From a purely art point of view, why do comics suck and how can they be improved?
>>7958720While not nearly the most major thing... I think a pretty under-talked about issue is that the drawings are too smallLook at pic related, imagine holding this in your hand, and trying to read the expressions on half the faces here. Even in the closeup, they're just incredibly small.There's three distinct things happening here that are all compounding together.The first is that comics in general are drawn too small. They're printed on a page around 8 x 12 inces, but on this page there are 4 rows of panels, it's too small for the page size. They should cut off the top panel and zoom everything else in to fill the page.The second is that within those panels, the zoom level is too zoomed out. You can often see the whole character, or there's just alot of white space, the drawings are too small, zoom it in as far as you can get away with.And finally, the facial expressions are too small. They go for realistic proportions but this results in very small and very stiff faces that can't be read at a glance.All three of these things combine together into a drawing that is just simply too small and nobody can tell what's going on.
>>7958726There's alot of panels in comics that looks like this.Yes these are small panels... but that's no excuse to be making art this incomprehensible.I've seen background characters drawn with more visible facial expressions than this.
How does pic related happen?
>>7958732polish constructors
>>7958720readability, awful values everything is mid gray, small fonts, small faces.
>>7958720Comic artists don't understand panelling.This overlaps with a lack of understanding of cinematography as well.Most comics fall into one of two categories.Comics with completely lackluster panelling like pic related. I suspect they just want to be a movie screenwriter, but this wouldn't even pass for screenwriting. It's just amateur hour.
>>7958748And the other category is over-the-top masturbatory artistic flex panels like pic related.They're actually shit. Panels exist to guide the reader through the story. This confuses the reader. If they had any understanding of panelling they wouldn't do it.
>>7958751This Wonder Woman isuse shows how these two panelling habits can exist in one and the same artist, and this isn't a contradiction, because infact both of them are the result of a total lack of understanding in panelling
>>7958752
>>7958753GOOD panelling is invisible.Pic related is good panelling.You might say it's wholly unremarkable, and that's the point. No reader will ever pay attention to this panelling, they are immediately and effortlessly immersed into the world of the comic. That is the job of panelling. If you notice the panelling, it's failed at its job.
>>7958755final note on panelling,This is where the cinematography bit comes in.You might say the panelling in >>7958748 is unremarkable, but that's not the case. The panelling in that page is soo unremarkable that it once again becomes noticeable. It's like if you were watching a movie and the camera stays fixed a little too long and the viewer notices it. It has done something wrong despite not doing anything at all.Overly artistic panelling is distracting, but overally boring panelling is also distracting. It's like if you imagined some birds sat on a rooftop. If they were sitting in a circus acrobat pyramid form, that would be quite distracting. Equally if they were sat in a perfectly ordered military arrangement, that too would be distracting. The perfect arrangement is one that is natural, for that is pleasing to the eye and allows you to not pay attention to it.
>>7958726Are you trying to read it on a phone or something?This was never a problem. They've been making comics for a 100 years and then some alphie comes in and tells them they've been doing it wrong. Fuck off.
>cinematography>in a motionless medium
I think it's unfair to hold up a jack kirby comic and say it's shit. It was great for it's time, with no computers and tighter deadlines.Anyway, I'd say one big thing is the colouring - across the board, it's pretty bad and destroys the quality of even the bet art. I'm having a hard time thinking of even one comic where there was colour and I thought it elevated the reading experience, meanwhile I can think of plenty of times where I thought the comic would have been better as pure b/w.I will also point out that from what I can see, all the examples of 'bad' comic art here, are from marvel/dc, which is just... classic 'western thing is bad' bullshit.Read a non-capeshit comic, please!
>>7958748Absolutely agree with this. It's strange, it's not like western artists have no clue how to panel, and it'd be fair to say they (or more specifically americans) invented the standard for good comic book paneling (picrel for example)... and now it's like so many have just forgotten that standard, or more likely, they just don't care.>Comics with completely lackluster panelling like pic related. I suspect they just want to be a movie screenwriter, but this wouldn't even pass for screenwriting. It's just amateur hour.I actually listen to Rob Liefeld's podcast, and say what you will about his artistic abilities himself, it's obvious he loves the medium; he's actually lamented how many are in the industry and give zero shit about the comic book medium, and see it only as a means to break into the actual industry they want to get into (usually hollywood movies). Add to this how underpaid artists are now, even comparatively to the past, and it just creates an atmosphere of not caring much about the product.Another interesting point Liefeld has brought up is how the artists aren't propped up and heralded like they used to be (he theorises it's because of what happened with image comics), this seems to be true as can't think of a modern well known comic artists that works in the mainstream industry (some come up through indies, like Bryan Lee O'Malley) but this in turn causes artists and the art to be less valued and for it to become a less desirable job.As a quick sidenote, the pure horizontal panel is something I love when there's one ontop of another - that's basically an entire comic of them. What a fucking awful reading experience that would be.
