A Brief Conversation with Stephanie

So I was reading my stack of Wonder Woman comics last night (yes, Wonder Woman). Although I normally like to enjoy my comic reading in the comfort and security of my own office, I chose to read them in the living room. As a kid, I loved reading on the floor with the book on the coffee table, and now that we finally have a table in our living room, I figured why not?

"How can you read your comics out there?" Stephanie asked as she prepared to read in bed. (She obviously doesn't care about the condition of her books, right?)

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the way you're reading them. Aren't you going to damage them?"

"Oh, I don't care so much about that. These are new comics I just bought. I don't really care about how mint they are. I just want to read the story."

"Well, you don't look very comfortable."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Sit on the couch."

"Then I'd have to bend forward too far to actually read it. That'd kill my back."

"No, I mean sit on the couch and hold the comic in your hands."

"Oh," I said, laughing a little. "Are you crazy? No way. I'd never do that to a comic book."

Love This Quote

Robert Downey, Jr., pimping his new film, Tropic Thunder, has one of the best comic book quotes I've read in awhile, so I had to post it here. Check out moviehole for the entire interview.

"My whole thing is that that I saw 'The Dark Knight'. I feel like I'm dumb because I feel like I don't get how many things that are so smart. It's like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight'. Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so f--king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? F-ck DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from."

Greg vs. Greg Part 2: Another Retort

It's a little late to comment on Rich's second Greg vs. Greg post, so I'll keep it short. I agree with Rich on pretty much all points concerning Land's quality: his art is definitely pleasing to the eye. His characters have personality, they have beauty, they have emotion. I can get behind an artist who's style brings all of that to the table. But you know, there's a something seedy about him taking another creator's work and tracing it to make comic art.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure even doing that takes a level of skill that most of us don't have. I know I couldn't do it. And there are plenty of artists who take their own snapshots for posing, lighting, etc. to get it just right. But Land is going beyond that. To me, if he's not giving credit to the photographers and models who he's swiping, then he's stealing someone else's creativity for his own gain.

This topic has been done to death, so I don't need to add my two cents to the debate. But I learned early and often that a writer does not plagiarize, and I know I'd never make it at Marvel if I sent in a Star Wars ripoff with Han and Luke replaced with Wolverine and Cyclops. So why does he get away with it? I don't know, but I do know that this question is all it takes for me to find fault with the man's work.

As I said, I like Land's art. I can really let my eyes soak in every detail and the art stands up to that scrutiny. And his characters have solid emotion in their eyes (probably because of the photo tracing), which lets me connect with the fictional character in a way few artists allow me to. Yet that only takes me so far. No matter how much I enjoy a particular image, I always find myself stepping out of that moment and realizing that it probably came from somewhere else. And that's almost unforgivable. Not because I'm looking down from some moral high ground, but because his style all but forces me out of the moment. As a storyteller, that's simply inexcusable.

Yeah, I know. It's because of his style that I like his work, yet it's because of his style that I don't like his work. It's a sick catch 22. Some cruel joke from the comic Gods. Lucky for me, though, it's not something that keeps me up at night.