boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian) (09/28/84)
> From: shark!hutch 18-Sep-1984 13:47:28 > Well, I guess it wasn't too bad if you can forgive Heck for making every > character in the thing look like someone else. This is not to pick on you, Hutch, or what you said here, but I'm using the above quote as a springboard. I suddenly realized why it is that my opinions on Leialoha's artwork in X-MEN ANNUAL #8 differs from most other people's. It seems that, in general, what has upset most people about that artwork is that they feel that Leialoha's charac- ters are recognizable. I agree that they are barely recognizable for the most part, but does that make it bad art? I realize that some people use recognizability as a criterion for whether they like the art or not, but I don't. Unrecognizability can certainly cause an artist to lose points with me, but I feel that good art is good art regardless of whether the characters look like they are supposed to. To make another example, John Romita (Sr.) didn't draw Peter Parker at all like Steve Ditko; that certainly didn't mean that Romita's artwork was poor. Also compare Paul Smith's Jean Grey with Dave Cockrum's. Or more strikingly, take a look at some of the "pin-ups" in SUPERMAN #400. Berni Wrightson sure didn't draw a recog- nizable Superman, but damn! was that a great piece of art. And I thought that Leialoha turned in good art (with the reservations I put forth in my review about his inking) for the X-MEN ANNUAL. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov75!boyajian ^^ ARPA: boyajian%akov75.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA ^^ ***NOTE*** Temporary change of address to dec-akov75 To be in effect until 2 October 1984.