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Prog 2132 - Bringer of War

Started by Tjm86, 18 May, 2019, 12:43:54 PM

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Trout

I also enjoyed Siku's art. I wasn't a fan of his way back when (met him once, though; nice man) but I can really appreciate how his technique has matured. It suited the story, which was also engaging.

Other highlights for me were the weird twistiness of the Max Normal story and the gorgeous art on Scarlet Traces.

Frabjous prog.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: TordelBack on 24 May, 2019, 09:52:10 PM
Going to be really rude and note that those of us viewing Tooth on a device are not reading a digital comic, we are reading a digital copy of a physical comic. It's like looking at an iPhone panorama of Monet's waterlilies at the Orangerie and observing that it's all blurry. It's not the medium it's designed for (yet).

Hold on... I don't not sure I'm up to the standard this debate will demand, but that won't stop me.... if you're reading the physical copy by that argument your reading a physical copy of a digital copy of a physical piece of art based on a digital script (this assumes the story is scripted on computer and art is physically drawn, there a a gazillion variations and this omits other folks involved).

Frank


Unless you're reading a Simon Davis* strip, the digital version's the original.


* Or a Greg Staples cover.  Or The Order.  Other cases are less clear-cut. MacNeil still rolls his art up in a tube and puts a stamp on it, but the postie delivers the digital colours separately. Henry Flint's art is a hybrid of pixels and pentel, leaving him with a physical original to sell, as is the case for many others. I don't know, but I'd guess that age is the determining factor, here. If an artist started in the industry during the Rotring and white-out age, there's a good chance they still work that way, to some extent, often because reselling original art is part of their financial model.

PJ Holden, no whippersnapper, recently posted despairingly about what he described as the useless pile of dead trees (original art from earlier in his career) stacked beneath his laptop and Wacom workstation, and Dave Kendall says he couldn't produce Deadworld on schedule if he wasn't working completely digital.  Then again, Dan Cornwell, no kid but just beginning his professional career, is a paper and pen man.  Looking at the ages of those I'm defining as the new breed tells its own story about comics, and 2000ad specifically, but that's a discussion for another day.

TL;DR:  The art you see on the page has only ever looked that way on a monitor.

Andy Lambert

I'm not sure how I feel about the increased emphasis on Judges being such unfeeling, fascist bad guys. I get that obeying the Law is first and foremost which can lead to some good internal drama, and they've always been harsh, but aside from numerous other tales building up to this approach, we've got this callousness on display in the current prog and in the current meg. Unless this is building towards something bigger, I'm wondering if this is leaning a little too much into "bad guy" territory. The more this happens, the more I wonder if I care if the Judges get their asses kicked in the next apocalyptic event.

Andy Lambert

Perhaps living under a government that blatantly cares more for their own select few rather than the people they claim to serve causes me to be critical of the fantasy world I like to escape in, where the same thing is happening there....

MacabreMagpie

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 25 May, 2019, 07:05:26 AM
Quote from: TordelBack on 24 May, 2019, 09:52:10 PM
Going to be really rude and note that those of us viewing Tooth on a device are not reading a digital comic, we are reading a digital copy of a physical comic. It's like looking at an iPhone panorama of Monet's waterlilies at the Orangerie and observing that it's all blurry. It's not the medium it's designed for (yet).

Hold on... I don't not sure I'm up to the standard this debate will demand, but that won't stop me.... if you're reading the physical copy by that argument your reading a physical copy of a digital copy of a physical piece of art based on a digital script (this assumes the story is scripted on computer and art is physically drawn, there a a gazillion variations and this omits other folks involved).

I think the point being made was that the prog on a device is just the prog as designed for print repackaged in a digital format... it's a "port" of a physical comic, if you will.

A true "digital comic" can contain features such as where the individual panels load without lettering and then the speech bubbles appear sequentially with each press of the screen.

I'm not personally pedantic enough (I knew I'd find a limit one day!) to draw a line between those definitions in general conversation but (think) I understand the differentiation.

sheridan

Quote from: Frank on 25 May, 2019, 09:44:02 AM
Unless you're reading a Simon Davis* strip, the digital version's the original.

TL;DR:  The art you see on the page has only ever looked that way on a monitor.

My copy of the following page by Patrick Goddard looks exactly the same as printed (except for the logo and lettering).


Frank

Quote from: MacabreMagpie on 26 May, 2019, 09:52:34 AM
I think the point being made was that the prog on a device is just the prog as designed for print repackaged in a digital format... it's a "port" of a physical comic, if you will.

A true "digital comic" can contain features such as where the individual panels load without lettering and then the speech bubbles appear sequentially with each press of the screen.

