He’s suggesting that I’m a coward. I’m not.

But, Anita, your posture says you are.
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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: (more…)

I am speechless after last week. I hadn’t realized what brutal critics were reading my little feature. However, since it was absolutely fascinating and I’m still feeling a bit under the weather right now, let’s try it again!

The following is a randomly (insomuch as any human choice can be random) selected image from last week’s White Tiger #1 Preview. I picked this preview because while I know the character from her appearance in Daredevil a few years ago, I’ve never seen the artist before. It’s an action scene.

Thoughts?

Last week’s post made me think about what costumes say about characters. I know I had very clear ideas about what personality traits Arisia’s costume indicated, but some of the commenters here and on Comic-Bloc thought it suited her personality.

Very few people clarified how.

This brings me to this week. Normally, every week I go through my impressions of a particular panel, but this week I want to try something different. Below (From Green Lantern Corps #3) is the best shot of Soranik Natu’s costume I could find.
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This week, I’m going to do something a little different, because it’s my column and I can. Also, because I don’t have much choice in the matter this week. There’s a image from last week’s stack of comics that I simply can’t stop thinking about.

Normally, I find an image that stays with me after I’m finished reading, and muse on it for a little while before sitting down to write. Sometimes, this is involuntary. I’ll see an image, and be unable to put it out of my mind. It’s the most natural image to write about. I would prefer to keep this feature celebratory, but sometimes you just have to sit down and criticize (even when you normally like the artist). It’s only healthy.
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With good art, nothing is truly random. Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel. In this weekly feature I’ll try to at least touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn piece of art.

This week’s panel, in All-Star Superman #5 (writer, Grant Morrison, pencils, Frank Quitely, and inks, Jamie Grant) is one of the best images of Superman’s Archnemesis I’ve ever seen.
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I’m sure there’s very little I can write about Will Eisner’s work that hasn’t already been written, quoted, reanalyzed, and expounded upon for about ten years by now. However, I haven’t read any of what’s already been written. There’s a reason this feature is called Amateur Art Appreciation, after all.

A few years ago, I knew Will Eisner as the “Guy that award was named after, you know, the award on the cover of some comics.” He had the same significance then as John Newberry had in fourth grade. Then I moved to Oklahoma City, and found a comic book store with a clerk who was into art, and old comics. (more…)

Originally, when I started this feature, I intended to write about a thousand words a week about a single panel. But sometimes a single panel doesn’t get the point across, because comics are a sequential medium and the most important job of the artist is to tell the story.

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With good art, nothing is truly random. Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel. In this weekly feature I’ll try to at least touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn piece of art. Today, I’m looking at the Frank Cho-drawn front cover of Black Panther #18 Even though this cover is a wraparound, that’s not what stares at you from the rack. You only see the front half of the cover, and the front half of the cover effectively tells you everything you need to know about the story. It is a skillful, thematic depiction of the issue itself. Frank Cho is extremely talented at getting the story across in a single picture.

The most obvious metaphor in this cover is the opposing face trick with Captain America and Iron Man. This acknowledges the Civil War crossover in Marvel comics, and the wedding party in the center represents the neutrality of Wakanda in this conflict, and the event which is interrupting the conflict. That’s not the symbolism that struck me about the cover. It was the presentation of the wedding party.
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When I decided to try and touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn piece of art, I hadn’t really expected to go to Astro City. I like the series, yes, and I love the interior art, I just haven’t seen much metacommentary in it. Of course that would turn out to be because I wasn’t looking for it. Take a look at this panel from Astro City #6 as drawn by Brent Anderson.

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If you’re looking for this week’s Amateur Art Appreciation, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait another week — Lisa Fortuner is attending Wizard World Chicago this weekend.

Watch for a new column next week.

It never ceases to amaze me how effective pink and blue are in a comic book. I’m serious here. I read this story in passing, researching for another project when I realized she was wearing pink, and how it fit into the story overall. After that I couldn’t leave this panel alone no matter how hard I tried. It’s a woman in pink against a blue background. Even if the colorist (Anthony Tollin) himself came in and told me he picked a random color, you will never convince me that’s its random. It just fits the story too well.

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Good art, and I mean the really good art, isn’t truly random (no matter what the artist and the observer may both consciously think). Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel. Every week, I try touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn piece of art.

One of my favorite stories to do this with, panel by panel, is John Stewart’s origin story in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #87. Neal Adams art combined with Dennis O’Neil’s propensity for dealing with direct issues as opposed to vague parables in his plots to wonderful effect. When you saw the allegory, you knew you were on the right track, you knew it was a way of supporting the story because there was no mistaking the theme.

Through these stories, I developed a real affection for Hal Jordan as a learning, growing character. He started out with the, to put it bluntly, the racism and classism of the average middle class white man in the time period. For me, he was the entry into the story. You got to watch Hal as he discovered the harmful attitudes he’d grown up with and slowly changed them while keeping his core personality, his heroic personality, intact. He worried, a lot, at first, (though as the story went on he regained his feet and his arrogance) that everything he did or said was wrong. But time and tales showed that prejudicial attitudes were just like airplane grease on his hands. They weren’t really a part of him or indicative of him true nature. They were superficial marks he’d picked up through contact with others. They could be removed, but it was difficult work that takes a lot of time and attention.

One day I expressed this on my blog when talking about ways to handle social issues in stories, and was greeted with horrified comments to the effect of “But Green Lantern isn’t a racist!!” (because superheroes must be perfect and never learn, after all). So I dug up a panel that implied he was. In honor of some livejournal friends who are blogging against racism this week, I’m going to repost that analysis for you.

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Admittedly, today’s panel is not one that sent me into the throes of geek-ectasy upon first sight. That’s not a dig at the artist, mind you, it’s more a description of my reasoning. To this point, I’ve trotted out my favorites, panels that I love from books that I adore drawn by artists that I worship featuring characters that I obsess about in scenes that I want to pin down every possible interpretation of. Through that obsessive reading, I discovered that good art, and I mean the really good art, isn’t truly random (no matter what the artist and the observer may both consciously think). Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel.

As each week I try to at least touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn piece of art, I figured I’d rely on favorite stories and favorite artists. Panels that I could put in front of me and I knew that when I started typing I likely wouldn’t be able to stop. This week, though, I took a slight risk. I picked not only a recent panel, but one by an unfamiliar artist in a weekly book. I chose based on importance.

Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t read past Week Nine of 52 and intend to, you might want to wait on this article until you have.

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With good art, nothing is truly random. Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel. In this weekly feature I’ll try to at least touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn piece of art. This week, I’m looking at one of the easiest to recognize and easiest to analyze types of comic book art — the Bondage Cover, most commonly associated with sex and subversive subliminal messages, particularly when it comes to Wonder Woman.

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I’m a big believer in the subtle (often unconscious) value of art as a communication form. With good art, nothing is truly random. Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel. In this weekly feature I’ll try to at least touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn panel of art. I can’t promise the whole thousand words, though.

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Submitted for your consideration: Black Canary, world-renowned martial artist, under attack by someone much bigger and clumsier than her.

I’m sure you all know what happens next.

However, there’s more to this panel than just the setup for a very foolish body hitting the ground in the next one (or, to be strictly accurate, the panel after the next one). I’m a big believer in the subtle (often unconscious) value of art as a communication form. With good art, nothing is truly random. Everything in the panel, every line, every color, adds to the overall message received by the reader. You can even step back and find layers of commentary on the story as a whole in a single panel. In this weekly feature I’ll try to at least touch on some of the tricks and intricacies found in a single, well-drawn panel of art. I can’t promise the whole thousand words, though.

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