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Post by bigw1966 on Jun 6, 2010 11:40:30 GMT -5
Defient 1 we areboth nobodies.
I am sure I could have a huge readership if I made an effort to stat a comics discussion board and put the time in it.
Now I was not saying that you were not a smart or knowledgable person, I did however state that I felt you could not see what it is about some artists work that makes it good and that goes beyond flashy slick art.
A little about me, I have around 18-22,000 comics. I have been collecting for about 37 years now myself.
My books go back to about 1959 and as far as silver age goes I have at least 1/2 of the books put out in the 60's including a number of primary keys.
I don't have some of the first issues like you but I have X-MEN from issue 9 all the way to about 3 years ago.
I have about 85 of the first 100 issues of FF and every issue of Captain america from Tales of suspense through his own title.
Same with the Hulk and others
I have practically everything from the 70's and 80's as well. That took some money to get also.
My retail background goes back to about1981 where In high school I managed to get a receiving management job at Thaklheimers. I was working at Chucky Cheeses at the same time.
I have worked for myself for over 21 years, with many employees over that time who depended upon me to make the money to pay them to allow them to pay their bills.
All off of my sweat.
Its a good feeling to do this.
Marketing is an area that I am very good with. I also have an exceptionally high success rate with direct customer service.
As an Artist, whether I am doing a corporate logo design or just painting a t-shirt, I am selling people something that in no way even exists until I put it in front of them.
and they pay me lots of money up front.
I have always been this way.
I have worked in sales of all types over the years,
I have also got a background in various stages of Construction from Framing, Drywall, Trim, Plumbing, painting and how to lay concrete foundations.
This has come from years of both working in the field when I had to and also from doing my own projects.
I primarily read books on science and psychology, along with novels by a variety of writers and genres. In fact my wife is pissed because she bought me 3 books for my birthday last month and I read them in two weeks. 2700+ pages. I do that a lot.
I feel that is one of the main reasons my IQ is what it is.
I have training in Drafting and Mechanical design. I have taught myself how to work on cars and just about everything else I come into contact with.
I have always been like a sponge in this sense. This has helped me out greatly over the years because As an Artist the money is not always there so you need to be able to fall back on something.
lucky for me I have many choices.
Now As Tommy said we all have our places and outlooks on what we find appealing and why.
no one is trying to change that at all.
I felt it was more of a point and counterpoint conversation.
That said, the primary reason for my last response is because you made assumptions about me that had no basis of fact because you simply do not know me.
As a person though, I never learned the words back down. so when someone comes at me I move to shut them down.
sort of a defensive reactionary person. Not a good or bad thing mind you, just a thingthat I wouldn't change...much ;-)
so you see we both have our own things. especially with us being old bastards who are set in our way as to how we think.
Now just to hit on one point you made in your last post.
comics ARE in a downward spiral. Prices ARE going up to counter a dwindling Market share.
The quality overall is increasing both in Art and in Stories. I mean with the people thatthey are getting into the industry now it should be getting better.
MARVEL and all of the others have completely forgotten how to approach kids.
I would love to sit down with Joe quesada and explain to him what I think that they should do to draw children into the comic shops and get them buying comics.
The sad part is none of these high paid people can see what I see.
I know Comics, marketing, and quality also. but I think that my background as an Artist, along with my minor experience writing fiction of all types gives me a step up in how to look at comics both from a fans perspective and from a business standpoint.
I am currently working on creating a Web based subscription comic company. I have a solid plan and I am currently getting investors from the Industry interested.
I will let you guys know how that goes.
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Post by bigw1966 on Jun 6, 2010 11:42:23 GMT -5
Man my spelling is atrocious today. Its like a monkey was banging on the keys while trying to decide where to throw its poop.
