[Batman]

. . . . or are they?


In response to Lucky's question "why couldn't them artists back then draw so good?" I present this:



Just one of the most stunning pages I've come across. It's from the serial "the Claws of the Red Dragon" by Tom Hickey in Detective Comics #3.

As much as I'm a defender of the merits of the old stuff, I had no idea that such innovative page layouts were used that early in the history of comics.

Of course, you still think it's teh suck, don't you? Well, I gave it a shot.

[Stu]

I wouldn't go so far as to call it "stunning", but sure, it's pretty good.
Making that Greenhouse look Three Dimensional could have been done better though.

[Batman]

Well, I was stunned by it.

Besides the amazing panel layout, I also love the dramatic lighting. So often in comic books it's either night or day--beyond that, who can tell? But just looking at the shadows in the first panel, you can see it's almost sundown.

[Lucky]

Its pretty good. Definitely better than 90% of the golden age stuff I've seen. I'd probably presume it to be Silver Age if you just showed it to me. Good lighting as you said. Very good physical form for the people that is usually my biggest problem with Golden Age art. The perspective on that walkway and the 3deminsional aspect of that greenhouse feel a bit lacking to me but its 50 year old comic art so I'm not gonna criticize. Nelson's facial structure in that middle panel is just about the one real criticism I have for it. That just doesn't look human. Or if it does, Nelson's a really ugly human who possible was inbred. And shapes his eyebrows in a really weird manner.

If I had to say so I'd say I have 3 major problems with Golden Age. (1) The bodies are always silly. They hadn't gotten the crazy physiques that comics became but it seemed to play to the exact opposite like noone was in anyway physically fit. Sometimes that made some sense but a lot of the time everyone just looked short and dumpy. (2) Faces always seemed wrong. And as someone who loved to draw at a younger age I could NEVER get faces. Its one of the reasons I stopped drawing because it ate me up that I could never get it right. (3) Clothing almost always looked absurd. Part of that, I think, was that they were envisioning their heroes ACTUALLY wearing long johns as costumes rather than the singlets, tights, and more form fitting things comics eventually became. But in old X-Men books it looked like a bunch of kids who made their own cheap costumes and went to a comic con. And were then laughed at by the dorks who made better costumes.

This picture might have the face problem but it seems to have resolved the clothing and physique ones. Add in that its good lighting and a good backdrop. And actually I might argue that the perspective on that punch is off because it looked like a really awkward short punch and odd angle for the hat to fly off before I realized the shooter must be falling back as evidenced by the bend of his back. Which strikes me as pretty good detail even if I think he could have angled it differently to make it a bit different.

But I'm talking out of my ass. I'm not an artist despite my best efforts and I rarely really critique art. I just know what I like and what I don't like. And there's a big reason I've never had much luck reading Golden Age books. The art looked ugly to me. And that's why Silver Age started to suck me in, why the Liefeld era of the late '90s lost me, and why I can read hundreds of pages of modern art without stopping. This book would not turn me off with its art. I'm not sure that it would such me in either, but at worst it would be neutral. It looks pretty good to me.

[Batman]

Cool. The thing is, I had no idea there was golden age art quite like that until very recently.

Here's another page from the same artist:



Now, that's just gratuitous.

[Stu]

The middle panel of the first scan reminds me of Grant Morrison's Animal Man

[Batman]

LOL!

[Batman]

Slam Bradley shared a bed with his comedy relief sidekick! And matching PJs!

HA HA HA!

[Stu]

"LET ME OUT FUM HYAR! AH GOTTA GIT BACK T'KAINTUCKY!" ;D

[Batman]

IT'S A TRAP!

Likely the very first "IT'S A TRAP!" ever!

[Batman]

Don't do it Slam! Run, Yell, and Tell!

[Stu]

I love that Slam's fist reaction to a compliment is "shall I hit him?"

