Computers: When Good Artists Get Lazy

Seriously.  It was terrible when computers started doing all of the lettering and soon billboards, soda cans, posters, and signs in comic books, rather than being hand drawn, were left blank and filled in later with extremely poorly done computer fonts that often exceeded the space allotted or failed to fit the perspective of the drawing.  It was just terrible.  But then artists started to avail themselves of the capabilities of computer assisted drawing.  Sometimes, the results were amazing.  Sometimes the results were subtle and you would never know a computer had a digital hand in the art.  And then there are times when the computer was abused to a point where an otherwise truly amazing artist just got so lazy they became an embarrassment to their body of work. That might seem a bit harsh, but just keep reading and you'll see what I mean.

Salvador Larroca is a Spanish comic book artist who came into prominence in the early 2000's and made a big splash with his semi-comical, yet at times edgy style.  He was hot property for a good 8-10 years and in that time he really made his mark on the industry.  For my money he redefined the look of Marvel's First Family when he relaunched the Fantastic Four during the Heroes Return retcon.  Just take a look at this awesome cover from that run

Great stuff, yes.  So imagine my dismay when he would later have his turn at the Invincible Iron Man during the big, boring, yearly Marvel Crossover event "Fear Itself."  Dismay, you say?  Yes, dismay. Because somewhere between 1999 and 2011, the computer took control of Salvador Larroca and poisoned his work.  See, the computer allows you to easily do things that were once difficult and usually resulted in messy work.  Now, the same messy results can be achieved, but with significantly less effort. And when you are on a deadline and your editor is pushing you for pages, it can be all too seductive to just let the computer do the work for you.  This, in turn, can make a good artist lazy.  (All of the following images are taken from Sal's run on Iron Man circa 2011)

The most glaring evidence of this kind of unfortunate sloth is the repetitive image.  Why draw panel after panel of characters talking and doing things, when you can just draw one image and then copy and paste it into several panels?  That's the hallmark of good, sequential storytelling, right?

It's easiest to do this when one character is standing still, talking.

Ok.  To be fair, he added a couple of forehead lines in the second panel to show that he's determined, or something.

But what if people are talking and I need to add in a character?  Won't I have to redraw then whole scene?  Not necessarily...

With a little photoshop level magic you can just add in the new character and keep going.

Ok, so I can do that, but suppose I need that character later, not just in the next panel.  Surely the computer cannot help me with that?
Not so fast.  Just because you won't see the character until several panels later, or heck even the next page, doesn't mean you can't just copy and paste.  Take a look:

See!  Even though Pepper, drawn to look exactly like Nicole Kidman (indubitably the result
more computer help), appears here in panel three of the first page and won't reappear until panel 1 of the next page (with about 6 panels of action in between), doesn't mean we have to redraw her.  Oh no, we can just cut and paste and have the colorist adjust the lighting.  Then we can add the Sandman in the background and viola! a whole new panel!  What?  Are you saying it is highly unlikely that Pepper would be in the exact same position, particularly that hand, after several seconds, or maybe minutes, of action?  Pshaw!

Ok, ok.  So that's all well and good for talking heads, but the same thing cannot be applied to action scenes.  Those have to be drawn panel-for-panel every time.  You can't cut corners there.
But wait!  Yes you can!

In Sal's defense here, he is kind of going for a thing where Iron Man elbows Doc Ock in the head, and then we pull into the shot and are then shown an X-ray to demonstrate the damage caused by the impact.  But that's only a partial defense, because the copied panel is really unnecessary to pull off the device.  So, the copied panel is either filler to pad the issue, or it's just sloppy storytelling.  Either way, it's just lazy not to redraw the panel.  Pulling in closer to the action could reveal greater detail, if you redrew it.  Cut and paste just makes it a throw away.

So if you can cut and paste panel after panel with the help of a computer, you might only have to draw 8 or 10 pages of a 22 page comic, and then cut and paste the images wherever you need them. And if you are only going to draw 8 or 10 pages, you will be able to really knock those pages out of the park and make them amazing, right?  With all that time the computer is saving you, you can pour everything you've got into those pages and really wow the reader.  Right?  Well...

I'm not saying Pepper's legs, the pizza boxes, the bottles, and the entire background, are phoned in this panel (along with almost every background in every panel of the comic)...oh wait, that's exactly what I'm saying.  Come on.  That's just pathetic.

