Saturday, October 22, 2005
Comic Art
Last week you will recall we looked at one of the staples of the Marvel stable of artists from the so-called Silver Age - John Romita, Sr. in our continuing series on the Honorable Mentions. This week we are going to look at his son, John Romita, Jr. (amazing how that works, isn't it.) I'm going to call him Junior for the sake of clarity, but I have no idea if that is a legitimate nickname for the guy.Junior has very much made his name the same way his dad did -- doing everyone at Marvel, but doing Spidey best of all. I really like this particular Hulk image becasue of how it emphsizes the creatures size, not just in bulk, but in height.
Junior's DD is one of my favs of all the current working Daredevil artists. DD has become so stylized that it really is kind of ugly. Junior manages to be edgy with his DD without going all the way into stylized.Note all the shading on Daredevil, to the point that he really just looks like a gymnast, absent color you can barely tell he is a superhero. That is how DD should look, at least given his current working legend -- kind of a neighborhood punk gone good, dealing almost exclusively with street crime. Definitely better than a lot of the current stuff that looks like it is some sort of drug induced nightmarish dream instead of a story.
Note in this pencil sketch that the Spidey is just classic. His publication Spidey's are usually a little different than this - this really looks like he is trying to imitate dear-old-dad.
This is classic Junior -- Spidey doing his thing, upside down.As you can see, this is a painting where Junior has it all over daddy. Of course, in Senior's day paintings could not be printed, so who is to say what he could have done with today's technology. For the most part, I like Juniors paintings. They are pretty much traditional comic images, improved byt he techniques and color blending available with a brush. Most guys who comic paint try to redefine the art somehow -- maybe that is cool for a poster, but not for a cover or a book.
The comic touch of the Rhino smelling the flowers is also cool. Rhino is about the dimmest bulb in the bad guy 4-pack, but generally belligerent as can be, so to see him sitting there like that is just pure funny.
And here, finally, is Junior doing gritty. Gritty is not Junior's forte but he's not bad. I don't love the Batman here -- he is too wide somehow. The Punisher; however, is just outstanding. I really like the beard on Franky-boy. It gives him just the right manical look, like he is just a bit too obsessed to bother to shave.Junior is a workhorse comic artist with the chops to be a star, that makes him the best kind. He is primarly a Marvel guy, but his particular strengths, I'd really like to see him do a Justice League series -- I think it would be a perfect match.
