Modern comic art 1 1

[otherworldsj331]

I have been looking at interior pages on Ebay for the last month or so, something I usually don't do. As most of you know, it is dominated by modern art, which was what I expected; no surprise there.

Also, I know the trend now as opposed to when I was  reading comics years ago is to slow down the story telling pace. I would guess that in contrast to comics I read as a kid and a young man it takes about 3 to 5 pages to say what the comics did in 1 page back in the day. 

I have to say it, the modern artwork is so uttering boring to me. I feel like I am looking at flash cards slowed down x20.  i am not knocking anyone who collects modern art, and of course I am generalizing, but I think if someone offered to pay me to take some of this stuff I would decline.

If the movies moved at the pacing of the modern art I think they would all lose money. In fact the modern art reminds me of movie story boards. Is that the goal?

The pacing of the pages reminds me of a old saying about anal tendencies and micro managing. There are people who see the forest, people who see the trees, people who see the branches, people who see the leaves, and then there are the people who see the vein in the leaves.

The pacing is so tortuously slow and leaves so little to the imagination that looking at most of the modern stuff puts me to sleep. 

No wonder sales are so low these days.  

Again, I am not implying lack of talent or creativity.  Just that the current style of pacing is incredibly slow to me. It takes the fun out of collecting modern sequential art for me. Watching a cell divide is more exciting then most of these pages and the pace is easier on the eye.

I like my sequences paced a little more then 4 seconds apart from the first to the last panel. I think some of these pages the time elapsed from the first to last panel is even less then 4 seconds sometimes.

Have they run out of plots and are merely using this device as a way to stretch the stories? Its a great way to take a legitimate one issue story and make it 3 or 4 issues if that is there goal.

Well anyway, I do own some modern pages, but I find about only 1 out of around 500, 600 pages even mildly interesting. 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by otherworldsj331
grammer

[vodou]

23 minutes ago, otherworldsj331 said:

Well anyway, I do own some modern pages, but I find about only 1 out of around 500, 600 pages even mildly interesting.

That's it right there - you just need to carefully pick and choose those specific originals -or sequence of originals- that share a moment and image that resonates with you. I'm doing this too, adding modern that interests me. The only problem I see with this is that sequences are much more expensive now then they were 20 and 30 years ago for similar 'contemporary' material of the day. Getting a 'slow' thought over four pages, even if relatively unexciting can be a $1000 proposition these days @ $250 per page. And many times, anything less than three or four pages is an oddball single moment out of time. It's weird, but also weirdly interesting imo.

[mister_not_so_nice]

13 minutes ago, vodou said:

Getting a 'slow' thought over four pages, even if relatively unexciting can be a $1000 proposition these days @ $250 per page. And many times, anything less than three or four pages is an oddball single moment out of time. It's weird, but also weirdly interesting imo.

I wonder if this will impact collecting styles. 

For myself, the single random page isn't all that enticing anymore.  I like having a little "mini-run" of pages if it's possible.  If I do have a single page I do find myself looking for the page before/after to add to the collection. 

[SquareChaos]

I'd be fine if everyone else felt the same way and quit buying modern pages.

[alxjhnsn]

It really does depend on the writer/artist/book, e.g., Extremity is not a slowly paced story and Daniel Warren Johnson is doing excellent work. 

[PhilipB2k17]

It depends on the book. This page is from Black Magick, art by Nicola Scott. It’s pretty detailed ink wash, and paced well. But it’s people talking, in a realistic way, not punching each other. 

But she creates tension and suspense visually with cinematic techniques like extreme close ups. Note the second panel with the close up of the eyes. You can see a bead of sweat coming down, the light reflected in the glasses, and the eyes look worried. 

A lot of modern art is sparse. With background details filled in digitally or by colorists. 

I love this page because you can tell what’s going on without any word balloons. That’s great sequential storytelling. 

[Panelfan1]

2 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

It depends on the book. This page is from Black Magick, art by Nicola Scott. It’s pretty detailed ink wash, and paced well. But it’s people talking, in a realistic way, not punching each other. 

But she creates tension and suspense visually with cinematic techniques like extreme close ups. Note the second panel with the close up of the eyes. You can see a bead of sweat coming down, the light reflected in the glasses, and the eyes look worried. 

A lot of modern art is sparse. With background details filled in digitally or by colorists. 

I love this page because you can tell what’s going on without any word balloons. That’s great sequential storytelling. 

No doubt Scott can draw well - but I think this page kind of proves @alxjhnsn point.  Time feels stretched out.  You might view the pacing as good - while others might see it as slow or stretched out.

[Skizz]

It’s stretching the moment to heighten the tension. It’s done in films all the time and the use of this is comics is along the lines of comic book storytelling being more cinematic now. 

[PhilipB2k17]

2 hours ago, Skizz said:

It’s stretching the moment to heighten the tension. It’s done in films all the time and the use of this is comics is along the lines of comic book storytelling being more cinematic now. 

I got his point. 

[Panelfan1]

2 hours ago, Skizz said:

It’s stretching the moment to heighten the tension. It’s done in films all the time and the use of this is comics is along the lines of comic book storytelling being more cinematic now. 

You are right.  But that again - sums up alex 's point.  Stretching the moment is overdone perhaps in modern comics?

[otherworldsj331]

5 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

It depends on the book. This page is from Black Magick, art by Nicola Scott. It’s pretty detailed ink wash, and paced well. But it’s people talking, in a realistic way, not punching each other. 

But she creates tension and suspense visually with cinematic techniques like extreme close ups. Note the second panel with the close up of the eyes. You can see a bead of sweat coming down, the light reflected in the glasses, and the eyes look worried. 