cont.>>7958751>And the other category is over-the-top masturbatory artistic flex panels like pic related.Half agree here. It's a problem in western comics for sure; both indie and the mainstream. However, There have been times where it's really elevated that particular part of the story. It's both a skill issue, but realising such pages should be flourishes, something to be used rarely, not the fucking standard. Comic paneling should usually be quite boring and on grid, and it should be a big deal when you break out of that.
>>7958777marvel/dc is like 99% of comicsTo dismiss them is to dismiss practically all of comics. A self own
>>7958776Comics are animated.From one panel to the next, this is motion.
woke virus agenda still plays its part on all that, because a competent artist that does not share those ideals still wont ever be a part of it, reducing the pool of available artists to whoever conforms with all that shitbeing able to draw, understanding composition, panels, flow and all that comes 2nd, and that is already too late
>>7958748>>7958726>>7958752>>7958756Is this the main reason why older comic books usually are less boring to read and look at than modern ones? This Frank Miller's Daredevil page has very simple paneling, but the subtle focus on cinematography (different camera angles) make it work well enough even if you don't pay attention to the dialogue. I noticed that a good way to see if your comics has decent panelling or not is to see if it still stands out on it's own in terms of pure visual storytelling if you remove all speech balloons.
>>7958787I bet you only listen to what's being played on the radio, and then complain about how music is bad today. Totally normie mainstream taste.Go back to hanging out at the bar and talking about paying taxes, or whatever you people do.
>>7958805Here's some wordless action scenes from his 1984 Wolverine miniseries. Kinda stiff by modern standards but his approach to action scenes directly inspired by Lone Wolf And Cub was interesting for it's time.
>>7958787>marvel/dc is like 99% of comicsA post from another thread (>>7944716 >>7944727) seems to show this isn't true at all, even when just looking at purely floppy releases.Though maybe a good portion of those releases are still superhero adjacent, but the point still stands.
>>7958748So how would you guys fix this?Here's my attempt, please excuse the abysmal ms paint downie scribbles - it's not the point of this exercise.By breaking the copy-pasted structure of each panel (which currently looks like 4 random screenshots from a movie), we break the monotonous paneling. Even just a bit. The second panel is a profile shot while the third one is supposed to be a 3/4 at an angle. You could mess around with the perspective some more there.Breaking the girl's speech bubble between two panels #2 and #3 adds flow. And the reader's eyes are more naturally moved from left to right like in real books. You get to scan through the art and also read. Compare with the original where the text is centered horizontally and you just read top to bottom.You can even do a thing where the first and last panel are actually the same to communicate that the scene is over (assuming it begins and ends within this entire page).
>>7958816i feel like the single shot could work, but the issue is that it's the same drawing copypasted like 4 times with extremely minor changes in the last one
>>7958816I wouldn't have all horizontal panels - I just think they look dull But your layout is definitely better.I suspect such paneling (all horizontal) is so that reading comics is THAT much simpler. Zero guess work on which panel to read next, because it's straight down.It's the safe and lazy option.
>>7958816I think you just have to move stuff around a bit so you don't have the EXACT same panel three times. Going balls out on the composition is great for fight scenes and important moments but this is just two people talking, nobody is getting too emotional and nobody is revealing anything important so you might want to save your energy for the other 19 pages when things actually happen.Yours works if she's really mad about it, for example, but by the dialogue it sounds more like she's just surprised and vaguely annoyed, you don't need close-ups for it.
>>7958720Superior nippon comic book folded 10,000 time
>>7958805I don't really know comics, but the way your eyes are led across each panel, then straight down into the next panel before movimh back across is quite nice.
>>7958720The art isn’t that bad overall tbqh. It’s really the writing that kills them
>>7958748I dont know the full context of the comic to know what emotional weight is being carried here to give a full critique but i feel you could do this with pic related First panels are verticle. Verticle panels are generally for more alert moments. This captures her suprise to his quiting.They continue talking. Last verticle panel on the top is the liquor drink being poured with a shot of her behind it. To show her being drowned out by his decision Last two panels switch to the horizontal panels from the original. To show the moment de escalating to an awkward quiet moment.
