Saturday, May 07, 2005
Comic Art
Technology creeps in everywhere, comics are no exception. Consider, in the old days, a comic page would be laid out like this:
Notice the nice panels, and the white edge surrounding the page. Oh ocassionally, they would combine two of the six panels into one like in the middle of the page, or do what was called a "splash page" where all six panels were combined into one, but that was about it. Now, with new printing technology they do pages that look like this
This is essentially a full page drawing with panels inserted. Note how the drawing runs all the way to the edge of the page. When pages like this first started to appear, they were called "premium format" and were significantly more expensive that regular comics. Now they are commonplace and formerly "regular" comics are the exception. Yes, this drove up the prices of comics, but the miracle is that prior to the new technolgy, it would have been completely unaffordable.
And then there is color. Formerly, comics were primary colors like this:
Now, with the new technology they are bright and many-hued. Consider this example
Note how with the new technology, light is more apparent, the colors are brighter, more vivid. And this is still and ink and color drawing. Some comics are purely painted.
I have to say that sometimes I miss the old days. These days, with all this technology the artist gets so carried away with what he can do that he forgets his primary role as a storyteller. Also, the increased price in comics this technology created has largely killed the child market, though the publishers are now making efforts to regain that market and create a new generation of readers.
As with most advances, it's a mixed bag, but when it is done right, boy is it great!
Notice the nice panels, and the white edge surrounding the page. Oh ocassionally, they would combine two of the six panels into one like in the middle of the page, or do what was called a "splash page" where all six panels were combined into one, but that was about it. Now, with new printing technology they do pages that look like this
This is essentially a full page drawing with panels inserted. Note how the drawing runs all the way to the edge of the page. When pages like this first started to appear, they were called "premium format" and were significantly more expensive that regular comics. Now they are commonplace and formerly "regular" comics are the exception. Yes, this drove up the prices of comics, but the miracle is that prior to the new technolgy, it would have been completely unaffordable.
And then there is color. Formerly, comics were primary colors like this:
Now, with the new technology they are bright and many-hued. Consider this example
Note how with the new technology, light is more apparent, the colors are brighter, more vivid. And this is still and ink and color drawing. Some comics are purely painted.
I have to say that sometimes I miss the old days. These days, with all this technology the artist gets so carried away with what he can do that he forgets his primary role as a storyteller. Also, the increased price in comics this technology created has largely killed the child market, though the publishers are now making efforts to regain that market and create a new generation of readers.
As with most advances, it's a mixed bag, but when it is done right, boy is it great!
