Episode 27: Are You Too Quick to Judge?

I liked “The Grande Odalisque,” even though the art isn’t something I liked at first glance. Reading it as part of the story, though, caused me to see it in a new light, and it’s one that I loved. That led to some thoughts…

The following is the original script for this episode. I’m sure I went off-script wildly at times. I can’t help myself.

I can’t tell you how many comics I’ve taken a look at and decided not to read because of the art.

This is not necessarily something I’m proud of.  Don’t get me wrong — you need to have standards.  There ought to be standards. A poor storyteller with weak art will ruin a book every time. (And not necessarily weak art, but art that’s not in my wheelhouse.)

And strong storytelling with inconsistent or poor art will do the same.

But sometimes — just sometimes — you can leap to the wrong conclusion.

I’ve found that you need to read the art in the framework of the story to get a good sense of it.  It’s not enough to take an isolated panel, declare the art style to be ugly or distracting or not your style. You need to see the art and read the words.  You need a few panels, if not a few pages, to decide if it all works together. That’s what comics is, right? Words and art TOGETHER.  

Nobody judges a comic by reading a few word balloons and then deciding the book will be a good read no matter the art.

This happened to me most recently with “The Grande Odalisque.”  It’s an art style that looked ugly to me, at first glance. Incomplete.  Needs a better inker. Needs ten more years of experience to learn to draw interesting people or dramatic extreme angles.

But when you read the book and get sucked in by the dialogue and start to see the art telling the story of the dialogue… And when you see how the foundational elements are all there and the negative reaction you initially had to the art was the fit and finish, not the groundwork or the basis of it all….  And by YOU, I mean ME.

The art suddenly looks a lot better in service to the story.

I can’t tell you how many art styles have grown on me just from READING the art, and not just looking at it.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still styles that will be ugly to you and I won’t’ judge you for that.  We all have different tastes. You do you. It’s OK sometimes to know what you like and don’t like.  

But next time you pick up a book, flip through  few pages, decide you don’t want to read it because “the art is ugly,” read a few pages instead.  Start at the beginning. After you get through a few pages, do you notice the art as much?

There’s something else I wrote about a few years ago that I admit still holds true, though it sways me less: Colors.  Have you ever seen a preview for a book at a small size and not been able to make anything out? When a website shows you six preview pages at a smaller, lo-res size, and the colors all blend together and you can’t see the art…. When everything looks either too glossy or too muddy….  I’ve also passed on books that looked like they’d be a slog to get through just because of the coloring. 

I’m not saying that’s right.  A lot of drab, plain, boring color jobs have brought the art down in the past.  But I’m only human. It’s still more important to READ the pages and then decide if that coloring you don’t like is in proper service to the story, but it is something that pulls my eye one way or the other.

READ the art, don’t just LOOK at it.  That’s my tip for today.