While I was cleaning last week, I ran across a Discover Magazine anniversary issue. Intrigued by the cover blurb, which promised steamy details of Einstein’s love life, I convinced myself to take a break and sit down to read.
Inside, I found a peer review of HDTV by Douglas Rushkoff (yes, that Douglas Rushkoff) called “Too Clear for Comfort” and subtitled “The increased detail of HDTV may decrease our viewing pleasure.” It’s available online here. I found this part particularly interesting:
But what happens when we bring the highest-resolution technologies into worlds best left in the realm of myth? This tendency to apply scientific accuracy of observation to literature and even religion may actually strip them of their greater power. Mel Gibson’s computer-generated depiction of Jesus’ every bleeding wound in The Passion of the Christ turned a universal gospel into the literal story of one man’s mutilation and death.While such realistic simulations might be valuable for ambulance-training videos, their application across the full spectrum of human storytelling may be a symptom of our society’s continuing devaluation of anything that can’t be understood on a literal level. It’s the same trend that’s replacing fictional television with “reality” programming, interfaith dialogue with intolerant fundamentalism, feel-good patriotism with strident nationalism. There are no symbols, just real things.
This reminded me of when I was a teenager, and I followed the artists who pencilled like the world looked. I refused to read certain books because the art was “too childish” and “too cartoony,” I’ve been going back and buying a lot of those books in the past few years.
Since then, I’ve heard more than a few people trash some of my favorite artists for the same reasons I trashed those earlier books. They want to see comic books look as close to real life as possible.
I, on the other hand, have discovered that with very few exceptions, I hate photorealistic art in superhero comics.
There are wonderful artists out currently, mind you, drawing in every degree of “reality” that’s possible. I think too many of the less conventional ones are written off because they aren’t realistic. I think the wrong artists are often spotlighted for the wrong reasons.
“How true to life is it?”
Who cares?
How true to the story is it?
Does it believably accomodate the rules of the universe? Does it draw you in and surround you with the words and ideas of the creators? Does it bend and flex according to the plot? Does it support the characters’ personalities, or do they lie flat and lifeless on the page? Does it flow? Is it too still? Is it just still enough? Do you believe that man can fly, or does he just look silly?
Under one artist, a costume may look bright and colorful, appropriate to the setting and the plot. Under another artist, the very same costume looks so ridiculous you can’t think about anything but how embarasssing it must be to wear that get-up.
I think Mr. Rushkoff’s point about TV applies very well to comics, where the standard that slides towards more and more realistic art threatens our suspension of disbelief in some conventions.
Classic superhero art can get away with some ridiculous costumes and situations, because the characters are so simplistic that anatomy and physics aren’t a concern. As the art turns more and more towards the photorealistic, more and more flaws show up. The wrong flaw can disrupt suspension of disbelief, and end in the reader staring at the image, completely unable to reconcile small things such as way the character’s head is angled or the lighting around a desktop computer with the story. When art gets too close to photorealistic, there’s simply not enough room for the weird, absurd, and fantastic. And superhero comics are about weird, absurd, fantastic situations.
Because of this, I’m much more fond of Silver Age art than most Modern Age art. Modern Age art tends to be much too literal. It’s much too concrete. There’s a sad tendency to value the ability to draw the real believably over the ability to draw the strange and wonderful. The Silver Age was when they had broken free of the duller Golden Age conventions (Eisner’s work aside) and were playing with reality. It stayed through the four-color filter, though. There was just enough reality to make it fun and flexible and interesting, but not enough to kill your disbelief. The flaws were easily smoothed over.
I’m not saying I don’t go after artists for bad anatomy. Every art style has it’s rules, every artist occupies a degree of “reality” that their art must stay within. It just bothers me that I’m seeing more and more artists hired for occupying the degrees of “reality” closest to actual reality, rather than the degree of “reality” occupied by the tale itself.
October 13th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Rushkoff is all over the place. I think I’ve got a couple Disinfo books featuring him.
I agree with what you’re saying here, and there is actually a specific term for this phenomenon– “Uncanny valley.” It’s used in video games, mostly.
In short, the closer things are to looking real, the more real we expect them to look. We stop forgiving the little tics, like maybe an awkward nose or too-far-apart eyes or an asymmetrical face because these things look so real that they shouldn’t have those errors. These pseudoreal people rub real people wrong. They look unnatural. This is why most CG movies have stuck to cartoon animals– there’s less of an uncanny valley to worry about.
