More ART Discussion

Hi -
This thread of conversation is making for an interesting run on the blog, so I'm going to copy pieces of a couple of the comments from the previous post and add to them. Here goes.

From my illustrious former student Andrew Sides, this was said:
I don't buy the argument for a lack of backgrounds though, and especially using Manga or any other non-American comic art as influence. As sad as it might be, the level of expectation is probably a lot lower than we expect. Manga art has lack of backgrounds? Some of it might, but a lot of has as much detailed effort put into it as anywhere else.

Andrew's comment about the lower level of expectation is one of the things that has been on my mind the entire time that I've been teaching. I think that the low level of pop culture influence has had a "lowest common denominator" influence on the current generation to where they settle for less and get enjoyment from that lesser material that I just cannot find.

I love certain Manga material, by the way. GON is extremely fun and fun to look at. There are others, but that is my current fave.

I am constantly striving to raise the bar of expectations from students, partly so that the material will become consistently better and then maybe we can all make what we're worth.

I have some comments on Derek Diaz's post from my last one, but I've got to finish grading, so more on that later.


In the meantime, here's another layout page.

Tom

More stuff about ART!

So-
I've got some lively commentary going here.
Thanks, Melanie. Nice comments. I'm going to comment in detail about one comment post and I hope he doesn't mind, but I'm going to paste it into the body here. So, here goes:

I think the lack of backgrounds is really attributed to the influence and influx of manga over the last decade, and you coming up and making your career in the hayday of the "american/image" style comics puts you on kind of the other end of the spectrum. You said something to Cornell today about how he wanted to do something so bad he didn't see it was hurting him. I know your playing one side hard because of the review so I'm just playing devil's advocate as you do for me, but as I mentioned - "dated" does not imply bad, just not-modern. All your mentors/idols would probably like your work because they holds similar values to you when it comes to sequential art, but if those same artists that influenced you (that I know of) made comics today they would be considered dated too. I saw a addendum mini-issue that james has in the new printing of BWS weapon-x and its digiatly colored. His style doesnt work with the times, its great in it's element but seeing it now a days is a little "fish out of water" for me. Still like your art Tom, and get where your coming from, these are just my thoughts. Even major players around the same early-90's point like McFarlane, Joe Mad! and Miller were influenced by Manga/Anime so more than a decade later and with Manga giving American Comics a run for their money, and market - even a different demographic entirely - and the fact that your marketing to at least one entire generation after your 90's work - this is the "Manga generation." Any negative connotation with "dated-look" probably comes from all the hacks who got jobs using all those "American" pseudo-Jim Lee rendering techniques everyone got burnt out on. I get that much of their "style" comes form cutting corners and that aspect you should stay away from, but there are some powerful things you may be missing out on by not letting it influence you. But backgrounds are a small thing in the overall scheme of "east vs. west" and I dont see them as being distracting or detracting from your art, so... Phew.

I think that he makes some good points here. I keep pushing my students and it's nice to be pushed back. I'm really tired of drawing the same stuff, so I am trying to modify what I do. I think also that Xaq makes a cogent comment that maybe the reviewer didn't mean "dated" to be as negative as I took it. 10 years doesn't seem like much to me now at 55, but it's an eternity in the publishing business.

There are things about layouts and drawing that I do garner from looking at the eastern influence (and, oh yes, I do look at it despite my reputation as a Manga-hater), but I'm still very cold on many aspects of it and lack of backgrounds is my biggest pet peeve.

So, I'm actually trying to decide if this is all pushing me to try and work on something that would challenge me and help me to change ... and what is that project, eh?

I still have never started my slightly fictionalized memoir/autobiography story even though I've planned and plotted a great deal of it out. Does that challenge me ... to do something with "normal" people?

Well, keep the comments going and in the meantime I'll post another page of layouts from issue #6 of Vigilante.


I do know, by the way, that some of this angst that I'm feeling is the result of getting older and feeling a bit like a dinosaur. I do think I have something to offer still (as do my students, thank God), but I feel a little like I need to raise the bar and figure some stuff out.

It'll all happen. I've had nothing but good in my life for a long time now. I just like playing the devil's advocate and it's kind of fun to have a student do it back at me.

Later, folks.

Tom

So, I NEVER POST OR FINISH A STORY. Kill me, then.

Hi-
I figure you've all guessed that the visit to DC was more successful (so far) than the visit to Marvel. I just had issue #6 of VIGILANTE come out from DC this week and it was okay. I must admit that I think my layouts looked much better than the finished piece, but everything was SO rushed I am surprised it looks anywhere as close to good as it does.

Here's my rant for this post. I've read the reviews for 5 and 6 (my two issues for now) and I am irritated and amused that in one of the recent ones my art was classified "dated" because of the amount of background detail I have in the panels.

Yeah. Heaven forbid we should actually be able to tell where we are in the story.

I'm kind of torqued that you guys settle for crappy storytelling and lazy, pin-up art instead of a solid, well-drawn story.

Now, I admit, I think that there are aspects of my storytelling that need updating, but BACKGROUNDS!!

Gimme a break.

I'd love to hear about it from you.



I'm posting a layout for you to compare to the finished art.

See ya soon, I hope.

Tom

Still alive!!!

Hey. I'll put up the rest of my NY story tomorrow and also give a career update.
Thanks.

