Clint Langley on Slaine

[W. R. Logan]

Someone must have Clints address, ask him to do a pencils to page feature.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

[damnandblast]

"and all art is an illusion anyway"

Lunchtime, doubly s-

Damn! Wrong reference.

Nigel

[satchmo]

I think this weeks cover is one of the best in years,so cheers for that Clint. I hope it pulls in some lapsed readers with its Horned God era vibe.
And is it me,or does Slaine have the look of Quentin Tarantino with Roth Bellyshakers body? : )

[James]

I don't really like it either.

It doesn't flow very well sometimes, although pretty it is.

James

[Tiplodocus]

I agree with the naysayers I think.

It is quite pretty to look at but it is very still. I'm not sure it makes for a very dynamic read.  I'll drag out the old GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD as an example o some line work that has dynamism and *emotion* in it.

I've also got a thing about people using computers to such a high degree on comic art.  The logical conclusion of these technological developments will be packages that allow people like myself who cannot draw to cut and paste elements together to produce computer art.  I'm not saying that this is a bad thing per se but I feel you might end up with a situation slightly analagous to the record industry where a lot of people are getting famous by being good engineers and producers (sampling this from here and that from there and a snatch of tune from this record and then putting a rap on top of it) without being able to write a melody or carry a tune.


Anyway, given that this is SLAINE's most emotional storyline ever, I think we are getting slightly short changed on lovingly rendered facial closeups showing what he's going through.

Some of this may be to do with the dense (in both the number of words and the number of panels) script.

I'm a bit in two minds over the whole thing - The art is pretty but neither action packed or detailed in the right places for me and the script has a great hook with the vengence for NAIMH angle but is full of words saying "Oh I'm all cut up about this" rather than nice pictures showing said feelings.

I'm not against wordy scripts; some can be very clever and literate but I feel that this is neither. Though I did like MOLOCH explaining his torture to the children.

But I felt "He called me friend" was a bit trite.


Despite all of the above, I'd still mark SLAINE as ABOVE AVERAGE but I certainly don't think these BEST EVER plaudits are deserved.


TRUE STORY: A guy from the marketing department at my old place of work once asked me what I thought of his presentation. I said, I thought it was a bit trite. "Oh, thank you very much" he said and walked off smiling.

[Mangamax]

Know what you mean. That real early story where Niamh tells Slaine that she's taking Kai off to be a Druid had far more emotion packed into one frame than all of this weeks episode.

[karne]

"I felt "He called me friend" was a bit trite."

I loathed that line, it was like a "let's explain this for the dumb audience" moment from a film. I would have prefered some thing along the lines of "...friend?!" reflecting puzzlement and surprise. Ukko may as well have given a knowing look to the reader whilst uttering such cringeworthy dialogue.

That asides, Pat still remains one of my all time favourite comic writers, but I think he's losing sight of his audience these days. He needs to get in touch with his fans more often and listen to their comments, or does he already do this and I'm in the minority?  

[JayzusB.Christ]

'I loathed that line, it was like a "let's explain this for the dumb audience" moment from a film. '

I didn't mind that line at all, but it was the bits before that were a bit dodgy, like 'We'll meet in a bar and do it all again, eh, Sl?ine?', and 'You'll escape, won't you? You always do..'.
It reminded me of the bit on Hotshots were the ridiculously doomed fighter pilot is about to take off, and his pregnant wife is agreeing marry him, and he going to expose who shot JFK when he gets back from his mission.