Super
It's been a long time since I took much of an interest in comic books & superheroes – and I'm not finding new interest in them now. But it'd be nonsense to suggest there's nothing worthy of notice in comic books & superhero-type illustration out there. It's enough to observe the diversity of working graphic artists (espec., of course, those in animation & 'character design') who find ongoing inspiration in material of the superhero genre past & present. Check out Drawergeeks.com, where amid a great variety of shameless, ad hoc cartoon & superhero submissions you'll find such material as the terrific image below, by Mark Behm. Look also especially for the extraordinarily fine animator-style drawings of Sarah Mensinga there.(I'll acknowledge without hesitation that though I get an adolescent visual thrill from the hyper-exaggerated physiques of superhero stylings of the past decade & a half or so, I imagine the picture below would be a lot more terrific if Cap's figure weren't exaggerated nearly so much. (Ahhm .. and is that an extra, lower rib cage he's sporting? Going a bit far by anyone's standards, I think.) The well-rendered athletic human figure in primary-colored spandex really needs no exaggeration to make for stunning imagery. Still – beyond question – on its own terms, particularly as casually conceived & produced, this piece is brilliant. Notice especially the handling, for composition, of pictorial effects of light & atmosphere.)
Also, Toronto-based Michael Cho's splendid blog covering his own illustration & comics work (featured at Drawn! a little while ago) and his accompanying whimsical all-Iron-Man blog are well worth a look.
Later: Ahh ... couldn't resist a quick few tries at demonstrating to myself how Cap might be redone. I guess the old bug dies hard. At right, only one I thought suggested a good direction. Lacks heroic grandeur of form, though. Sketch an inch high.
posted by paul bowman @ 10:57 PM
10 Comments:
The extra rib-cage is just another bonus of that wonder-drug he injected, back in the day. I think you also get a second heart, the better to facilitate blood-flow to those enormous muscles.
Drawergeeks had a number of nifty tweakings - some, like Mr. Behm's, reminded me of the early stuff of Bill Sienkewicsz. I can recall a Batman extravaganza from 86 that featured a dozen different artists taking charge of individual chapters, including Sienkewicsz. Sienkewicsz stretched Bats into an elongated shadow, with nearly rabbit-like ears on his cowl - made him look menacing and unhinged, I thought. Which is just about right for most superheros (though your Cap has a welcome naturalism to him).
Captain America snowboarding on his shield...I like it. *mistified at how you can draw so tiny*
I feel compelled to add: the only "how-to" sketch book I own is How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way. It's a well-worn book I've had since I was in my teens. John Romita throws in a couple of pages of scribbled characters in action poses, not dissimilar to your Cap. Maybe you're ready for the Marvel Big Top?
Wup - looks like it's John Buscema I'm talking about. Ah, well.
J, it's a funny thing, but a doodle like that would give me a good deal of trouble if I were to try making it convincing at the size you expect comic book figures to be drawn.
Have come close to justifying to myself a copy of the venerable Marvel Way quite a few times in yrs past — and have or at various times have had use of other books in the comics how-to genre, not all of which I can recall now, to tell the truth.
I'm not dismissive of comics or 'sequential art' — that's plain, I guess. (Years ago, even, used to look for opportunity in classes, while an English major, to get into the subject & write about it some.) I take all strands of the graphic arts relatively seriously (though claim no expertise on the subject), moreover, and tend to see them as interwoven & even as distinguishable only in arbitrary terms. And at the same time in some ways I'm pretty ambivalent about comics & cartooning, so that I seem to keep them at arm's length — more, maybe, than I sometimes really acknowledge to myself. Any sense of ambition in the direction of this kind of work that's come over me at one time or another has been unstable & impossible to build on. It may be — though I'm uncertain about it — that I have the raw talent for this kind of thing and with the right guidance might have grown in it at a stage of life where that kind of choice was really in front of me. But in the long run I seem to be pretty content apart from this path — to the extent I can be said to be content about any settled choice, which is a matter of some question.
By the way, I follow what you're saying about Sienkiewicz & the school of designer/illustrators associated with him — I think of them as comics expressionists, though the term might be better reserved for other things. (Kent Williams, incidentally, is a long time favorite — see sidebar.) Yet check out Sienkiewicz's treatment of Superman (undated) here. This is much more man than monster — physically at least. In fact, to put next to Behm's Captain America there, I think I could hardly come up with a more representative instance of an emphatically human, and yet for that no less super, image of 20th-century hero. Unfortunately, Sienkiewicz's site is a bit thin on portfolio at present, for good further comparison.
Again by the way: In the early—mid 80s — my early—mid teens, when comic books really meant something to me — it wasn't the Marvel Way I was seeking, it was the John Byrne way, specifically. (Which, come to think of it, may account for some enduring inclination in me to be kindly disposed toward Canadians, in spite of Virginia birth & upbringing.)
I'm closer to connecting with your point about Sienkiewicz, Darrell, if I rewrite the penultimate sentence in the penultimate comment above to read 'I think I could hardly come up with a more representative instance of an emphatically manly, in the 'upright' sense, and yet for that no less other, image of the 20th-century hero.'
I hadn't seen that Superman pic - interesting. It's curious, too, that Byrne and Sienkiewicz both cut their teeth on The Avengers. That title seems to have brought a number of artists into the Marvel fold.
If you've read Scott McLeod's Understanding Comics, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
Understanding Comics is one I do have. Nice that you mention it; I'll look for a chance to talk about it some, or to comment, if you beat me to it. It was a helpful thing for me — came along at a good time.
I should say that I probably sound above like more of a comics aficionado than I am or have been. I never could collect comics myself, for the most part. And there was some internal conflict for me over reading them at all, when young. So I actually missed a lot of what was happening in that late 70s to early 90s period, for better or worse.
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