>>7959096Unironically this edit is better than the original.No amount of fiddling with the minor pose details will fix it, it needs to be redrawn entirely
Comic artists don't know how to colorTraditionally, to a comic artist, color doesn't exist, that job belongs to the colorist, who is not an artist.In the past they had extremely limited color options and the style was very simplistic so this wasn't really an issue.But today comics are digitally colored and the style is very realistic, color is extremely important.But color plays no part in the comic artists education. They learn all about anatomy and inking and crosshatching, but they do not learn color, and they do not allow for color in their art
>>7959180In pic related, the sketch is a quintessential comic artists style. It looks great... as a sketch.But it's completely unsuitable as a blueprint for either the inker or the colorist (even if all they're one and the same person)The pencil lines feature tones impossible to replicate in inking, that is to say, it's not binary black and white but rather three tones, white, grey, black.But regardless, the inking job is quintessentially comic, the taste of the spiked gauntlets and the face is entirely lost, but it's a classic ink job. But this inking is entirely detrimental to the colorist. There's too much black, the shadows are entirely black where they should be colored. Colortheory 101, you don't use black in your shadows, and yet here the shadows are entirely black. It's a bad look.
>>7958720Marvel/DC comics are shit, outside of a few exceptions. Read some old French comics, they're kino.
>>7959189
>>7959193
>>7959188I was going to post my own example of how color should be handled, but good timing from >>7959193 has just provided me with a perfectly good example.Look at the back of the dude's cape. It's not black. 99% of comic artists would have inked the cape as black, because that would make for good inks. But a comic is not black and white, it is color. The inks for this page likely don't look very impressive at all. The page is only a complete work of art once all the parts, color and all, come together. Most comic artists have no understanding of this at all. Color does not exist in their world, despite 100% of their art being colored.
>>7959180>>7959188Ive talked about this with someone before.Youre right. There is no cohesion. They labor is divided, yet all involved are after their own name. The penciler, the inker and the colorist are competing. The inker often over does it so much that they leave no room for color, lighting or mood. What ive heard is that theyre doing this to sell single inked pages at comic-cons.I draw my own comics. When I decide before hand im going to color, i dial back on my inks. Unless i need them for mood, as if im mimicing mike mignola or comics made in the 90s where color was done with markers.Comics need a creative director to keep all heads in the pipeline from beating on one another.
>>7959205I'm really surprised comics don't have any strict creative direction.If you work as an animator on a cartoon or anime, it doesn't matter what your personal style is, you have to draw according to the model.I'm not saying every comic should work like animation... but I'm surprised that NO comics work like that.I hate it when I'm reading a comic and the art style changes abruptly from issue to issue. It doesn't matter that the story is the same, the characters look totally different, the backgrounds look totally different, it's like changing actors midway through a movie, it's practically a different character. The Spider-Man that just went through whatever story last issue isn't the same Spider-Man in the next story.If instead there was a singular model for how a character looks (and perhaps a writing model also to keep that inline as well), many comics would feel far more cohesive.
>>7959205I think this highlights an underlying problem with the comics industry as a whole.WHY are the artists so fixated on themselves and not the comic they're making? Do they not care about the comic?Money is definitely one of the factors... but a passion project can be kept afloat on even the most minimal of funds. Why are these comics not passion projects? In the regular books world, all the good books are the lifelong passion projects of their authors. A story they've been thinking about since they were young, something that comes deep from their heart. And often they're created entirely without money, the money comes after success. Nobody hires a writer and tells them to write a successful book like a common employee, or hires a musician and tells them to write a massive hit. Creative industries don't thrive on that sort of model, they thrive on passion projects. If you don't care about what you make, nobody else will.
>>7958720that's literally good drawing though however actually. Kirby and Buscema especially are drawing gods and they mog you, gigaweeb philistine swine you.
>>7958909Everything you said is wrong and you should kill yourself
>>7958909The inability of doing long dialogues in comics without looking retarded is perhaps the medium's biggest weaknessThere is no solution, you're better off not even trying.