Tom

OKAY ... the details of Scott and Tom's NYC Adventure!!

TOM LYLE CONQUERS NEW YORK CITY!! DETAILS AT 11:00!

Well, here goes:
You've seen the pictures of my ROBIN page layouts in a previous post, but I'll post three pages of the inks/finishes that Scott did over my work later on this post.

It's been since 2003 since I've been to New York, but as always I felt very at home there. Sue and I left on Saturday, the 13th of December with freshly deposited SCAD Presidential Fellowship money in the checking account making this trip possible at all.

We stayed in Petersburg, Virginia the first night. Very uneventful trip so far. I-95 is extremely dull to me. Traffic wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

Using my brother-in-law's TomTom (how appropriate for me to use that GPS device), we drove a lovely path around Philadelphia into rural Pennsylvania on the way to Scott Hanna's house in Reigelsville. Those old, stone farmhouses are beautiful. It was great to see all of that after two days of mostly concrete and crap to see.

A good friend and major fan of both Scott and me, Doug Resnick (with his lovely wife, Chris, whom I finally got to meet) was kind enough to treat Scott, his lovely and talented wife Pamela Ptak, myself, and my lovely and talented wife Sue to dinner at a really nice Inn in Riegelsville. Good conversation and good friends with a beautiful fireplace glowing nicely in the background. It was a great start to a fun trip.

That evening, Scott and I prepared for our Monday assault on Marvel Comics' offices by copying and assembling the remainder (his ink pages ... I already had my breakdowns copied and ready) of our sample page packets to hand out. Our names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses on the back of each page of the sample packet. Take note, Tom Lyle students!!!

Here's the splash page finished by Scott:


Well, on to bed and getting ready for our trip on Monday, the 15th of December. Our first appointment is at 10:30 am, so we need to leave by 8:00 am in order to drive and get into Manhattan in time.

After a busy drive (I can't believe that people make that commute every day of the week) with no big problems, Scott, Sue and I arrive in NYC ready to rock.

Having never been to Marvel's new offices, I relied on Scott knowing about where Marvel is on 5th Avenue and he says we can walk there easily. Well, it's further than he thinks, so we arrive at the lobby of Marvel just in time for our first appointment.

We need not have rushed. Chris Allo is no where to be found. I have appointments with at least 10 people at Marvel and 10 at DC for the next two days, but this is not a great start to our mission. I even call Chris' personal cell phone number (I'm special!!!) and get no answer. I find out later that he had a family emergency to deal with, but at the time we were majorly disappointed. Chris is fine in our books, though.

Here's another of the pages he missed seeing in person at the time (just kidding, Chris!)

After that, we had three of our five pre-lunch appointments not see us at Marvel, plus we were not taken into the editorial offices. Instead we were interviewed in a conference room near the lobby. Odd.

I think it was a matter of the work day being nuts and no one wanted to really have to deal with us because of that. I knew we were pushing it coming to NYC so close to Christmas, but I had to push the trip to a week later in order to accomodate a meeting with Dan DiDio at DC and also to wait for the money from the Presidential Fellowship get deposited. It all worked out great, but it was hectic.

In the afternoon, things got better and we were taken down into the editorial offices and had all the meetings that were scheduled and more. Good responses from everyone about our pages. We were also really intent on selling the fact that we can produce a finished book together in one month - two weeks for me to do breakdowns and two weeks for Scott to do finishes. This is unheard of in the day and age. Lots of extra interest because of that.

Not being shy, I saw Joe Quesada in his office, so I stuck my head inside, apologized for interrupting his lunch and just said HI and told him that Hanna and I were in the offices selling ourselves as a breakdown/finishes team. He was gracious and said HI back and we chatted a moment before I moved on with a nice parting.

Here's the last page of finishes that I have a copy of at this time. Scott did page 5 (mostly) as well, but I don't have a copy of that.
All in all, our time went fairly well at Marvel. The coolest difference from when I used to go there in the past is cell phone technology. While we were stuck in the lobby of Marvel waiting to see about appointments that might or might not happen, I was on the phone calling to see if we could get new or revised appointments. That is so cool.

No one offered an assignment, but we left with a good feeling. The weather was gorgeous. It was almost 70 degrees on Monday. Very unusual for New York in mid December.

Tomorrow at DC Comics. I haven't worked there regularly since 1993, so it is interesting to return.

We drive back to Scott's house to stay for Monday night. Tuesday we (Sue and me, that is) will be staying in town and Scott will take the bus back home.

After a Monday night dinner, Scott and I get the sample page packets together for the assault on DC.

Tuesday arrives and I'll give you details about that in my next post. In the mean time, here's another photo from our trip:

NEW YEAR - Same Tom!!

More on my trip to New York City later, but for now I just want you guys to see Sue and me by the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.
Some nice tourist asked us to take their picture and they took ours.
But not our camera!!!
Later folks.

Tom

ON THE ROAD AGAIN!!

Well, the trip to New York City was delayed by one week, so I'm in Virginia today and on my way to Scott Hanna's house. Monday we'll be meeting with a bunch of edtors at Marvel and Tuesday is our DC Comics day. I haven't been to New York for this kind of thing since 2003, but it seems fine. I'm not nervous. I know I can do this stuff.
So, we'll see what happens and I'll try to post some pictures from my trip as well when I get back next week.

Later.
Tom