whoops?

[holli]

So, I seem to have agreed to talk about comics art in front of a bunch of high school studio art classes this Friday? The mom of one of the kindergarteners at work is a teacher, and when she found out I'm a comics nerd she got really excited about it. I'm not sure that being a big nerd translates to being able to talk about this stuff in a classroom setting, though, so-- eep.

I've assembled a big stack of all the comics I actually own that I think will be handy, and I'm about to start scouring scans_daily for individual pages. Does anyone have anything they think I should include?

Comments

[unlovablehands.livejournal.com]

if you're talking about layout structure at all, some of todd mcfarlane's layouts on infinity inc are so out there they really draw your attention to layouts as, like, these big things? but i don't rly know what you're planning to discuss, either.

[holli.livejournal.com]

I... actually have a couple of issues of that somewhere! Awesome. I will dig those out.

I think I need a bunch of individual pages and panels that'll show the differences between the Golden/Silver/Modern ages, plus examples of different artists, plus a bunch of "this one looks cool!"

[unlovablehands.livejournal.com]

infinity inc #14 & 15 are two i think do really neat stuff with using the layouts as part of the story. especially 15, which has a running sort of commentary on the events in the story in the form of newscasts on tvs on the top (and bottom? i think?) borders of the page.

i also think kevin maguire's work on jla is really interesting, especially his incredibly expressive faces. (contrast with a known tracer [land] or someone who often gives his art more bland expressions [whoever the artist on the legion was near the end of its run]?)

and tying narrative style and art style. you know that a legion story drawn by oliver coipel is going to have a totally different tone than a legion story drawn by mike grell is going to have a different tone than one drawn by jeffrey moy.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth, even at just a single-sentence level, mentioning Alex Ross. I'd always thought "wow, it sure would be cool (if insanely time intensive) to paint a comic!" and he did. Lovely stuff. Some disagree, cough.

Attention to flow is hardcore important, too (as unlovablehands pointed out above) -- it's like the grammar of image-based storytelling.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

Also, if you end up doing some kind of writeup about this shit, post it somewhere. I don't know very much about comics at all - I read some of them and I love them but beyond who did what I know nothing. No history, no style -- x is following trends set by y, etc -- and I don't even know where one would go for that.

[holli.livejournal.com]

I have an Astro City trade with lovely Alex Ross covers, so i can bring that along. I think the main point I want to get across is that there are an awful lot of ways to draw superheroes, and all of them can look really great if done with care and attention.

[unlovablehands.livejournal.com]

the great thing about ross is that he paints using real people as models, and makes them superheroes. so a lot of people dislike it because he makes superheroes... look like actual people.

[brownbetty]

You will never hear me say this again, but Frank Miller's Sin City has some excellent bits in it, at least as far as demonstrating the point of layout.

[periwinklepixie.livejournal.com]

anything from superdickery.com hehe

preferably: http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=32&Itemid=50&limitstart=1