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Martin Redmond
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 June 2006
Posts: 3880
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 11:41am | IP Logged | 1
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My favorite is his early 80s work where he made more mistakes. Cloak & Dagger 9 is my fave. I traced it so much (I was in grade school! ;} ) and it's the only comic he ever did in 27 days. Of course Terry Austin inked it and that was my fave period from Terry as well. I own about 5 copies of it btw. Including the now raggy first copy I bought.
On the other hand, I didn't like his Web of Spider-Man annual 2. I was relieved to learn in modern masters that Art didn't like working on that annual!
It's a shame he doesn't draw more. :[
Edited by Martin Redmond on 01 October 2008 at 11:42am
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Scott Daggett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 February 2008
Posts: 837
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 11:59am | IP Logged | 2
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The smoke looks like a swarm of bees! (before looking at the hi res sample provided above)
Edited by Scott Daggett on 01 October 2008 at 12:01pm
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Joel Biske
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 18 January 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 757
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | 3
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That poster is a good example of one big reason Arthur's output is so
sparse. "I'll draw twice as many weblines on Spider-Man's costume as
anybody else! I'll give the Thing three times as many rocky plates!"
It's a common failing in many of the generations who came in after me.
They don't know when to paint with broad strokes. Everything is in
miniature, every detail is as important as every other detail
---
why I don't understand about it is why he still isn't any FASTER.... most of my B/W influences are the early 20th Century illustrators... Gibson, Booth, Coll, Raymond, etc... other than Booth, these types of techniques can be duplicated without losing THAT much time, but then the work isn't as much about the LINE as it is the texure and value.
From a comics end, AA's work is very reminiscent of Terry's work. Look at all the detailing he put in on JB's stuff... Marshall's stuff.... was he that slow? Seemed pretty prolific as an inker.
AA tends to draw everything twice... of three times by the time he's done....
Reading the Modern Masters, AA seems to still suffer from a lack of confidence, which amazes me... look at JB's "pencils" when he inks himself and look at AA's when he's doing the same.
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Andy Mokler
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2795
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | 4
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As much as I think Art Adams is a master of rendering and texture, the Thing looks like he has dinosaur hide rather than rock in the above image.
Focusing on the smoke, it seems very much like artistic masturbation. It isn't complimentary or pertinent to the piece and to put a gazillion lines in there just seems odd.
This is all nitpicking as I really enjoy the drawing. Thanks for the large scan.
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Michael Huber
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 August 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 3337
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | 5
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(I wonder why he put everyone in their "Silver Age" outfits, but gave Parker
the spaghetti webbing?)
Well, and I'm no expert, but are Giant Man's and Black Widow's outfits chronologically correct?
It is very pretty though.
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Warren Leonhardt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 July 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 454
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | 6
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What's Adams doing now? Anyone know?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 136279
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | 7
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…the Thing looks like he has dinosaur hide rather than rock…
••
Which, given the vintage of the other characters, may well have been what
Arthur was going for. Still too many "lumps" tho.
Let me digress for a moment. Some years back a Writer I Shall Not Name
showed me some pages drawn by an Artist I Shall Not Name. These were
pages that were intended to be slipped in between pages of an unfinished
work by Another Artist I Shall Not Name. However, the artist whose pages I
was being shown was heavily influenced by a third artist, whose style was
about as far from the original artist as you could get and still be on paper.
So what the new artist had drawn was a bunch of figures who were very
nearly impossible to connect in any visual sense to the originals. It was as if
pages from an entirely different story, about entirely different characters,
were being randomly shuffled into the stack.
This made me very much aware of something I had noticed even in my fan
days, but which had become increasingly lacking. When different artists
drew Superman -- as many as three per issue, when I was a kid -- they all
drew Superman. Curt Swan did not draw like Wayne Boring, who did
not draw like John Forte, etc -- but there was no question they were all
"looking at the same model". No one felt they had to redesign the chest
emblem, or alter the cut of the costume, or the length of the cape. His
traditional spit curl was in the same place, curling in the same direction, no
matter who drew it. Over in the Batman office, when Neal Adams came on
the scene with a style at least as different from the "house style" of the
books as the style of the aforementioned Artist I Shall Not Name was from
the original artists on the book he was completing, Batman still looked like
Batman. Over time, Neal would lay his distinct (and some would say
definitive) stylizations on the character, but when he first drew Batman there
was no question that he was "looking at the same model" as was Carmine
Infantino or any of a legion of Bob Kane "ghosts". It was still about the
song, not the singer.
Even when Neal so successfully revitalized the design, he did not do so
without editorial endorsement, as can be seen in the fact that other artists
were encouraged (even ordered) to follow his lead. Irv Novick drew in his
own style. Jim Aprao drew in his own style. But once again, they were all
"looking at the same model".
Today, it often seems this is not even a remote consideration. Artists
approach assignments to iconic characters with the assumption that
they are expected to interpret the looks of those characters as they see fit.
No one seems to be expected to draw "on model" any more. (I have
mentioned a few years back, looking thru my bundle from DC, coming upon
a Superman comic that had me flipping back and forth thru the issue trying
to discover how the Man of Steel had come to be turned into an Asian
teenager. Answer: he hadn't. That was just how the artist drew him.)
Does it serve the best interests of the characters to play the game this way?
Jim Shooter used to say he wished credits had never been introduced.
Extreme, as was much of what Shooter said -- but the philosophy is not so
far off the mark.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | 8
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Well, and I'm no expert, but are Giant Man's and Black Widow's outfits
chronologically correct?
••
Not to the second, or even the year, perhaps -- but everyone there is decked
out in costumes from periods long before the spaghetti webbing!
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Knut Robert Knutsen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 September 2006
Posts: 7369
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | 9
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What's really amazing is that if you look at the work in progress pages of his that have been published in that book and elsewhere, His "breakdowns" are so solid you could just photoshop them finished and have a nice, open style. Cut his workload in three and put him on a monthly book with full rendering on covers. But too many people love the intensely detailed Art Adams so I guess that's what we get.
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John Popa
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 March 2008
Posts: 4759
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | 10
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I was maybe a year into reading comics when the New Mutants/X-Men Asgardian story hit the shelves and Art Adams just blew my 12-13th'ish year-old mind in those books. I don't always love everything he does but when he nails something -- the Creature From the Black Lagoon book comes to mind -- I find few artists can still blow my mind like Art Adams.
I'm sure if I ever met him I'd be a gibbering fool the entire time.
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Michael Huber
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 August 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 3337
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | 11
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I think the webbing is just the way he likes to do it, seems to fit his style. Did he do them that way before McFarlane?
I was commenting more on the costumes being a tad out of whack.
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John Harris
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 February 2005
Posts: 1411
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| Posted: 01 October 2008 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | 12
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Love Art Adams work! One of my favorites back in the day. Christos, THANK YOU FOR POSTING THE GREAT IMAGE!!! SINCERELY!
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