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Post by defiant1 on Jun 6, 2010 17:25:45 GMT -5
The problem is that comics are trying to stay affordable and that means keeping costs down. All the shortcuts creators are taking is lowering quality whether they're damn good at putting forth half an effort or not. Editors have no control over anything because if they try to assert themselves, the artist has the attitude that they can go do something else that pays better. The industry creates cliques whereby certain groups look out for one another and force the status quo. If a writer can pump out a shallow story fans don't complain about pretty quickly, the publisher rewards them by giving them more stories to write. They save time and money by dealing with less creators, but the depth and quality flat out suffer. Accepting staredown covers or one page art panels is a way to keep artists happy because they have no problem selling those and making additional money for the same pieces.
At some point the laziness of turning in half or partially completed work has to stop. The greed of squeezing out a little extra money on the back end for art at the expense of the story and marketing has to stop.
It absolutely has to be a concerted effort for the cause of selling a comic and building readership, not a bunch of people with chips on their shoulders looking out for themselves. These people took more pride in their work when the industry was prosperous.
They need to start insisting that scripts meet a word count. They need to quit passing off sketches as finished works. It should be a requirement that the artist and writer collaborate to give some kind of insight or clue what the comic is about on the cover. This is the difference between running a business and letting kids have an hour to draw whatever pictures they want at school.
df1
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Post by G on Jun 6, 2010 18:39:56 GMT -5
I got an order from DCBS last week. I went to the beach today and when I got home, I took a dump. I read two comics while I pinched a loaf. I read Earp #0 from Radical comics which wasn't half bad but felt like a half a comic and finished up with Shadowhawk #1 which sported a skull with a Shadowhawk mask on the cover (so easy I could have drawn it from my head). Amazingly, this comic took half the time as the Earp comic and felt like it amounted to 2 or 3 scenes where pretty much nothing much happened. Like I said, the Earp comic was a lot better. It was kinda a rouge law enforcement type book written in like a Goodfellas style. I'll say that one was pretty good. Regardless, I read two comics in the time it took me to take a dump (picture it). I can honestly remember a time where it took me about 3 dumps to finish one comic. Boy, those were the days!  |
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Post by bigw1966 on Jun 14, 2010 11:18:36 GMT -5
So I have been talking about this subject with a number of Industry pro's recently both on facebook and at the Wizard World show I just attended.
Many of the Artists working today new or long term, do not even read comics. Staz Johnson for example approaches a cover from the standpoint of a Graphic design. Similar to many prose novels.
To him an Action cover is just like doing a panel and he doesn't see the point.
I got this answe from many artists who say that its hard enough to fit 6-12 characters on a cover without having to figure out how to create a compelling story related scene with 6-12 characters on it.
Now me I feel that I don't need every character on the cover. Just the ones the story primarily focuses on. That way you can work a better balance.
I also showed these artists covers by people like George Perez or Alex Toth and Gil Kane and BWS that show how a scene is far superior to a plain pose shot.
Some get it, but again, most of them approach it from a graphic image standpoint.
Now regarding wht was said about Editors having no power or whatnotis a load of steaming crap.
I have seen Editors fire artists who were two issues into a book because they either were holding up the production process or were not following editorial requirements.
All creative teams work together on the stories. In fact its actually a Marvel policy these days according to many creatos that the Artist and the Writer work closely on how to best present the story.
There are certain creators who get more leeway based on their history with the company or what have you. Like John Cassiday who gets a lot of creative control over his covers due to his process of work. Same with Dave Johnson (100 Bullets) or Tim Bradstreet.
J.G. Jones, who is easily one of the best Artists working in comics is one of those guys who is trusted based on his history.
He did every cover for 52, DC's weekly series that came out not that long ago.
Over the weekend he was telling me that for that project, DC basically just let him draw what he wanted. He would turn in cover thumbnails 5 issues at a time, there may be suggestions based on who was going to be in an issue than week, but due to time constraints they let him go to it. 52 sported a wide range of covers and all of them were solid.
Same with his covers for Y- The last man also.
Now I just have to say this, why in the hell should there be a word count requirement on a script. Sorry but that is just Ignorent.
Wow, sorry Alan Moore, I understand you were able to present this gripping story in 6000 words, but we require 10,000 so please go back and work on it some more.
A story only requires the amount of words neccessary to tell the story. No more, no less.