A lot of modern art is sparse. With background details filled in digitally or by colorists. 

I love this page because you can tell what’s going on without any word balloons. That’s great sequential storytelling. 

I like this page. This page is paced well to my tastes. Also a modern artist whose work I enjoy is Sean Phillips. 

[otherworldsj331]

2 hours ago, Skizz said:

It’s stretching the moment to heighten the tension. It’s done in films all the time and the use of this is comics is along the lines of comic book storytelling being more cinematic now. 

For me it does not translate well with comics.

[MyNameIsLegion]

Y’all are describing “decompression” which is the official term for why modern comics are so boring. 

[MyNameIsLegion]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_(comics)

it came from Manga, which is yet another reason why I despise its style and influence. It ruined comics IMHO. 

[vodou]

22 minutes ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_(comics)

it came from Manga, which is yet another reason why I despise its style and influence. It ruined comics IMHO. 

It also came from everybody wanting to grab hold of The Crow and Men In Black train twenty years ago. Ever since it's been all about, "how do I sell this property to Hollywood? (where the REAL money is)" Speaking "their" language, story-boarding sequentially, certainly doesn't hurt that effort.

Getting back to manga, this slow-down pacing stuff (ever try reading Death Note?!) works a lot better when you're publishing weekly, just like soap operas being daily or serial evening tv being weekly (think 80s Dallas and similar especially), where the first five minutes of every episode has explicit "previously on..." or some sort of in-story ginned up exposition recap. US comics are traditionally thin, relatively expensive, and monthly...doesn't work as well, the slow-pacing/decompression thing. Not enough of a fix often enough. And pricey. That's why we're all (well many of us anyway) waiting for trades and omnibus editions to hit a whole story, binging if you will, just like we do on tv now...a whole season in a weekend. Who gives a huh-huh about watching Stranger Things one episode per week for (just) ten weeks even? No. Or worse...(loving btw) Green Arrow on NF but paced out like it was originally released...weekly. Ugly. But five or ten in a row on a blizzard day, oh yeah!! And that's how I've been running through the entire Brubaker library (no sheet), one omnibus at a time. It's fabulous fun, binging like that, decompressed yep sure whatever, but not the way I'm reading it for the first time ever (never read a Brubaker anything prior to two months ago).

If we could get weekly comics, ten pages at a time maybe, that would work just fine imo. The art...whew, re-read my comments above so I don't have to repeat myself.

[SquareChaos]

10 hours ago, vodou said:

It also came from everybody wanting to grab hold of The Crow and Men In Black train twenty years ago. Ever since it's been all about, "how do I sell this property to Hollywood? (where the REAL money is)" Speaking "their" language, story-boarding sequentially, certainly doesn't hurt that effort.

Getting back to manga, this slow-down pacing stuff (ever try reading Death Note?!) works a lot better when you're publishing weekly, just like soap operas being daily or serial evening tv being weekly (think 80s Dallas and similar especially), where the first five minutes of every episode has explicit "previously on..." or some sort of in-story ginned up exposition recap. US comics are traditionally thin, relatively expensive, and monthly...doesn't work as well, the slow-pacing/decompression thing. Not enough of a fix often enough. And pricey. That's why we're all (well many of us anyway) waiting for trades and omnibus editions to hit a whole story, binging if you will, just like we do on tv now...a whole season in a weekend. Who gives a huh-huh about watching Stranger Things one episode per week for (just) ten weeks even? No. Or worse...(loving btw) Green Arrow on NF but paced out like it was originally released...weekly. Ugly. But five or ten in a row on a blizzard day, oh yeah!! And that's how I've been running through the entire Brubaker library (no sheet), one omnibus at a time. It's fabulous fun, binging like that, decompressed yep sure whatever, but not the way I'm reading it for the first time ever (never read a Brubaker anything prior to two months ago).

If we could get weekly comics, ten pages at a time maybe, that would work just fine imo. The art...whew, re-read my comments above so I don't have to repeat myself.

Yep, the age of trade waiting exploded for a reason.

[vodou]

28 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

Yep, the age of trade waiting exploded for a reason.

If it hadn't happened* I wonder if the whole thing would have just died?

 

*As in: monthly sales dropped, kept dropping, and the publishers didn't re-package as trades but just kept pumping out new issues.

[Rick2you2]

Slowing things down lets the publisher pad the story and run it over multiple issues (like a soap opera). It also lets artists do more splash pages and make more money.

You are right, although I wouldn't be so harsh about it. I'm more annoyed by the lack of ingenuity and the apparent urge to turn everything into the next Crises in Secret Wars. So much is so marginally readable.

[SquareChaos]

17 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Slowing things down lets the publisher pad the story and run it over multiple issues (like a soap opera). It also lets artists do more splash pages and make more money.

You are right, although I wouldn't be so harsh about it. I'm more annoyed by the lack of ingenuity and the apparent urge to turn everything into the next Crises in Secret Wars. So much is so marginally readable.

Otherwise known as why a lot of people don't read Marvel or DC anymore. I'm primarily an indie guy, though they've had some serious chronic problems as well... but nothing that equals the treadmill of blah peddled by the Big Two. The great thing about modern comics, when despite all of the odds something good is created... it's really easy to go back and get it after the fact.

[theflashunc]

You can thank the direct market too. Far easier to decompress the story telling when folks can go to a dedicated store to find their funny books in stock, versus rolling the dice at the nearest newsstand. 

But like any other era, modern delivers some great stuff.