crisis the changes are made known and fit in with the story due to the nature of the crisis events.

Marvel retcons the hell out of their universe and gives no reason for doing so. The editors expect the fans to just forget all of that "stuff" from the past. pisses me off. Goodgod im a nerd.

[atari 2600]

Ha thanks for proving my point. The second one is halfway decent and the other three are ridiculous.
Oh, and I don't care about what the half-baked storyline called for, Batman shouldn't look like that.

And, at the risk of once again repeating myself, comic book illustrations rarely if ever approach anything remotely resembling fine art. Funny that I get flak (and from a person that regards themselves as an artist no less) for merely expressing a concept that is so intrinsically basic. A hoot I say!

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

And, at the risk of once again repeating myself, comic book illustrations rarely if ever approach anything remotely resembling fine art.

I do agree about the vast majority of comic book illustrators being overrated. I would however say that the likes of Steve Ditko and, say, Moebius are fine artists, regardless of whether we want to call what they do 'fine art', which has always struck me as a rather pointless term anyway.

[atari 2600]

It may seem a bit pointless these days with what passes for fine art, but c'mon, of course there's a difference. True, far too often so-called fine art follows the formulaic rules of craft in the end analysis.

But truly fine art is an expression of chaos within unity, of felt weights and balances, emotive logic, and ultimately of the artist's enigmatic and elusive inner life. There are aesthetic 'rules' with emphasis on form and formal qualities, but the visionaries are able to break them to move art forward through history.

Illustration, by contrast, is craft and draughtsmanship according to the stylistic rules of the genre. It's purpose is to stress the subject (over form) and accompany textual information. There is a threshold, however. After all, this thread is all about ranking comics. How one comic book compares to another comic is determined by the illustrator's experience and sensitivity to the medium, and in this way, an estimation of the illustrator's craft is formulated. And in some cases, the craft is so wonderful that one may even say it's the illustrator's art that separates an average comic from a great one; but of course, the story, the literal narrative invariably has a lot to do with one's estimation as well.

Both have some level of narrative, (even non-objectivist abstract expressionism has some degree of narrative) but the content of each have essential differences and characteristics.

Let's just examine an abbreviated relatively recent history of fine art painting, say, El Greco to Manet to Van Gogh to Cezanne to Kandinsky to Duchamp/Picasso to Abstract Expressionism to Johns/Rauschenberg to Warhol to Basquiat. Will comic books change like this? No. Will they ever? No.

Fine art is structured and formal like classical yet free and open like jazz. It's alchemy; it's reconciliation of perceived opposites. It's like fine poetry or literature compared to pulp fiction. It's like Sonic Youth as compared to Pat Boone. It's like art rock compared to heavy metal. Just because a bunch of characters in the sixties started doing some "underground" comics that pushed the envelope of societal convention and the norms of the comic book genre, don't get inextricably confused. That is not to say I do not enjoy comics when they are done well. Picasso liked them himself. The hero system has a powerful and important psychological allure. But don't kid yourself that comics have a broader cultural palette than they actually do.

But the above are just quick examples by way of analogy to hopefully further an understanding. Fine art is ultimately rather indefinable. And this is not so with comic books which are much more readily analyzable as a sum of their very much more definable parts.

---

No one else seems to be mentioning Moebius. He was my introduction to the whole thing. Came across him in the late eighties.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

It may seem a bit pointless these days with what passes for fine art, but c'mon, of course there's a difference.

No one else seems to be mentioning Moebius. He was my introduction to the whole thing. Came across him in the late eighties.

Yes, of course I ultimately agree with you. There is a difference. Although, as I'm sure you'd agree, I do think it's more of an institutional rather than creative one a lot of the time.

Speaking about Moebius, I came across his stuff through that magazine Heavy Metal, which I think is still going and was, back then at least, a real showcase for innovative comic arts.

The thing I find problematic with a number of the current illustrators is that I get the feeling they learned to draw by looking at comic books (lending itself almost to a state of post Ditko-Mannerism).

The great illustrators, in which I do include Ditko, but others too, like Moebius, clearly found inspiration elsewhere.

[MellySingsDoom]

I've got a mate who had 2 graphic novels of "Heavy Metal", and he was told he wasn't "allowed" to sell them because they were (and I quote) "paedophile comics"! Unbelievable. I bought both of them off him , and there be zero dodginess on that front in them whatsoever. Fucking English comic shops...

[demonrail666]

How funny. They still sell it in most big newsagents. I've never noticed anything dodgy like that. Although thinking back to some of the ones in the 80s, they could be seen as a being bit dodgy I suppose, although I don't recall anything specific. Sort of glad I never kept em now. lol. Isn't it actually a French publication that's translated?

[MellySingsDoom]

My friend went understandably mental when he was effectily accused of being a child-botherer. And this from a shop which sold lots of Japanese "hentai" comics. Hypocrisy, anyone?

[demonrail666]

I was just gonna mention the manga stuff. Some of that I'm actually surprised is allowed to be sold so openly here. Right now I'd say you're more likely to find dodgier stuff in Forbidden Planet than you are in some bookshop in Soho.

[MellySingsDoom]

Me too. I think it's the case of the "other" being tolerated (y'know, those "wacky" Japanese, eh?).

Bah - the whole "my mate" incident stank to high heaven.