Any writer worth their salt, comic or prose novelist would tell you to go fuck yourself with a rusty pipe if you suggested some bullshit like that.
The reason a story reads fast or slow is all determined by the nature of the story. Example if you have a setup issue or a major story reveal issue, it will usually read slower because there is more exposition needed to get the plot where it needs to be.
While a story that is carrying 1-3 action scenes in it will read faster becasuse it is more the visuals that are carrying the story.
Look at any film. Some move along at a brisk and airy pace because of the nature of the story.
Others drag in the middle because that is where all of the threads start to coalese together so more has to be shown.
Hell a script doesn't even have to have a single word of dialogue to be awesome.
Doubt me? Remember Marvels NUFF SAID experiment from about 10 years ago? An entire month of books with no dialogue in them. Sure a couple of them were weak. That is to be expected, but then you have others, like the Snake Eyes centric GI JOE that is considered a classic comic that ranks as one of the bset ever.
That Earp book you mentioned, was that Wynona Earp? Beau Smith is good at the crime type stuff.
As I stated before, I am not a fan of these pose covers, and I would avoid drawing them if I was in the position of doing them.
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Post by defiant1 on Jun 14, 2010 21:11:40 GMT -5
Now I just have to say this, why in the hell should there be a word count requirement on a script. Sorry but that is just Ignorent. Nope, it's ignorant to think people want to buy a modern comic they can read in 2 minutes when anyone can go buy older comics that actually take time to read and can be thought provoking. It's ignorant to think a storytelling industry will attract readers when there is nothing to read. Fuck wordless comics. It's just the byproduct of lazy ass creators who are self-gratifying themselves over how lazy they can be. If I want a fucking sketch book, I'll buy a fucking sketch book and it needs to be solicited as a sketch book. It has to do with value for your money. When Witchblade came out, I bought it for the pretty pictures with the pretty covers. After about 6 issues I realized all it included was a bunch of characters standing around posing for panel after panel. I dropped the book and never looked back. The two hour Spawn movie had more story in it than two years worth of the comic. You have unbelievably low standards. df1 |
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Post by G on Jun 14, 2010 22:12:51 GMT -5
So I have been talking about this subject with a number of Industry pro's recently both on facebook and at the Wizard World show I just attended. If nothing else, thanks for inquiring about a subject we have been discussing here. I appreciate the effort. Many of the Artists working today new or long term, do not even read comics. Staz Johnson for example approaches a cover from the standpoint of a Graphic design. Similar to many prose novels. To him an Action cover is just like doing a panel and he doesn't see the point. I got this answe from many artists who say that its hard enough to fit 6-12 characters on a cover without having to figure out how to create a compelling story related scene with 6-12 characters on it. Reading that whole quote I was like....wow. It's amazing how the industry has just found a way to justify their change in attitude to be totally different from the way it was just a mere 20 - 30 years ago. I can still vividly recall in "How to draw comics the Marvel way" they used a Nova cover as an example and showed 3 or 4 examples of setting the cover to give the right tease with the right drama for what could be expected inside. The little teasing glimpse probably did more for me than sometimes the actual comic itself and now its like....why bother to even know what is in the comic when I can just whip up a nice little pose shot and be done with it. That paragraph was pretty amazing. Now me I feel that I don't need every character on the cover. Just the ones the story primarily focuses on. That way you can work a better balance. I also showed these artists covers by people like George Perez or Alex Toth and Gil Kane and BWS that show how a scene is far superior to a plain pose shot. Some get it, but again, most of them approach it from a graphic image standpoint. It sounds like they nod there head like "yeah, in your world....that does sound nice" but I prefer to call it a graphic. I've never needed all 8 characters on a cover. I remember X-Men #112 vividly. There you have Wolverine, Magneto and I think one other character looking on as Magneto has seized control of Wolverine's Admantium claws and is using it to turn on Wolverine himself as Wolverine creates an armbar to try and hold himself back from slicing himself up. Pretty simple, involved only 3 or 4 characters and gave terrific insight to the book. The drama the cover created was "SOLD". I couldn't wait to see what happened inside. I just don't get the same feeling when 8 X-Men stare at me looking cool for the 150th time in the last 20 years. What's original now is to NOT do that once again. I have seen Editors fire artists who were two issues into a book because they either were holding up the production