Around the time of the Captain Marvel movie Amazon added a bunch of the comics to Prime Reading so I borrowed some. The first two volumes I read (or attempted to read) were from 2013-ish when I guess Carol Danvers was first taking the Captain Marvel name and the costume now familiar to lots of people.
The first few issues had what I'd call pretty good artwork. This is from issue #4 when Carol is thrown back in time to 1943:
And later this is from issue #8 when Carol and former Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau are fighting a giant robot in New Orleans:
But then after that issue they used a different "artist" and it looked like complete garbage. Take these pages from issue #10:
What the hell is that? It looks like her face is made of wax that's melting. Honestly it looks like the storyboard sketches an artist might make before actually drawing it for real. But you're not supposed to turn those in as the final product!
It was so ugly that I just couldn't bring myself to actually read the rest of the book. Since I only rented it it wasn't like I was out anything. I'd have probably read it as quick as possible if I'd paid money for it.
I guess you can call it "artistic style" and whatever, but I think it's more a lack of style. The first two aren't exactly Leonardo or Michelangelo (or one of the other Ninja Turtles) but it looks like someone actually took time and care to draw people who look mostly like people.
Whereas the other two look rushed and sloppy. It looks like someone who was having trouble meeting his deadline and just scribbled something real quick to turn in.
There is a parallel here for writers, especially self-publishing writers. It's like if you have one author who edits his book (maybe without a $2000 editor but still), formats it properly, and puts together a decent cover. And then you have that other author who doesn't know how to format or proofread and just slaps some text on an image with no thought or care. Which one should you spend your money on?
We say we don't judge a book by its cover, but of course we do. And sometimes we should. Sometimes a cover--or the formatting inside--gives a clue as to how much effort the author put into the rest of the book.
It's a little different for comics because the author and illustrator are two different people. (As well as the colorist and inker and cover illustrator in most cases.)
3 comments:
I see where your coming from. I’m trying to get more into writing reviews so this caught my attention. I read comics all the time but struggle to write about them. Filipe Andrade has a very unique style that doesn’t let itself well to all comics. His Hellboy work fits because the material is inherently strange. That said any artwork can turn you off a comic. Even the best writing can’t help that. It’s strange because the opposite isn’t always true. Wonderful art can keep you reading even if the writing is weak. Books with great covers probably sell better too.
This happens a lot to me. Now that publishers put out so much material, it's impossible to have good artists in every title, and sometimes I run into really bad art and I just can't keep reading.
With books I absolutely do not agree that the cover is what matters. And even books released by major publishers have typos. It's the story, and the storytelling, and the writing itself that matter. A nice cover can get me to have a look. But that's it. Why would I buy a book, let alone read one, based on the cover alone?
As for Carol Danvers, it's kind of shocking that Marvel has still yet to put A-list talent on her comics.
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