Does anyone else find it jarring how fucking static the art in Marvel & DC comics are?

Does anyone else find it jarring how fucking static the art in Marvel & DC comics are?

It's like every fucking panel they have to do some autistic pose instead of moving naturally

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youtube.com/watch?v=Ql9OOKgeCII
mikeljanin.deviantart.com/
mikeljanin.deviantart.com/art/Marvel-character-samples-127552216
mikeljanin.deviantart.com/art/Iron-Man-127676146
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yes. its mostly the inking though.

a bit the pencils. but, you can argue whos job exactly it is to do speed lines.

The problem then is the lack of quality inkers these days. Assuming there even is one.

Inking in the US is a dead art. First, digital inking reduced the number of jobs for inkers. Then pencilers inking their own work reduced the number of jobs for inkers. (and also directly lowered the bar for quality inks)
Over time, it very quickly became the case, that fewer and fewer inkers could stay afloat trying to be comic book inkers. only the BEST got work. and, as the BEST retire, move on to vidya, etc. There is no one left. No one in the American comic market that has any fucking idea what they are doing, when it comes to inking anymore.

An equally big problem to what you just described is that a lot of the people that are "pencillers inking their own work" arent actually pencillers at all, and are instead using 3d software like poser and daz to set up scenes using prepared models, then taking screenshots with a "comic book" shader applied.

Regardless of how you feel about that method, it definitely leads to "static autistic poses" like OP is describing (not that OP is 3d art or anything though)

Hold on, that's a thing? There's actually a program one can use to make comics without having to actually draw anything?

you don't even need speed lines

just characters that look like a picture of a person in motion and not a studio model standing still posing for an artist

it's like these artists learned physiology in terms of structure and not the dynamics of how that structure changes when in motion.

Yes, and many DC and Marvel "artists" use them. They vary a lot in terms of quality and how easy it is to tell- some of them are clearly 3d and look like "russian porn comics", but some of them are almost indistinguishable.

Skip through this for some examples of what you can do:
youtube.com/watch?v=Ql9OOKgeCII

Hypothetically, if someone were to make their own comic using this program, would that be considered okay assuming full disclosure? Not everyone is able to draw after all.

Here's an artist that does "okay-tier" 3d: you can definitely tell it's poser, but it doesn't look *too* bad.

> Mikel Janin
mikeljanin.deviantart.com/

He's drawn a lot of comics. A lot of people know him for his Justice League Dark run.

I honestly hate him, he's good at setting scenes and making models (if he does actually make them), but he's absolute shit at posing them. They frequently look unnatural.

The other reason I hate him is because he denies 3d modelling. At least be honest about it.

His earlier deviantart works are ridiculously easy to tell even to the untrained eye:
mikeljanin.deviantart.com/art/Marvel-character-samples-127552216

Look at this piece of trash. He pretends he drew this, when in reality he rendered this fucking obvious 3d render, and then traced it to make the sketch.
mikeljanin.deviantart.com/art/Iron-Man-127676146

and to be clear. "speed lines" are more then just background streaks. which you will see in american comics.
And is where they really fuckup.

look at this. see how the contour lines of the bodies are utterly destroyed? and are instead depicted as perpendicular lines with the motion? The composition is static. Not even using forced perspective or anything. its just the technique used to ink the lines, showing all the motion. instead of using hard static lines, they are using speed lines as lines.

Will Sliney is another 3d model shitter. He's the artist on the most recent "Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider run."

I hate him because he cannot pose hands to save his fucking life, and once again everything looks unnatural.

These pages are from Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider issue 6.

This one's a weird one: Batman (v3,2016), first bunch of issues at least.
It has separate credits for pencils & inks for the issues in question. (David Finch pencils, Matt Banning inks)


It's really really well done, but you can definitely tell 3d is used. It might be very hard for the untrained eye. The only tell is the unnaturally accurate perspective & anatomy present in many scenes (which extends to the characters, not just backgrounds- 3d backgrounds are more widespread than characters).

