Why I hate Panini Books

The reason for me hating Panini Books is simple: bad binding on their reprints. My copy of Wolverine: Enemy of the State/Agent of SHIELD started to fall apart after one reading. After two read-throughs it now looks like this:

So if Panini don't care enough about their reprints to do a decent binding job, I'll just buy an original Marvel print from import. There's no difference in the cost and frankly, who wants a book that falls apart when you read it?

Piazza San Marco

I'm not feeling great so I'm giving in to my enthusiasm and previewing my new painting with this 'in progress' photo. Opinions very welcome :)

World's Finest

flyers sucks by ~DjBisparulz on deviantART

Words cannot describe how much I love this! You should also check out his gallery, he is quite simply a unique and remarkable artist. :)

Realism?

You know what really bugs me? Well to be honest a lot of things, but you're guaranteed to annoy me by saying comic art is too 'cartoony' or it should be more 'realistic'. You have a guy flying around in tights with a giant speech-bubble floating beside his head, kind of throws realism out the window don't you think?

What is it about 'suspension of disbelief' that allows you to believe a guy with a green ring and no imagination is the hero/patrol man for this sector of space BUT no he can't look anything less than an oil painting.

Speaking of which, Alex Ross; yeah the guy can paint (as long as his light source is from the left) but strip that away and he's not a great storyteller. Average at best. In my opinion the only remarkable aspect of his career is that he sold himself as a 'great painter' of comics rather than an 'average' penciller with average story telling ability.

Think that covers the rant for now. Nothing is too 'cartoony,' no style is preferable above others and painted art doesn't automatically make a comic 'amazing.'

Now I should really go and think about a follow up to that first blog and expanding on some of the points in it :\

Moon Dog

My first drawing of 2011 and it's for a future project I'm toying with.

Yes that is a dog in a space suit. :)

the impossibles one

Here's one of my old comic scripts turned into word art by 'wordle'

Troubles

I keep thinking about the comic industry for some reason recently, might be all the comic creators I have on twitter, or the slew of comic book based films coming out or that niggling little itch I always have to draw some of the bloody things but I'm thinking comics and what's wrong with them (or more specifically the American comic industry.)

The more I think about it the more I can see a list of things that all feed into each other:

1. Too many superhero books.
2. Too much emphasis on continuity and pandering to older readers.
3. Always chasing a new fad without examining it in full (holofoil and variant covers, digital comics etc.)
4. The fans themselves encouraging a lack of diversity.
5. Not enough risk taking by the major publishers.
6. Public perception of comics, what they are and what they expect from them.
7. Too many armchair critics being given more credence than they're worth.

What can be done about them? I may have some ideas and they're mostly personal and from what is an admittedly ever-growing, outsider perspective. If I was you I'd probably presume that this blog is a lead-up to a more detailed discussion of some of them though ;)