And then there's this:

Can anyone explain Tony's upper anatomy in this panel?  Maybe if he's Animal Man and he's channeling a dog of some kind, this makes a modicum of sense, but otherwise, what in the holy hell is going on here?

This is the same super start artist who did this X-men cover:

and these pages

and you are asking me to accept that this is the same level of work?  Not even close.  Not even remotely close.  And, it honestly looks like the computer is to blame.  While it can be a valuable tool, it can also be sorely abused and can result in really great artists coming across as extremely sloppy.  I still love Sal and I love his work, but whatever happened on Iron Man is not representative of his capabilities and I believe reliance on the computer is at least partly to blame.

Marvel Movie Project #17 Fantastic Four 2

This is the movie where the Silver Surfer comes to Earth for no reason, wastes all of our time, and then kills Galactus and leaves.  That's it.  I kid you not.  Look, you know by now I like to take the comic book source material and tell you where the movie went horribly wrong.  This won't take long.  The Silver Surfer CANNOT kill Galactus.  At least not out right.  The Surfer's power is literally a fraction of the World Eater's power cosmic.  It is that fact that creates the conflict of the Surfer's story.  He leads Galactus to Earth so the big guy can eat it, but then learns that Earth is full of people who are much like the home planet he left behind to save.  He must then enlist the help of the FF to save Earth and rebel against his master.

Does anything in this movie even remotely look like that?  No.  What we get is more of the same recycled crap from the first movie, even Doom comes back for absolutely NO reason, with some more interesting Special Effects.  Alba is still unbelievable as Sue, and she is a total bitch.  Reed is still a weak, mealy mouthed nerd who is marrying Sue because I think he is scared of her.  Ben is less pathetic this time around and Alicia is a welcome and likable female character in a movie with far too few.  Johnny, again, steals the show and creates the films only enjoyable moments.

The film is plagued by more forced family squabbles, but this time it is set against the tired device of having the four swap powers due to yet another freak accident, which only confuses an already overly complicated and needless plot.

The Special Effect, er Silver Surfer, looks really good and has the makings of being an interesting character, but he is given absolutely nothing to do, except show up, get captured and misunderstood and then released to go KILL GALACTUS, which he cannot do.  He is as cardboard as they come and it is too bad.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in this film is the lack of an actual villain.  Like I said before, Doom returns to menace everyone and do something, but what that might be is never clear.  Steal the surfer's power, steal Galactus's power, who can really tell.  His agenda is no more clear in this film than it was in the original.  Galactus is even less of a villain, and I get that he is cosmic-sized so he's hard to put into perspective, but he could at least be a credible threat.

I remember liking this movie a lot more when it came out, but I think, like the original, I was just excited to see the FF on the screen.  Johnny and Ben have some nice moments and overall, the story is somehow better than the original movie, but this is not a good movie.  It is far too confused and aimless and the performances are far too shallow to make this anything better than a moderately painless waste of a Saturday afternoon.  The movie is watchable, but only watchable.

 Aimee's Take:

This is more Fantastic Four in every sense. Sue is bitchy, Reed is boring, Johnny is perfect if overblown, and Thing is moody. They fight even more, you're left to wonder WHY Reed would ever marry someone who so clearly hates him. The Silver Surfer shows up and saves Sue for no reason. Doom appears for no reason. And then, the Silver Surfer kills Galactus. That's right. It's not unwatchable--I actually liked it in the theater, but unfortunately I was not able to locate whatever drugs I was smoking at that time for the repeat viewing. It is definitely better than FF and the rest of the schlock we've covered so far. But once again, it's entirely on the back of Johnny Storm played by Chris Evans. There's no way I could sit through another one of these things without stabbing Jessica Alba in the face with a pencil. I should point out that I actually love Ioan Gruffudd--although primarily for his work in the A&E Horatio Hornblower series that has nothing to do with trying to pair him up with a poorly-styled faux-blonde super bitch.

Honestly, there's not much to say. We're treading near interesting territory, because the next few movies actually have something incredibly likable if not loveable about it. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is neither bad nor good. It has likable moments but nothing to make the experience very worthwhile.

For this reason, I have elected to fill the rest of my "take" space with pictures of my dog. Enjoy!

