Post 4 (Week 4)

Ah, the traditional Comic book. I've always had a special place in my heart for this section, as this is where i got my start drawing. I was young and had no idea what i was doing, but i would try to mimic some of the comic art and juxtaposition i saw in the scenes into my own art, with very fail-filled success. Fro This week i delved headfirst into Batman #600 first, as I got a start in the comic book world via batman. I found the story to be quite interesting, the cascading arrangement of the comic boxes helped to guide the eye down while breaking up the traditional box form, but also adding to the motion of the page by page motion. On top of this, i found the effect of Batman and night wing's fight, it reminded me of Scott Cloud's talk of the progression of frames across the room, as they tumbled downward in their downward spiraling argument. It almost felt like the effect of stimmering, as the imbalanced downward tumbling of character frames created an immense amount of tension that added to the scene. At this point of the comic scene, i feel an element of film lighting techniques started becoming more prevalent in the comics, as things like rim light and different contrast lighting in scenes would help to further define, and add, to the storytelling. I found the omnibus nature of the comics in this set as a whole to be a good representation of the evolution to this point, seeing the various faces of batman including the famed Adam west styled batman. Even down to the very linear function of said comic is older school, not using more dramatic box use to convey deeper meaning. It is a batman and robin kick the bad guys' in the butt and save the day kind of comic, and i can appreciate that. Sticking with the original cell shaded vs tonal shading helps to distinguish the older style from the new, and the assortment of comics hence after serve as a nice compilation of varying artist styles, as batman and others aren't drawn in a static environment. I had gone back and re-read a few of my spawn comics as well, the style of the late ninties and early 2000's was a very nostalgic time for me and my comic taste has a tendency to gravitate to this period of time. Todd Mcfarlane's Spawn will always be a favorite, his crazed style with the angular and demonic forms on spawn always intrigue me.