process or were not following editorial requirements. All creative teams work together on the stories. In fact its actually a Marvel policy these days according to many creatos that the Artist and the Writer work closely on how to best present the story. I am quite amazed at how many times I bought a comic with another cookie cutter cover and brought it home and read it and was actually pleasantly surprised sometimes how well it appeared the story and the art worked together. Certainly this is not always the case, but you can tell when the two are on the same page and making a good story. Dammit, couldn't they just dream up a nice cover concept once in awhile? The graphic approach to covers sometimes really shortchanges the story inside. What would "Demon in a Bottle" be if it just sported a Graphic cover design? It's the damn cover that etched itself into everyone's brain. If that same book had another Iron Man stare at you cover, I would almost wonder if the "Demon in a bottle" storyline would be remembered today. That image of looking in the mirror right there on the cover, is what has made it so memorable 30 years later now. These covers coming out now, I'll forget those comics in 3 months or less. There are certain creators who get more leeway based on their history with the company or what have you. Like John Cassiday who gets a lot of creative control over his covers due to his process of work. Same with Dave Johnson (100 Bullets) or Tim Bradstreet. J.G. Jones, who is easily one of the best Artists working in comics is one of those guys who is trusted based on his history. He did every cover for 52, DC's weekly series that came out not that long ago. Over the weekend he was telling me that for that project, DC basically just let him draw what he wanted. He would turn in cover thumbnails 5 issues at a time, there may be suggestions based on who was going to be in an issue than week, but due to time constraints they let him go to it. 52 sported a wide range of covers and all of them were solid. Same with his covers for Y- The last man also. It's funny how sometimes when the covers bust out of the routine of being just another pose, it just seems a lot more solid. I actually have a couple of 52's and they are indeed pretty solid. When I see that kind of stuff today, I just go "man, what if....." Now I just have to say this, why in the hell should there be a word count requirement on a script. Sorry but that is just Ignorent. Wow, sorry Alan Moore, I understand you were able to present this gripping story in 6000 words, but we require 10,000 so please go back and work on it some more. I like a lot of what you brought to the table with this post Mike, but you kinda lost me on this one too. I don't know about you, but I could never just flip pages with Alan Moore. Love him or hate him, he usually had a lot to read when you read his books. I think the post count deal was leaning more towards a standard comic book today being filled with gatefolds and splash pages with very few standard panel pages sprinkled in. And it wasn't for some grand concept either. It was basically enough text to amount for a few paragraphs in its entirety and did little or nothing to give you the feeling that a true story was written or experienced. I know I've got off the pot a few times after reading a comic and I was like wondering how the creators got away with what they just did. It was more like they robbed me (and others). I have a Comic Buyers Guide from 2004 where the cover says "The incredible shrinking comics" and in it they did a journalistic piece on the rapid decline of text in comics. They basically started with Amazing Spiderman in 1964 and did like a 6 month sample and documented all words, captions, thought balloons, panels and sound effects. And then they did the same thing every 5 years with the same title....Amazing Spiderman. In it, they found that comics were basically about half the reading in 2004 than they were in 1964. And not only had spoken words decreased, but such novelties as panels had nearly cut in half, thought balloons all but gone, and sound effects now rendered obsolete and in the name of progress in comics??? Truly, what was taking place was more a reduction in overall work and output. I think the argument is, if you can tell a good story without saying anything, than fine. Just do that well. But if you're just phoning in a comic and slapping the same price tag on it compared to a comic that might give us something to actually make us feel like we got to read something, than dammit...put some work into the craft and be a fine example to the comics community. Don't give me 3 scenes and call it a day. I think that is just happening way too often these days. As I stated before, I am not a fan of these pose covers, and I would avoid drawing them if I was in the position of doing them. I hope as the creative guy I know you are and can be, that you would do exactly that if the opportunity ever presented itself. Once again, thanks for sharing your insight and thoughts. |
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Post by bigw1966 on Jun 17, 2010 12:26:42 GMT -5
You have unbelievably low standards.
df1
Um, no I don't. You just prove again what I said before. That being that while you may know comics, you really do not know what makes a good comic.