Marvel Movie Project #21: Fantastic Four

I thought this movie was pretty good when it came out.  Not perfect, certainly weak in spots, but on the whole enjoyable.  Color me an optimist.  This movie is not good.  Not good at all.  I think where I was deluded was in the fact that the movie is very light, has fun moments, features "good enough" special effects, and is easily forgotten.  When you don't have many other super hero movies to compare it to, this makes for a good superhero film.

But see, therein lies the problem.  The Fantastic Four isn't a superhero story.  Heck, at its very best it wasn't superhero comic book either.  Oh sure they all have incredible powers, they go off into space and places like the Negative Zone, they battle incomprehensible bad guys like Galactus and Annihilus,  but at their core what makes the FF great, and likeable, and relatable is that they are a family and their story is a family drama.  They may not be your conventional family unit, but they are a group of people sharing a common bond and as a result of that bond, are confronting life's troubles together.  They do not always get along and they often quibble amongst themselves, but at the end of the day they are a unit.

The FF movie tries hard to get this notion across.  It tries too hard and in the worst possible ways.  Instead of allowing the actors to develop characters with chemistry, the film forces conflict upon individuals and then tells you that they are a family.  If the movie has to tell us they are a family then it is failing to do its job.  And if the movie fails to get the essence of the FF right, then all we are left with is a bad superhero movie.

And we are.  I'll not bore you with details, but I will ask you a couple of questions.  Why is Victor Von Doom part of the origin story?  He isn't part of it in the comics and it makes no sense for him to be part of it in the film.  As a matter of fact, him being part of the origin completely undermines the family concept entirely because if he is part of the origin, that makes him part of the family and therefore the story should become one of healing the family by bringing Von Doom back into the fold.  But that's not the story.  Instead that leads to my second question, why does Dr. Doom have lightning powers?  In the comics he has no powers, he is an evil, tyrannical Iron Man.  The End.  He is a dictator who dabbles in the arcane and builds armies of robots to do his bidding, some of which he makes in his own image.  Which leads me to my final question, if Dr. Doom is our villain, where oh where are the Doombots?  Exactly.

This movie honestly feels like it was written by about eight people, with maybe three of them having read one or two FF comics.  None of the characters are quite right, the plot is confusing and meandering, and the scripting is shallow at best.  Case in point, early on when the Four's powers are revealing themselves, we are treated to a comical scene where Johnny Storm (the only really likeable character and hands down the best performance in the film) discoves his powers.  Perfect.  That is exactly how it should be, and if executed well it can really set the tone for the film and his character.  But instead, this scene is executed by giving the same lame joke twice, each instance within about 15 seconds of each other and slapping some action in between hoping no one notices.  I kid you not.  The joke is funny once, mainly because of who Johnny is, but back to back it just comes across as poorly written.  "You're hot." "Thank you" is funny, and the way Chris Evans delivers the line is spot on.  It works.  But then, mere seconds later to have the same exchange: "You're on fire." "I know," is either bad editing or sloppy scripting.  It makes the characters look like they have already forgotten an exchange they just had.  Of course, I won't bother to go into the performance by the "actress" who portrays Johnny's nurse...

The Fantastic Four is not a superhero movie, it is a family drama with superhero dressing, but when you do not get the core right and you miss the mark with the dressing, all you are left with is a bucket of crap.  Fantastic Four isn't the worst comic book movie out there, clearly, but it certainly is symptomatic of what can go wrong when people try to make a movie based on a comic book, but fail to understand what makes the comic book appealing, and end up with a superhero movie instead, and a bad one at that.

Aimee's Take:

The five of you reading this know the drill by now: Stan takes the hard look, and I pick one thing I don't like and complain about it for a short time. Well, today, what I'm going to complain about is how the Invisible Girl/Woman was terribly miscast. 

I'm a big fan of the Invisible Woman. I only fairly recently discovered how nicely her character was allowed to develop in the 1980's. She dealt with all the problems a mundane woman might have, along with all the problems that stem from being the "team mom". Strong, and incredibly powerful, Susan Storm battles her own feelings of inadequacy as she recovers from a miscarriage, struggles to create a "normal" family environment for her son, and faces her husband's often aloof super-genius intellect. Sue is part of the glue that holds the Fantastic Four together--although it's not always easy to make that happen. During my favorite run, Thing is replaced by She-Hulk. The cast rotates fairly often, because, like any family, sometimes there is conflict, and sometimes people have to follow a different path than the one their families would make for them. Through most of this, Sue is a rock. She grapples with being both powerful and unappreciated. She grapples with being herself and being "normal". There is something about Sue that grabs me, as a woman. It wasn't always true of her character and it certainly hasn't always continued in her stories, but Sue is a tremendously accurate avatar for the average woman. 