I’m with you on this. It is my (not so secret) shame that I do not like Alex Ross’s work in general. His characters don’t look like superheroes to me. They’re real people in saggy tights. It’s too realistic, and so realistic as to be off-putting.
The only super-realistic artist I really enjoy is Bryan Hitch, especially now that he’s moved away from his Alan Davis roots. Ultimates, ugly though the story may be, is a joy to look at. Hitch has found that middle ground between real and cartoon and makes it work.
My favorite artists, though, don’t subscribe to that kind of realism. Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, Mike Wieringo, and JRjr present a more cartoony version of realism, where characters have their own little bubble of what’s believable and what’s not. Frank Miller goes for edges and outlines and silhouettes to imply real life, even as he’s drawing a cartoon. Jim Lee tosses a thin veneer of realism on his work, but underneath, it’s a cartoon, as well. David Mack is another whose characters look real without being realistic. Alex Maleev works in a kind of Sin City aesthetic, too, with shadows defining characters.
For my money, the most realistic artist working in comics is Eduardo Risso. He beats out Quitely in my opinion, even though Risso isn’t traditionally a realist. His characters, though, act and look real. You can see the uncertainty in Dizzy’s posture when Branch is quizzing her in Parlez Kung Vous, or the open admiration in Lono’s eyes when he realizes who Loop’s father is. His people are just real enough to remind us of real people, without making us go “Ew, that doesn’t look right.” This is part of why 100 Bullets is the best monthly comic out.
The only thing I don’t really agree with you on is a matter of pure opinion. The Silver Age is nice, and I can definitely appreciate a lot of it, but give me the Modern Age any day. There seems to be much more variety and less of a “house style” at work nowadays. Ramos on Wolverine is a curveball, but it’s turned into a rocking old fashioned superhero tale. Sean Phillips on a series about superhero zombies eating each other is another thing that probably would’ve gotten a Byrne or Layton back in the ’80s, but Marvel took a chance with a decidedly non-mainstream style and nailed a homer.
I do so love me some Kirby and JRsr, though, so there’s no way I could completely choose the Modern Age of the Silver.
October 13th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I wasn’t very fond of Wieringo’s work at the beginning of his FF run with Waid. I accepted it, but it seemed a bit cartoony to me. Then sometime in the middle of an issue in the second or third arc, I had a “Holy hell!!” moment and leapt from accepting Ringo’s work straight to realizing how good it is. I flipped back through the first half of the issue, then flipped through some of the previous issues to confirm that, yes, there it was– a kind of ease of unity where the attractive, broadly stroked figures sat naturally into backgrounds I’d heretofore ignored, surprising in their detail, yet subtle in their construction. Despite the occassional wayward upper lip or lock of hair, I’d gladly follow Ringo onto any title.
As to realism, I think in relation to fightin’-panty-man comics, we need to look at dynamic realism, perhaps best defined by Neal Adams’s work. This style avoids the “uncanny valley” by distressing a realistic root with extreme design concepts– they place the realism within the confines of the medium (an unreality) by engaging the possibilites of the medium. A sort of “Polishing the window in the fourth wall”, to maim a metaphor.
(As an aside, I really hope that Marvel prints Essential Moon Knight vol. 2, for no other reason than to watch Bill Sienkiewicz’s e-/de- volution from his Adams influence.)
October 14th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Nice essay, Lisa. You might also find this one interesting, as it brings up some of the very same points that you do:
http://theculturalgutter.com/guest_star/godzilla_vs_mecharealism.html
October 14th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
I’ve never been keen on the photorealistic end of the artistic spectrum. Why spend all day producing a piece of artwork that looks like a photograph when you could have taken a photograph?
You only have to look at TV and movies where they have tried to make real people work as superheroes and failed to plainly see that superheroes cannot stand too much realism. The most successful superhero movies are the ones where they have moved the furthest from the comic book visuals. Reimagining comic characters to follow suit destroys the whole unique core of superhero comics.
Sure, there’s a place for Alex Ross. But it shouldn’t be at the centre for every other artist to aspire to, it should be one unique flavour among many, used to tell a particular type of story.