I've been reading comics for as long as I can remember, and I usually visit Forbidden Planet on a fortnightly basis. Whenever I'm browsing and looking for a new title to read, for me it's all about the artwork, I hardly even consider the story.
I'm not saying the story is irrelevant to me, there are certain genres that I prefer and also certain characters and as long as the artwork is to my liking I'll usually buy it.
I think, what it all boils down to, is that great art can make up for a poor story, but a great story can't make up for poor artwork and I wouldn't even consider buying a comic just for the story but I would just for the artwork.
Am I being a heathen? Or, like me, do most readers think that as comics are primarily a visual medium it's all about the art?
Tarantino
I think I'd split it further: art, storytelling and script. If the middle one of those isn't working, nothing can save a comic. But art or script can be a bit duff and the result still be OK. I'd sooner go for shaky art and a great script IF the storytelling is still solid (i.e. I can tell what's happening). However, I've read plenty of comics with a theoretically great script and similarly supposedly great art, but it's been a pain to tell what's going on, and that alone scuppers things.
Art.
I read, and I mean "read" in the broadest term, a lot of crap with pretty pictures, like anything Ed McGuinness draws for Marvel, whilst avoiding works others deem great due to art I can't get my head around, From Hell for example.
I am an art whore.
Dunk!
I have collected many awful comics on the strength of the artwork alone.....so put me down for "art" as well. Good art would make me read a bad comic strip and bad art would stop me reading potentially good ones.
It's the writer for me.
I know what I like at this stage, and can guess what the general quality of a comic will be based on the writers name alone.
So I'll pick up Unfollow cause Rob Williams is writing it, or Providence & Cinema Purgatorio based on the fact Alan Moore is writing them.
I've been reading Batman on a monthly basis since 2010- but that's been following one writer (Scott Snyder) as he's moved to three different Batman titles.
There are always exceptions of course, and also artists that I find have strong enough appeal to turn your head regardless (Francavilla, Corben, Simonson to name a few).
Fortunately, as a 2000AD fan, I'm guaranteed excellent comics to some degree on a weekly basis.
It's got to be both IMHO.
Poor art can drag a good story down.
Not sure great art can rescue a poor story. A boring story well drawn isn't engaging, it's just a few pretty pictures and for me that isn't enough to sustain interest.
Quote from: Link Prime on 22 November, 2016, 04:21:13 PM
It's the writer for me.
Likewise. I'll buy a comic because it's written by a specific writer - it's very rare I'll buy one solely because of the artist. (Eric Powell or Mike Mignola are two of the exceptions - obviously both are writer/artists, but Mignola used to draw for Marvel, say, and Powell still occasionally draws stories written by others.)
Art. But it's 75/25.
Deadly Class is vying for my new fave comic, and I didn't pick it up for years based on art. Despite getting Remender's other titles. It was just too... amateurish, fiddly, uninspiring.
And yet the combination of script and art has completely won me over. Enjoy the art now.
See also From Hell. That did spring to mind too.
So, 75/25.
I used to be of that mind that art is like porn, who cares about the story? I suppose I do care about the story and when you get a Dredd story like America, amazing art and a fantastic story, that's what comics are all about for me. But it really will have to remain all about the artist in the long run, some of my favourites are Brian Bolland, George Perez, Carlos Esquerra, Neal Adams, Simon Fraser and Simon Bisley to name but a few.
Tarantino
I'm an artist, but when I buy comics, I follow writers, not artists. So long as the art is competent, fine. If the art is good or even great, that's a bonus.
I find the idea that somebody wouldn't consider the story when buying comics, really, really weird. The art is undoubtedly what first grabs folk's attention, but if there's no substance behind it, I don't stick around.
The only time art ruins a comic for me, is when it's so bad I can't tell what the hell's going on at points when I should be able to.
Mmmm, its gotta be story hasn't it? That's the foundation everything else is built upon. Owt else is a bonus.
Take the Light and Darkness War. Quality art by Cam Kennedy, but I'll probably never pick it up again, because the story isn't much cop.
The story for me, but if the art is really bad that can sap my will to continue with the strip.
Yeah its a combined thing not a one or the other but I definately go more for the story over art. I can read a good story with bad art far more often than a bad story just to see the art... in fact I don't really read anything just for the art anymore.
Mind part of good art is how well it carries the story so even there its muddy!
Leaning towards the story side, but, for example Camelot 3000 is worth reading for the art alone as is The Trigan Empire.
The story is everything to me and I follow writers over artists.
I do sometimes wish decent stories could be re-drawn or re-coloured though! I could probably come up with 10 comics off the top of my head that I'd love to commission someone to re-do the art for.
Quote from: Tarantino on 22 November, 2016, 02:49:31 PM
Am I being a heathen? Or, like me, do most readers think that as comics are primarily a visual medium it's all about the art?