Look In a comic it is a mixture of words and pictures. They should work in harmony and it is not a requirement that the text verbally describes what the pictures should be selling.
I do not need text in every single panel just to feel I got my moneys worth, or the feeling that the writer actually did his job.
that is because the pictures need to do 1/2 of the work.
I put that in the same category as people that go to the drive through and always order the super value meal because they don't feel they are getting enough for their money from the regular meal. Enjoy turning into the GoodYear blimp.
Alan Moore was mentioned. Well not every panel or page in WATCHMEN has text. But the backgrounds are rich in detail to a point where you can use those visual images to get more out of the story. The same is true for the Top 10 title.
The way comics are written today is termed -decompression- meaning they plan for a collected release and therefore expand the narrative of the story. So you may have an issue where the story takes longer to unfold because of the amount of exposition required for the setup.
Then maybe two issues later you are given a fight scene that goes on for 12 pages out of 22 with maybe a couple of balloons worth of text involved. (I mean who the fuck has time for a long conversation while kicking ass anyhow right?) and then the last 10 pages may have a good amount of dialogue. So Issue one by its nature took you 30 minutes to read and issue 2 took you 10 minutes to read. Did the writer fail? Did you get ripped off? The answer to both is NO. Because the pace of any story is dictated by the actions presented.
the point though is that issue will read much faster than the previous one and may make you feel empty about what it offered.
Yet if you sat down with the entire story, you would not notice any dead areas, or feel that the writer had shirked what you consider his responsability.
(the current writing method is also why I do not buy individual issues anymore.) Take Invincible Iron Man by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca for example. Read as single issues they read alright, but read as a whole they take on a whole new perspective. Becoming damn near epic in some cases.
Now we can easily agree that some creators do this better than others.
also If the writer decides to do this, I as a reader would expect that the Artist is up to the job of presenting the wordless panels with such detail that it draws the reader in. So body language and expressions along with the situation presented in the given scene should be able to provide the emotional connection that the lack of verbal text is not supplying.
So I wouldn't expect to get that from say Rob Leifeld. But am confident that Andy Kubert or Gary Frank could provide it.
If you look at a book like WALKING DEAD, there are issues where you will go 2-5 pages and there may only be a single word in a single balloon across all of those pages. Yet, you will feel like you were gut punched at the level of emotion that is within the pages.
(remember I have repeatedly said, the most important job of the Artist is not how slick and shiny their pencils are, but how well they present the story)
I have numerous stories that I have written that have pages with no dialogue whatsoever, and you know what, I wouldn't change a thing about them because my descriptions of the visuals are so strong that the final drawings will fill in all of the blanks.
Prose novels (which do not have pretty pictures to help them have full chapters where the characters never have an internal thought or verbal response to anything. It doesn't seem to hurt them at all.
Now If you want to be specific, The film and television Industry does have a page count requirement for scripts. That being one page=1 minute of screen time. But, that does NOT mean that there must be character dialogue on every page.
How many films and TV shows have you watched where you have had to fill in the blanks of what was happening during those silent moments.
A million?
Did Passion of the Christ need to beat you over the head with some asshole saying "look at how we have beaten the Lord. Look at all the blood we are spilling and the lacerations we have cut into his flesh!
Was that required or needed in order for you to be revolted by the imagery or brought to tears as the suffering is presented to you?
No. It is not. This is because the visuals are supplying all that you need.
It would be an excersize in redundency to have someone saying it verbally.
If you are buying a comic with the expectation that the issue will have a complete beginning, middle, and end. might as well give up on comics now because the days of one and done are for the most part long behind us. Sure, there are the exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.
This falls into the area of an argument you brought up recently that Companies are fighting a dwindling and aging comic audience.