 So by all means, let's make her the goddamn bitchiest character in the history of cinema. To say that her character is unsympathetic is an understatement. She is so unfeelingly fake and horrible, switching her "affections" from Victor to Reed, leaving everyone in the audience to wonder why EITHER of them would want anything to do with her.

She's too young, looking roughly three-four years younger than her kid brother, Johnny. This makes her ceaseless nagging mothering all the more annoying. (In reality, Jessica Alba IS older than Chris Evans--by a couple of months.) Reed isn't quite old enough by comparison to seem "fatherly" (believe me, this is an important component of their relationship, and a significant source of real familial conflict). Besides, with Alba in the role, Reed could be 65 years old--this Sue Storm is 100% right all the time, and if you disagree, she will ice you out. She's not just the team mom--she's the team dictator. 

Plus, there's the universal truth that goes: "An astonishingly beautiful girl with olive complected features will look one-hundred-percent convincing as a blond scientist of some kind." What, that's not a thing? Well, I'm not saying that Sue can't be beautiful, but she cannot be intimidating. She is the girl next door. I don't know why we had to have her dye her dark hair blond... it looks really, really unnatural and I see it as very unnecessary. Sue being blond is a very small detail and it has nothing to do with her character. Of all the things we could have gotten right--this is the thing we decided to stick to? 

I'm also not sure why we had to make Sue a scientist. It was ok to leave Johnny as...whatever the heck Johnny is. It was fine to have Ben be a lovable meathead type. So why do we have to have Sue be roughly as intelligent as Reed? You know, it's ok to have a female character who isn't "having it all"... I know that Sue gets a makeover in the "Ultimate" incarnation--but here's the thing. This movie follows, roughly, the original origin story. Why attempt to blend the two so unsuccessfully?

But enough about this. I want--no, need, need--to tell you about the most astoundingly insane cinema "fuck you" in the history of cold-hearted bitches. 

Ok, you may be familiar with the scene where Ben is on the bridge. There is a big special effects show down and all the team members show up and realize that, hey, we can use our powers as a team and to do things that are good. It's the FF "ah-ha". But, towards the end, Ben's fiance walks up to hand over the engagement ring, basically saying, "you're a big freak, I can't deal with you, I'm leaving," after presumably having witnessed this big event on TV.

Ok, first of all--this scene creates an ENORMOUS traffic jam. Traffic is backed up indefinitely. Probably for miles. Assuming that this woman saw only the first part of a news report (cluing her in to Ben's location), she would have likely hopped on a car or bus and been stuck for several hours trying to head in that general direction. I am left understanding, then, that this bitch WALKS the entire length of a police-blockaded traffic jam, just to say "fuck you" to Ben Grimm. 

If we are expected to believe that this woman's dedication to throwing this ring down--wordlessly--in front of her obviously distraught fiance is so great that she will go to such an extreme length, then I have news for Ben Grimm: she's not worth being upset over. She just saved you a lifetime of extreme bitchiness. Too bad you have to basically go home to Sue...

I'm not saying she shouldn't have a right to leave with the dramatic changes going on in her life. It's probably reasonable to say that she can't deal with her fiance becoming a rock monster, and that she shouldn't be blamed for her reaction. But she could have written a letter. I mean, Ben can't be that hard to find. She could go visit Reed and say, "Here's the ring, I can't face Ben, let him know this is about me, not him..." She could have called him on the phone, maybe. But instead, she decides to dump him on television, and she is willing to walk miles and duck police lines to do so. And she does so without so much as a "sorry about your luck". 

That, ladies and gents, is just nuts. 

I'd have to say, one reason this movies isn't on the very bottom (and it was, for a while) is because it contains the above scene. It's really quite amazing, once you work out what it really means. You won't see it the first time, it just kind of works. But when you really think about it--it's insane. It's the greatest, coldest break-up scene I've ever witnessed. Cinema gold. Unintentional, but entertaining.