Completely the opposite for me.
Obviously, the ideal is to have script, art and lettering all of the highest quality and working together to create a synergistic experience greater than the sum of its individual components. A work whose shimmering, holistic beauty becomes the axe that breaks the frozen sea inside the heart of the disillusioned reader.
In reality, I'll happily buy comics by a writer I like with mediocre or even actively bad art but wouldn't consider the reverse.
Quote from: I, Cosh on 23 November, 2016, 09:39:50 AM
In reality, I'll happily buy comics by a writer I like with mediocre or even actively bad art but wouldn't consider the reverse.
That'd be my position. No matter how good the art, if they're pictures of things I don't like, I'm not interested. I can certainly marvel over the work in
Arkham Asylum or
Camelot 3000, but it's telling that I don't own a copy of either. Conversely I do have a fair chunk of stuff drawn by Jacen Burrows whose work I don't really care for, because he keeps drawing comics for Alan Moore and Garth Ennis.
The great comics, the ones I read over and over again, are books where the creators inspire and build on each other, and the script and the art are inseparable and indistinguishable from the
comic.
A comic with a great script but mediocre to rough art (eg. The O Men, The Promised Neverland) is better than a story with great art but not so great script writing (eg. Savage). Sometimes you get the best of both, sometimes you get American Reaper. They can't all be winners!
While art may objectively good (or bad) it has to suit the story.
To take a couple of previously used examples, Ed McGuinness may be okay at super hero stuff (I don't like his work personally) but can you imagine if he'd drawn From Hell?! Likewise I wouldn't want to see Eddie Campbell doing Superman.
Quote from: JamesC on 23 November, 2016, 11:49:09 AM
Likewise I wouldn't want to see Eddie Campbell doing Superman.
I dunno, it was pretty good.
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PeV5Fgv9e7A/RmE3quS_bzI/AAAAAAAABz0/0Hw7mM-nqCk/s400/hermes2w.jpg)
I prefer my Supes a little more 'classic'.
Quote from: JamesC on 23 November, 2016, 02:43:10 PM
I prefer my Supes a little more 'classic'.
Well you don't get more classical than Eddie Campbell's take!
Aye, Eddie Campbell is one of those classic artists who could completely redesign any iconic character and make it work.
Some cracking new threads appearing on the forum lately. I'm basically a Sci Fi fan in a general sense. The art is as a flower is to a honey bee in terms of the cursory first glance. But more is required. At heart the story should be preeminent. Z
I've read all the responses to my question and I'm getting a huge majority in favour of story over art.
That's fair enough, I wasn't trying to undermine the importance of a good story, it's clearly essential for the longevity of a character/title, but surely if you are placing story above art and most of you have said you would sacrifice art for the sake of a good story then God forbid maybe you should be reading actual books.
I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, I'm just saying, the fact that we are reading comics in preference to books, then surely we subconsciously place a higher importance over the art then we care to admit?
Tarantino
The 'book' argument crossed this mind too. And am I in a small minority yet again ?-)
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Bit of both. I don't buy stuff by writers I don't like, but I'm more likely to buy stuff by writers I like if the art is great.
I don't think you can separate the art from the story. Ideally, comics would be single author works, like Dan Clowes, but I don't want to live in a world without D'Israeli comics just because dialogue isn't his forte.
Quote from: Tarantino on 23 November, 2016, 10:40:52 PM
...the fact that we are reading comics in preference to books, then surely we subconsciously place a higher importance over the art then we care to admit?
But it's art that has to tell the story in comics. I'd suggest that if it was really the art I was interested in I'd hang round the National Gallery all day: what I'm interested in is
comics - characters, worlds, stories, ideas, jokes, images communicated through art.
Quote from: Tarantino on 23 November, 2016, 10:40:52 PM
but surely if you are placing story above art and most of you have said you would sacrifice art for the sake of a good story then God forbid maybe you should be reading actual books.
The thing is that assume that comics are just prose novels with pictures and they're not. Its a unique art form that uses its own storytelling technicques, has its own voice and way of presenting information, pacing and impact.
If the 'read a book' arguement held you could very well provide the counter arguement 'if you like the art why don't you just go to a gallery or get an art book?'. Comics are just the combination of words and pictures, by doing that they offer they become their own thing.
Quote from: TordelBack on 23 November, 2016, 09:54:17 AM
Conversely I do have a fair chunk of stuff drawn by Jacen Burrows whose work I don't really care for, because he keeps drawing comics for Alan Moore and Garth Ennis.
I have similar feelings about Jacen Burrows. I can only imagine that there are few artists willing to spend their days depicting endless horrific scenes. That stuff is hard enough to read, let alone draw.