Ahh ... sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick.

The bells and whistles described above are trying to import a format - panels and speech bubbles* - that nobody would have devised for use on a screen that can show you any novel or film ever made. It's an awkward compromise.

Which, I now see, was TordelBack's point regarding reading any comic on a screen. I basically agree.


* I think comics as we understand them are a great format, even as an anachronism on a screen. The guided-view stuff is wheels-on-dog territory

TordelBack

Quote from: Frank on 25 May, 2019, 09:44:02 AM

Unless you're reading a Simon Davis* strip, the digital version's the original.

TL;DR:  The art you see on the page has only ever looked that way on a monitor.[/i][/size]

Oddly I am aware of that, but I too produce illustrations solely on a screen, and do so in the certain knowledge that they will be printed on paper at a specified dimension, and thus design and format accordingly. When I'm drawing for a static or interactive screen or projector, I do things differently.

I'm no artist, but I'm sure that consideration applies to pixel monkeys too. As 2000AD is still a print comic, all versions must represent that brief. It was ever thus: a ceiling fresco is not an eye-level canvas.

Frank

Quote from: TordelBack on 26 May, 2019, 01:12:47 PM
I too produce illustrations solely on a screen, and do so in the certain knowledge that they will be printed on paper at a specified dimension, and thus design and format accordingly ... I'm sure that consideration applies to pixel monkeys too. As 2000AD is still a print comic, all versions must represent that brief.

Happily, I don't disagree with any of that. Current issues of 2000ad look better on a decent size and quality of screen than they do in WH Smith, though, whatever the many complicated reasons for that might be.



Fungus

Quote from: Frank on 26 May, 2019, 01:52:06 PM
Current issues of 2000ad look better on a decent size and quality of screen than they do in WH Smith, though, whatever the many complicated reasons for that might be.
That's opinion. Reading on a big iPad, I still prefer the physical copy and always browse (wistfully!) when in WHS. Screens show that super-slight outline around dropped-in titles and effects, and it's often garish*. Kingmaker's mixed-focus art this time round feels like an experiment that hasn't quite come off. Draws your attention in the wrong way, IMO. Gallagher's b/w Defoe art seemed to read better. A top artist nevertheless.

Prog 2132 was OK and Siku was the highlight. But it did feel computery, especially the colouring. I do realise economics can explain why we're reading a 'digital' prog.

* The recent kiddie-prog strip that I enjoyed was Full Tilt Boogie, largely to do with colours that calmed the hell down... [however they were generated].

Frank

Quote from: Fungus on 26 May, 2019, 03:37:33 PM
Quote from: Frank on 26 May, 2019, 01:52:06 PM
Current issues of 2000ad look better on a decent size and quality of screen than they do in WH Smith

That's opinion.

This is the prog review section. It's all opinion in here, buddy.



Geoff

I personally wish they'd never invented devices to ink or colour comics digitally.

I wish the prog was still mostly black and white, drawn with pen and brush with India ink.  With the speech bubbles pasted on and the various logos and editorial blurbs cut out arranged and also pasted on.  With the double page spread in the middle in all its glory and the occasional fully painted strip.

Some digital art works well, like Scarlett Traces or Saga but most suffers from a degree of 'dead' line. Brian Bolland being the best example of this.  His analogue work being masterful, his digital rather cold and lifeless.

But, of course, I know that age is past and I also recognise that not being an artist myself I've never felt the agony of trying to rectify a mistake on a meticulously inked physical page and never had to deal with the mess and faff of inks and paints and airbrushes etc...

A good deal of 2000ad is nostalgia for me though, so sometimes it's hard not to go the whole hog in your
imagination!
   

Jacqusie

Quote from: Geoff on 26 May, 2019, 04:26:41 PM

I wish the prog was still mostly black and white,

Some digital art works well, like Scarlett Traces or Saga but most suffers from a degree of 'dead' line. A good deal of 2000ad is nostalgia for me though,


I'd love to see more black and white in the prog, the clear & crisp line work of Tom Foster which (IMHO) gets lost in the colouring joins a host of artists work I'm finding dissonance between wanting to like the art and hating some of the muddy and lifeless colouring.

D'israili gets some great results from his work mind like you say through Scarlett Traces and there are others, but the computer heavy graphics of 2000AD is starting to leave me cold and I can't really enjoy some of the souless and heavy handed colouring and rendering.

I know this will wind a few folk up as I do respect how difficult it all this is through an artists craft, but the classic days of 2000AD art are remembered fondly (just look at all those T-shirts!) for a very good reason...

broodblik

I like B/W on the occasional strip but do not wish for the golden old days to return where everything was B/W.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.