Opinions on pencil only pages? 1 1

[SuperBird]

I love the Quitely All Star Superman artwork, but the lack of inks is somewhat dissuading to me. Are pencil pages just as desireable as inked ones?

[rob_allan]

I'm going to wager that some people think they're better and some don't like them as much. (The real beautiful thing about the OA hobby, as I'm discovering, is there really is less pressure to have a certain opinion about things. It's just art and people understand that taste is highly individual.)

 

I know the Dynamite books pages I've seen don't have inks. (Like the Red Sonja page posted yesterday.)

 

I prefer inked pages because I like to display art I buy. And inked pages just show up better across a room. But some people like to see the raw pencils without the inks... particularly other artists wanting to see more closely how people draw.

 

My 2cents.

[g-man]

i prefer inked pages/covers as well but some of the prices are crazy...so if a highly detailed pencil piece comes up at a decent price and you like it....go for it!

[Durden08]

I've looked at some of the Quitely All Star pages as well over the last 6 months. I've been tempted but haven't bought any yet. The "pencils only" pages are a little bit of a turn-off as they look rather light and don't stand out to me. I think if they were inked the visual appeal would be heightened. That being said, I still wouldn't mind owning a page, but for modern art the prices are a little higher than I'd like to spend at the moment. The cover to A.S.S. #3 is awesome but out of my price range.

 

That being said, I've bought a few pages from books simply because I loved reading the book and wanted an example from it. The page(s) I bought may be nothing special, but have a more personal value to me. I know All Star Supes is one of your favorites, so that alone may make a page "worth it" to you. (thumbs u

[delekkerste]

Are pencil pages just as desireable as inked ones?

 

[Guest]

To me, it depends on who's pencilling. I understand virgin Kirby pencils are becoming more popular now since they are tough to come by. Generally, I prefer inked.

[Pirate]

There are not many modern pages that are inked over regular pencils anymore. I'm not a big fan of pencilled only pages, but i'm not a big fan of inked over blue lines either. Guess you have to choose lesser of two evils in your book.

[Kevin Boyd]

Generally I prefer inked pages, but the way modern production is going we're reaching a point where either (a) the pencils are not inked and embellished by computer coloring and shading or (b) the inker inks over blue line art printed from pencil scans. Older art and artwork pencilled and inked by the same person seem to be the way to go if you don't like pencil only art. But for me, if that's all there is, and I like it... I'll get it.

 

I do have a Quitely All Star Superman page that I bought from the Hero Initiative back in August, and it was donated from Quitely's private reserve of pages. I find the pencils to be finely detailed and almost as dark and solid-looking as inked pages. Unfortunately as much as I'd like to keep it I have it up for sale if anyone is interested as I'd rather use the dough to buy some other pieces I'm interested in getting.

 

http://comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Page=1&Order=Date&Piece=298083&GSub=46455&GCat=0&UCat=0

 

I also have a Grummett pencils-only cover to Thunderbolts 101 and I think it looks just fine as it is, even though inks would have been nice.

 

http://comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=251084&GSub=46675

[micmack]

I prefer the inked over pencil every time. Only a few instances where I have any pencils; Finch sketch, Benes sketch - and both of those I had a copy inked by their usual inker, so I have both pencil and inks.

 

The other instance was the X-23 pages by Mike Choi. I would have liked them to be an inked version, but they're not. I may also have a copy inked at one point as well.

[armydoc]

I own a few pages from The Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born comics which are pencil only (Jae Lee). I prefer inked stuff because I plan on framing a lot of it and it'll look better on the wall (which has already been said). The reason I bought the Jae Lee pages was that I really loved the books and wanted to own a part of them. There wasn't another option in this case. Inked blue lines are as bad as stats IMO, and I have avoided some Sean Phillips stuff specifically because of this.

[sborock]

I like both, but it depends on the piece and sometimes the inker. I

 

have a kirby pencil only cover and like it better than the Kirby inked cover I had before it.

 

I think it is just up to your personal tastes (thumbs u

[Nexus]

Inked blue lines are as bad as stats IMO, and I have avoided some Sean Phillips stuff specifically because of this.

 

I'm not sure what Sean Phillips stuff you're talking about, but I do know there has been some confusion over his "bluelines". He inks over his own blue pencils, not a blueline copy. A lot of artists who ink their own stuff are now doing this to save time on the pencil stage. Since they're inking themselves, they don't need to draw super-detailed pencils.

 

I visited Darick Robertson at his studio a couple of weeks ago and he is now doing the same thing. He'll rough out a page in blue pencil, scan it and send it to his writer and/or editor for comments (usually about placement), and then finish the piece with detailed inks. When he scans in the finished page, he can turn down the grey scale (iirc, I'm not a PhotoShop guy) and the blue pencils will vanish.

 

Darick told me that he prefers to ink his own stuff and this new method saves him a lot of time. I'm sure this is why Sean Phillips is doing it as well.

[Pirate]

take an eraser around with you and lightly try to erase any art you have questions about. If it erases, you have the real deal, if not, blue line.

[armydoc]

Inked blue lines are as bad as stats IMO, and I have avoided some Sean Phillips stuff specifically because of this.

 

I'm not sure what Sean Phillips stuff you're talking about, but I do know there has been some confusion over his "bluelines".

 

There was a cover he did for a zombie book (Raise the Dead, I think?) where it was listed in the description that it was inked over printed blue lines. I liked the cover but couldn't see paying the asking price. The Marvel Zombies pages are the blue pencil you're referring to if I'm not mistaken (I love your splash by the way).

[john72tex]

I don't mind a pencils only page. I buy whoever's art I enjoy. I even had this page from All-Star Superman framed:

 

 

[armydoc]

Wow, great frame job. That's sweet.

[Mighty Hal]

I prefer inked pages. Progress, though, indicates that penciled work is the future of comic OA.

 

Which leads to another question: How well do penciled pages hold up? How well do they do in a sunny environment? Mostly, do they fade?

[rob_allan]

I prefer inked pages. Progress, though, indicates that penciled work is the future of comic OA.

 

Which leads to another question: How well do penciled pages hold up? How well do they do in a sunny environment? Mostly, do they fade?

 

Well there's a chance of that. Obviously storing art in a UV-protected mylar or framed with UV-coated plexi or glass would be helpful.

[Mister Trent]

Here's a detail from one of Frank Hampson's handful of surviving MODESTY BLAISE tryout dailies (the earliest of all MB strips, pre-dating Jim Holdaway's work). This daily was left as pencils-only art, and provides an extremely rare glimpse into how the artist's pre-inked work looked (I know of no other pencils-only Hampson original art, so this is unique):

 

[Mister Trent]

And here's Mike Mayhew's unpublished cover art (pencils only, which is actually the finished work) originally intended for THE PULSE # 2:

 

 

For myself, I own a wide variety of originals in various finishes, and I enjoy the opportunity of seeing detailed pencil work such as this one.