A trip to yesteryear with Spidey

[sherkahn]

Harry Knowles, uber-geekin many forms of media and fan of comics, put this up this evening over at AintItCool.com. Harry talks about the JOHN ROMITA AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ARTIST'S EDITION HC being released this week. We are treated to seeing the men who helped turn a common comic book character into the icon that we know today.

Two from the article behind the cut.



I just spent most of the dark rainy nights when I could not go out trying my hand to draw my fan-fiction, so seeing the masters at work on stuff like this showed me just how far I had to go.



All that art.... so clean. The curves and lines smooth and flawless, and the change in thickness describing speed and volume without hurting the eyes or straining the brain.



God I miss how how simple, honest rage can be depicted in a comic without the over-the-top exaggerations of the 90's popular artists.

Comments

[icon_uk]

This in indeed beautiful, though I think the rage-expression point is a little tricky with Spider-Man since he has no visible features. :)

[intertobamf]

I will never get used to reading "thru". Nails on chalkboard.

[jkcarrier]

Gorgeous. I am always amazed at how much tender loving care artists like Romita poured into their work, even in the days when comics were considered a disposable trifle. You'd expect the default mode to be "Just hack it out, get it done, nobody will notice the difference anyway". And there was certainly some of that around. But guys like Romita, Kirby, etc. clearly loved what they did and took pride in their work, even while laboring in obscurity in less-than-ideal conditions. That's the mark of a true craftsman.

[hazmat]

Amen. And while there are many awesome comic artists today, there are days when I miss that clean "Marvel" style of the old days.

[cypherfdp]

I'm THRU

[wizardru]

For me, there are three artists who define Spiderman to me.

Steve Ditko, John Romita, Jr. and Ross Andru.

This is an example of why. His line work is so good and drawing actual honest to goodness ANATOMY.

[fenris_wolf0]

Except that this is a sample of John Romita Sr's work.

Personally I cannot stand Romita Jr's art but my bias is due to the fact that I have always been partial to Romita Sr's style (as an inker for his father, Romita Jr was fine, my problem is with his drawing, not his inking).

Your mileage may vary, but for an older reader like me, no one can compare to John Romita Sr in his very long Spiderman run and John Buscema on the Silver Surfer.

[fenris_wolf0]

Oh and to be fair, Jim Mooney was a very good inker who had a real synergy with working with Romita Sr, because Mooney worked best with strong and clean lines - and did not do as well with more draft-like artists.

I am not sure if I am explaining this properly, but the role and importance of the inker is sometimes very much underestimated in my opinion.

[wizardru]

[facepalm]

I meant to type SR. I don't know why I typed JR. You're not the only older reader about, I assure you. I didn't dislike Jr. when he first appeared, but as his style has progressed, I've liked it less and less.

The older I get, the more respect I get for many of the journeyman artists of the late 60s through mid-80s; guys who had a solid understanding of layouts, anatomy and story flow who I didn't always appreciate at the time, but now grok where their talents lie.

Heck, I don't even know how many people even know who Ross Andru is, these days...but when I was growing up, he was THE Spiderman artist and the one I still associate Spidey with in most ways.

[fenris_wolf0]

I didn't dislike Jr. when he first appeared, but as his style has progressed, I've liked it less and less.

The older I get, the more respect I get for many of the journeyman artists of the late 60s through mid-80s

Same here on both points, really... and yes, Ross Andru was a workman-like but good, solid artist.

I myself started reading Spiderman right about the time John Romita Sr took over from Steve Ditko, and my taste is still influenced by my appreciation of his elegant style: he may not have been Hal Foster, but his art was perfectly suited to the Spiderman character - incredibly flexible, slim and always surprisingly graceful in spite of some really weirdly acrobatic -and iconic- poses inspired by Ditko's art.