It's my belief that this penciller posed characters in 3d scenes, and then traced over them. It's possible that he did not trace characters for all panels at all times. But many panels/instances of art, are definitely 3d, and if you're tracing 3d models then you're probably going to not be conveying motion very well like is talking about.

Another example from this batman run.

Depends on what you mean by okay. Morally acceptable? Absolutely assuming full disclosure. Some people are going to hate it regardless because they like to look at illustrated art, and 3d is often.. not nice to look at.

I like your thoughts


Also, fuck Sliney, Janin, Deodato etc. The worst is to see decent cartoonists opt for digital modelling for whatever reason, probably deadline pressure. Guys like Patrick Zircher, who I think did op's pic. Or Brandon Peterson. That one makes me sad; he had a lot of style.

Yeah for the past several years Finch has been using 3d models. You could tell in JLA.

>Deodato

Ah yes how on earth did I forget to mention Mr. "Russian 3d Porn Comics" "*You* can't pose hands? Hold my beer" himself

That can be my example of "the worst 3d imaginable" to round out the others I posted.

(pages from Invincible Iron Man (2015 run) issue 12)

This fucking hand posing though jesus christ.

literally one job

How has he gotten even worse in the past few years?

Got any examples of nice poses for comparison?

>lack of quality inkers these days
Doesn't help that DC set up that shop to teach writers, artists, inkers, and colorists, the " right ways" to make comics. They're basically ensuring that a whole talent crop is going to come in with nearly the exact same bland mind set

Did they really? I didn't hear about that. Between that and Bendis, sounds grim.

Why don't Japs do American comics? Does it pay better than manga? Pretty sure they could draw, ink, even color better than your average American artist.

>Why don't Japs fdo American comics?
They do, but usually as artists rather than writers.

This is all fall out from ages of fans wanting realistic art in their fighty-tighties. I had to go back to the 70's and 80's comics to study real inking.

I'm not sure. Probably due to the strength of their local markets. why comes to the US, which doesnt pay more?

we see a good amount of South American talent scouting. and there is little SA production. So, coming to the US is their best bet.


Euro is more like Japan. There is local production, so, there isnt much motivation to come to the US.

The African comic scene is of course decades above everyone else.

Way worse. he used to do I think New Avengers or Dark Avengers and I remember thinking he put way too much shadow on everything, but I'm not sure he was using 3d models at the time, sure as shit didn't look like this garbage

I think his shading in particular is god awful. That's what gives me the PS2 grafix/unnatural feel.

Oh thank god someone else said it. I thought I was crazy thinking this myself.

Honestly, I've been reading manga mostly but have been trying to get back into comics through my libraries selections. It's so goddamn hard though, not only because of convoluted stories that barely make sense, but because the art is just so static and unexaggerated in comparison. Even on panels where there's supposed to be a huge impact from a fight, it feels like nothing more than a lovetap.

Linework is certainly a part of it as other anons have noted, but there's no reaction frames or even exaggeration.

Things are so rigid in posing and figures. Often there's hardly a line of action and exaggeration from movement. There's no squash and stretch. Anticipation and followthrough. Elements that are usually found in animation but certainly apply to comics as well.

And then for some reason a small panel can't be afforded to have a characters eyes bulging out from getting an earth shattering gut punch. It's almost always this one huge page filling splash panel that barely tells the true strength of a blow because of those earlier problems mentioned.

It's like we learned all these things and borrowed from them in the past, but then promptly forgot all about them because a huge part of comicsfags will buy anything, regardless of quality... well, so long as its not America apparently.

His JLA was really bad with it, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this) his Wonder Woman was better.
His wife still had awful writing and his own posing problems existed, but he hid it better

JLA

But hidden a bit better in WW

Some of them do American comics like Kei Zama and Gurihiru, but yeah I guess Manga is pretty healthy, why come to the US.

>The African comic scene is of course decades above everyone else.
Tell me more.

I liked the Azz Ares and WW relationship but then Rucka had to fuck it up.

That said this is shit.

This was the last time we saw Ares prior to Rebirth, so these pages of him being a little bitch about Diana being God of War is his ending.
The Finches fucked him up.
>To save Zeke!
She didn't