This is true. The audience is getting older and also smarter so they need more out of their stories. That is why we are getting the quality level of writers in the Industry that we have now.
(I think Bendis is the only one paid by the letter though)
It is also why the Industry changed their publishing structure. Fewer stories that are spead out further and eventually collected so It can all be read at one time.
This approach also makes it easier for them to maintian a plausible sort of continuity. Fewer conflicting storylines.
Use this example; My story Last Caress which is posted on here is what I would call a very simple story. No cliffhangers. Limited characters. Limited scenes.
But, when I wrote the first draft, it was over 23 pages long. It did not have the same beginning. In fact it started off with the kid happy and in love.
But, I only had 10 pages to tell my story. So, I had to distill it down to the basics of each character.
The kid- He is nieve and easily manipulated.
The Woman- is manipulative and has a planned agenda that she is hiding.
Rick- He is a dick. A real mean bastard.
So I have the primary motivations of my characters.
now I need a new hook for the story.
That is when I decided to start the story with the kid bleeding out and then have him flashing back to how he ended up there all while coming to the realization that he was used. (something the reader has already figured out because of how I presented it.)
Not every panel has dialogue, but most do because I had to compress the story and could only drop so much.
In the end I feel the final product delivers what it needed to and nothing else.
Granted, it probably isn't satisfying enough to take a dump too, but I digress.
If you guys are interested, I have an early draft of a Superman story I came up with. The draft is written like a plot breakdown with many but not all of the scenes played out in their entirety. Most of it is approached like a prose novel though.
It reads very well and I have gotten very good response from people on it.
I could post it if your interested. It shows a starting point process though.
@gw; Yeah man I was pretty shocked at some of the Artist responses regarding that issue.
I actually took the time to show them covers by Gil Kane, BWS and Perez that show how to do covers right.
But again, not all of these guys even crack open a comic book on their own time so I can see where they are coming from, even if I do not agree.
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Post by bigw1966 on Jun 17, 2010 13:05:22 GMT -5
@gw: I forgot to add, that I had read an article a while back that I think sited that same study with Spider-Man.
I thik the worst part of that was in the 90's when panel design and epty flashy art became the order of the day, but I think also that as people learn the language of comics they start to require more from the artwork to help convey what the story is presenting, or the deeper parts of a character.Especially if a good writer is coupled with a really solid artist, like Brubaker is with his rotating artiss on Captain america.
He is able to describe emotional beats, and through posture and lighting along with subtle movements of head and hand can have a character express everything that words used to. It removes the need for an inner monalogue all the time.
Thats what I think at least.
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Post by G on Jun 19, 2010 11:55:37 GMT -5
@gw: I forgot to add, that I had read an article a while back that I think sited that same study with Spider-Man. I thik the worst part of that was in the 90's when panel design and epty flashy art became the order of the day, but I think also that as people learn the language of comics they start to require more from the artwork to help convey what the story is presenting, or the deeper parts of a character.Especially if a good writer is coupled with a really solid artist, like Brubaker is with his rotating artiss on Captain america. He is able to describe emotional beats, and through posture and lighting along with subtle movements of head and hand can have a character express everything that words used to. It removes the need for an inner monalogue all the time. Thats what I think at least. The late 80s and early 90s was one of the worst eras because it was the Todd McFarlane era with 3 panels per page and limited scripting. I'm all for less words if the art can tell the story and replace the need for it. But I think you're referring to the exception and not the norm. The norm seems to be less words and artists who can't really take up the dead air space and push the story along. Some can and when they can, fine. But its more often than not, the art is really just average and going with the less is more approach and the storytelling is subpar in itself, giving the mix a completely inferior quality compared to the past. In this day and age when so much is possible, its sad to see the shortcuts in craftsmanship. I'm not saying all comics do this. I still find good quality work out there and it is enjoyable. But far too often I read a comic and think "geez, I just got bamboozled". I think I'm really trying these days to give a lot of things a chance so I won't be a hypocrite but the level of disappointment compared to the past is so much higher these days. Even books I didn't particularly like in the past, I could typically tell a lot of work was put into them. |
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