Blogotional: Comic Art

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Comic Art

We've talked about him before, but no consideration of "The Omnipotents" would be complete without considering Galactus. Please do not confuse the Galactus of this past summer's FF movie with the comic character. That thing that they tried to pawn off as one of the most visually stunning and fascinating characters in the history of comic books should not be allowed in the room with a serious discussion of Galactus. Movie budgets force compromise....

Again, not truly omnipotent, for comic books seem to inherently avoid religious conflict by coming up to the edge but not crossing it, Galactus is an anthropomorphic force of nature, destruction in a person. As literature, I find the idea incredible. If one considers destruction as a part of existence, then to personify it and make it an enemy....

Although, as with all great bad guys, people like 'em enough, they try to soften the edges. Recently, the FF managed to revert Galactus to mere human stature (Galen) in an effort to put him in touch with his essential humanity so he would lose his compulsion to eat inhabited planets.

But for my money, and the reason the movie got it so wrong, the best thing is how Galactus looks. From the drafting table of Jack Kirby, the master and designer, it just does not get any better.

Kirby is the template upon which all modern comic art is based. There is a currently a move away from the Kirby template/source both in artistic temperment and in the new technology moving the artists away from the traditional pencil, ink, color of the newsprint days. In many cases, the results are quite admirable - but as far as I am concerned, Galactus will never be done better than by the original. In all these years, they have messed with his look very, very little, and with good reason - some designs are timeless and cannot be improved upon.