[Jack Quinn]

if it makes anyone feel better, for the most part I prefer the old comics

[The Jewish Cunthead]

sergeial said:

IT'S A TRAP!

Likely the very first "IT'S A TRAP!" ever!

[salmonjunkie]

There is something very gay homosexual about Slam and Shorty's relationship here.

[Batman]

Y'think?

[Stu]

Slam's methods were not that much different from Golden Age Superman's:

[Batman]

On the other hand, Slam and Shorty's . . . "partnership" is completely a case of "Siegel and Schuster were just too naive to even consider the possibility that anyone might think anything . . . funny could be going on there."

Fred Guardineer (the creator of Zatanna's dad) on the other hand? I'm pretty sure he actually smoked the pole.

Guardineer debuted in Action Comics #1, with his most famous creation, magician-hero Zatara, very much an "homage" to newspaper-comic hero "Mandrake the Magician."

But he also took over two existing features from Creig Flessel, one about police detective Speed Saunders and another about sports hero Pep Morgan.

Also, he created another new feature called "Anchors Aweigh," a "Navy adventure" serial.

When Flessel drew Pep, he looked like this:



After Guardineer took over, he started to look like this:



Well, he was blond all along, but now his hair was so shiny! And a little long on top. . . .

When Flessel drew Speed, he looked like this:



He almost always had his hat on, but here's one of the occasions when it got knocked off:



When Guardineer first took over, he looked much the same:



But within a couple of months . . .




Slick blond hair, a little long on top? Again? I was starting to suspect that was just Guardineer's "type," so to speak.

In Anchor's Aweigh, not only is the hero in the freakin' Navy, but he has the same hair, and his uniform is always mostly unbuttoned . . .



. . . due to the tropical heat, no doubt.

So, I was getting the impression that Guardineer really liked that particular look. Liked liked, you know? Not that there's anything wrong with that. But, hey, I thought, maybe he's just lazy, and it's a shortcut for all of his heroes to have the same look.

But then . . . he has Pep and a team-mate hit the showers. (Those of you with a weak constitution may want to shield your eyes.)




Yep. Definitely teh ghey.

[Batman]

stu said:

Slam's methods were not that much different from Golden Age Superman's:

Golden-Age Superman definitely had a different way of going about things than today's.

Since you brought up Golden-Age Superman, I've gotten as far as Action #10, and I've been really disappointed with his adventures thus far.

As I was reading Siegel and Shuster's pre-Superman stories, I kept saying to myself, "Wow, something like that would be great for a Superman story." For instance, Steve Carson leaps from one airplane to another:



And then down to catch a parachuting man:



A giant tank attacks DC:



Steve Carson versus a Giant Robot!







Slam fights on an in-progress skyscraper:



Slam fights a swordfish:



Slam dives after a spooky diving-suit guy:



Slam has a gun-fight clinging to the side of a building:



Slam has a fight while parachuting:



Pretty airplanes:



Slam in a bar-fight:



Slam as a lumberjack:



Shorty about to go over a waterfall:



Shuster's art uses unusual panel shapes to help convey action and scale. This could be used to great effect on Superman: convey the scale of something before having Superman lift it. But thus far he hasn't done anything cool like fight a giant robot. The closest thing has been Superman holding up a bridge long enough to save a train:



But for the most part it's just been by-the-numbers "If I had super-strength I'd sure teach those wife-beaters/slum-lords/munition-dealers/fill-in-the-blank a lesson" wish-fulfillment tales. Ah, well.

[Batman]

Hoo! I was reading my Golden Age comics last night and I stumbled upon a new favorite artist.

Ed Moore is fucking awesome. Check this out:













Ain't that awesome? I can see how he must have been an influence on Toth, and through him Mazzuchelli and Lapham.

But he's totally obscure now--he doesn't even have a wiki. And even his lambiek article doesn't have a lot to say. "He was a comic book artist. He drew for X companies in Y timeframes." But I was just floored by it. Amazing, pioneering stuff.