Today's trick comes from Winsor McCay, from a 1908 Little Nemo in Slumberland sequence. Sometimes, a trick can just be looking really cool! Enjoy this wonderfully designed page!
Sep 25, 2010
Comics Techniques and Tricks: Winsor McCay
Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!
Today's trick comes from Winsor McCay, from a 1908 Little Nemo in Slumberland sequence. Sometimes, a trick can just be looking really cool! Enjoy this wonderfully designed page!
Today's trick comes from Winsor McCay, from a 1908 Little Nemo in Slumberland sequence. Sometimes, a trick can just be looking really cool! Enjoy this wonderfully designed page!
Sep 18, 2010
Comics Techniques and Tricks: JH Williams III
Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!
Today, we're going to link to another website, since it has a deeper analysis of the piece than I can give you. Scott M. McDaniel (no relation to Scott McDaniel of DC Comics) does a sweet analysis of a page from Promethea #24, painted by JH Williams III.
Click here to see the analysis, including pointing out that the page is laid out in a Yin/Yang shape, the use of contrasts to balance the composition, the flow of the captions, and, of personal interest to me, the use of the Golden Section/Golden Ratio. Go over there now!
Today, we're going to link to another website, since it has a deeper analysis of the piece than I can give you. Scott M. McDaniel (no relation to Scott McDaniel of DC Comics) does a sweet analysis of a page from Promethea #24, painted by JH Williams III.
Click here to see the analysis, including pointing out that the page is laid out in a Yin/Yang shape, the use of contrasts to balance the composition, the flow of the captions, and, of personal interest to me, the use of the Golden Section/Golden Ratio. Go over there now!
Sep 12, 2010
Comics Techniques and Tricks: Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy
Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!
In March 1975, in the 38th issue of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu, Paul Gulacy and Dough Moench pull off this brilliantly executed bit of storytelling that has been reprinted in Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics.
Not only does it so adeptly bypass the problem of boring static that can be produced in a scene so full of exposition by not using any of Wally Wood's standard 22 panels for such an occassion, but that's how you set a mood!
In March 1975, in the 38th issue of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu, Paul Gulacy and Dough Moench pull off this brilliantly executed bit of storytelling that has been reprinted in Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics.
Not only does it so adeptly bypass the problem of boring static that can be produced in a scene so full of exposition by not using any of Wally Wood's standard 22 panels for such an occassion, but that's how you set a mood!
Sep 2, 2010
Comics Techniques and Tricks: George Perez and the Infinity Gauntlet
Welcome to another edition of Comics Techniques and Tricks, in which we showcase techniques that only comics can do! Click here for the archive!
Today's Comics Tricks come to us from July 1991, when Marvel Comics had Jim Starlin and George Perez put out the first issue of Infinity Gauntlet, which I really think to this day has been Marvel's biggest event book. It also holds the distinction of being the event that made me a comic book collector, with issues 3 and 4 being the first comics I distinctly remember asking my parents buying for me. Reading it now makes me feel that it is kind of - well - stupid. (Someone try to summarize it for me and keep a straight face. Seriously.) But the art is still great. Seriously, here's the cover to issue 1, which is a Comics Trick in itself:
But the Comics Tricks come, of course, inside the book. The issue has multiple narrators, and these days (and even back then, it was already starting, with Sandman and Watchmen), that would be distinguished by different lettering styles and different colored caption boxes. In Infinity Gauntlet, they use the same font all throughout, and George Perez just finds an inventive way to introduce each narrator. Here are a few examples.
Here's Dr. Strange, Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme (note also how the symbol on Strange's cloak transitions straight into the establishing shot of his lair, the Sanctum Sanctorum) :
A few pages later, we get the Silver Surfer, Cosmic Skyrider of the Spaceways, doing some narration:
But my absolute favorite is this introduction of Marvel's leading Avenger, Captain America:
That Perez sure made an impression on me as a kid!
Today's Comics Tricks come to us from July 1991, when Marvel Comics had Jim Starlin and George Perez put out the first issue of Infinity Gauntlet, which I really think to this day has been Marvel's biggest event book. It also holds the distinction of being the event that made me a comic book collector, with issues 3 and 4 being the first comics I distinctly remember asking my parents buying for me. Reading it now makes me feel that it is kind of - well - stupid. (Someone try to summarize it for me and keep a straight face. Seriously.) But the art is still great. Seriously, here's the cover to issue 1, which is a Comics Trick in itself:
But the Comics Tricks come, of course, inside the book. The issue has multiple narrators, and these days (and even back then, it was already starting, with Sandman and Watchmen), that would be distinguished by different lettering styles and different colored caption boxes. In Infinity Gauntlet, they use the same font all throughout, and George Perez just finds an inventive way to introduce each narrator. Here are a few examples.
Here's Dr. Strange, Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme (note also how the symbol on Strange's cloak transitions straight into the establishing shot of his lair, the Sanctum Sanctorum) :
A few pages later, we get the Silver Surfer, Cosmic Skyrider of the Spaceways, doing some narration:
But my absolute favorite is this introduction of Marvel's leading Avenger, Captain America:
That Perez sure made an impression on me as a kid!
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