>>7959228>Money is definitely one of the factors... but a passion project can be kept afloat on even the most minimal of funds. Why are these comics not passion projects?>In the regular books world, all the good books are the lifelong passion projects of their authors.Writing books is seen as more respectable than creating comics, comic making still has that stigma of an illegitimate job.>>7959225>I'm really surprised comics don't have any strict creative direction.>If you work as an animator on a cartoon or anime, it doesn't matter what your personal style is, you have to draw according to the model.To be fair, manga tends to have mainly one artist, any other artists that work on the project create backgrounds or other stuff that doesn't impact the entire style of the piece. Mangaka work on their projects 14-20 hours straight every day until the manga ends or go through some situation that prevents them from drawing. Comics cycle through different artists, inkers, and colorists regularly, to keep up with schedules.
>>7959358True. The point of a comic over a book is nonverbal communication. So if you're writing long dialogue you failed somewhere along the line.
>>7959386>Writing books is seen as more respectable than creating comics, comic making still has that stigma of an illegitimate job.>describing what is happening in written formCan be potentially considered high art depending on the author, like Dante's Divine Comedy.>a single image depicting one of the actions that is going on in the scene, like an accompanying illustrationCan be potentially seen as high art depending on the artist, like Dore's artwork for the Divine Comedy>a series of drawings depicting the events going on in sequential orderAbsolute trash, the lowest of low art, can never be taken seriously no matter who draws it, will always be considered a joke.Why does it have to be this way? Who decided this? Why is the mere act of depicting a sequence of events somehow considered bad when there clearly is nothing wrong with it if it's done via film?!
>>7959417>Why does it have to be this way? Who decided this? Why is the mere act of depicting a sequence of events somehow considered bad when there clearly is nothing wrong with it if it's done via film?!Same reason why animation and animators have the same association in the west, comics haven't completely shaken off the association with kids content
>>7959417Dunno how to tell you this pal but, nobody really gives a shit about Gustave Dore these days. Your notions of high-art and low-art are outdated. Infact people don't recognize such divisions of class when it comes to art anymore.Millions of people love anime, buy merchandise, posters, tshirts, etc.Whether you realise it or not, this is art appreciation. Nobody is going to old dusty art galleries.What value does your high-art hold when nobody gives a shit about it?
>>7959436Many persons still care about Gustave Dore! He's a Legend!
>>7959448compared to how many people care about Demon Slayer... for every 1 million people that like Demon Slayer, not even one person is interested Gustave Dore
>>7958720You know I spent all day wondering if the OP pic was real or not so I looked it up and it turns out it actually is a real thing you can buy. What a world we live in
>>7958720cut the colorist out of the equation entirelyyou only need pencils and ink
>>7959484that's pretty true, but it doesn't mean a colorist adds nothing. When they're good, it takes the comic to the next level, when they're ass they completely ruin it and you have to suffer through beg slop retardation
>>7959486colorist should only be hired when there's a really good reason for itfor example frank miller worked with the same colorist (his ex-wife) for most of his career and they had a very deep understanding of how the other one worked, so they elevated each other99% of comics do not need color though
>>7959489if you really need colors for the normalfags you can release a colored edition later if the comic is a hitthis is how manga does it and manga is currently bending american comics over and anally raping them, breeding them, diapering and sissying them and so on and so on
>>7959358Solution is cinematography but the idiots using comics as a stepping stool to get into hollywood didnt even try cinematography in the comic book they were standing on.
>>7959358>There is no solutionThe solution is to have them do minor things or to change the angle being shown from panel to panel. In one of his advice pieces, Akira Toriyama literally talks about to improve on such things and how the one thing to never do is to keep the panels the same or nearly 100% the same during the dialogue, or else the reader will automatically skip the entire thing.
>>7959490>if you really need colors for the normalfags you can release a colored edition later if the comic is a hit>this is how manga does it and manga is currently bending american comics over and anally raping them, breeding them, diapering and sissying them and so on and so ondifferent anon, I think you're spot on with, one of, the reasons why manga completely overshadows western comics. It is nice to have have color, but if the comic sucks or is mediocre then I wouldn't really care if it had color or not.
>>7959188>It looks great... as a sketch.>But it's completely unsuitable as a blueprint for either the inker or the coloristI disagree, I think if the colours weren't added, it'd still look great. The colours, and that hideous distracting background are what bring it down. I think the problem is that both Penciler and inker are thinking in terms of black & white, whilst the colourist is obviously thinking very differently.If the colours are to work out, then the colours need to be considered from the very beginning.Really, if they're going to render the shit out of the drawings, then don't have an inker, or if you're going to ink, tell the colourist to keep the colours low-key and simple.Frankly, I'd prefer just black & white comics, but I'm sure Marvel and DC know best... oh wait, their sales are cratering, while black and white comics (manga specifically) are performing very well?... Well then...
