Comics are no longer a visual medium

[Paul]

I came across this article quite by accident today while trying to figure out if there's a drive-in theater anywhere near where I live.  But it immediately made me think of this thread and thought I'd share... it seems that films also struggle to define where credit is due.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/4879/does_it_really_matter_who_authors_a.html?cat=40

That's a great example. I took a film crit course at the local university a couple of years ago, and the prof railed against the auteur theory with a fiery vengeance. He was, not surprisingly, a screenwriter.

That's actually an interesting reversal on the discussion as well, as the Auteur Theory takes the authorship out of the writer's hands and gives it to the person who actually takes their work and brings it to life visually.

[JimN]

I sleep all day so I'm just now getting back to you. For the first part what I mean is that writers are making comics into what they are these days, while artists have not changed that radically. And you skipped the part I said about fans rejecting "different" artists... take the dinamic duo of Morrison and Quietly. Morrison is a LOT crazier than quietly but a lot of people are happy to accept his style of writing while rejecting Quietlys art style. Writers get to be a lot more subversive while most of the artists that fans are willing to put up with are still doing exagerated anatomy, unexpresive faces and weightless composition. But yeah, writer/artists are my favorite, every week or so I bring up Fun Home, Kabuki, Love and Rockets and The Crow (ok, the crow does not come up much).

As for writers having a lower profile in the past unless it is Clairmont or Wolfman or something everytime somebody on this show or others brings up an old comic it is all about the aritst. Then in the 90's writing was a distant second to art. I feel that books like Daredevil really threw a monkey wrench in the machine with muddy, realistic art but a heavy enphasis on dialog and plot.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question.

It seems you're making some distinctions between mainstream comics (ie: Marvel and DC) and other comics that I didn't realize earlier, so I see the point you're making. I still disagree with it but nevertheless, I appreciate the clarification.

Jim

[JimN]

Hmmmm, this is a long thread. I don't totally agree with Steve and Jim (even though we still cool).

In the end really who cares what the general public thinks. How many people really knows that each Pixar Film is directed by a different person? How many people knows who designs the clothes for Louis Vuitton? How many people knows who produces a song they hear on the radio (hip hop/R&B excluded)? And in terms of comics, all comics in a book store in terms of shelf space who has more? writers or artists? For every one of these books there are 50 books in the manga section with this name on it
Masashi Kishimoto or Eiichiro Oda or Akira Toriyama or Rumiko Takahashi or in the humor section where all I see is Charles Shultz and Bill Waterson or Gary Larson or Aaron MacGruder

I think maybe some more of these artist might need to take a time out and really think is this working for them and if not maybe they need to take the gamble and do their own thing and keep with it while making money. Then their name can be big.

Not every artist has the ability (or desire) to write effectively and some people simply enjoy collaboration. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to achieve success and recognition by co-creating something with a writer instead of breaking off create something entirely on their own.

As for caring what the general public thinks: that's of crucial importance when it comes to intellectual property. The reason some of the names we've been discussing in this thread are marketable is obviously because a percentage of the public significant enough to matter (in a sales sense) recognizes those names. Consequently, the perceived level of credit isn't just a matter of satisfying egos but also something of commercial importance.

In response to one of your rhetorical questions: How many people know Pixar films are sometimes directed by different people? The answer: enough to matter.

on a lighter note ain't none of these writers have a Levi commerical with Spike Lee in it. So they ain't shit.  

  Well played!

Jim

[JimN]

I came across this article quite by accident today while trying to figure out if there's a drive-in theater anywhere near where I live.  But it immediately made me think of this thread and thought I'd share... it seems that films also struggle to define where credit is due.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/4879/does_it_really_matter_who_authors_a.html?cat=40

Thanks for the link, Bill. That's definitely an interesting read in light of our discussion in this thread.

Jim

[Adam O. Pruett]

Karma to Steve for the Eisner quote. I actually was going to post that very thing before I'd read through the whole thread.

Going back to the idea that artists aren't "co-authors":

If you think that the artist only follows the directions provided in the script, then you've never had your own script illustrated by someone other than yourself. Or you've never illustrated a script for another person.

Tell that to the people who bust their asses, in all likelihood putting in more hours per comic than the writers, only to have their contributions minimized.

And if you found this comment of Jim's to be inflammatory, then you've never illustrated a comic book -- period.

Writers the world over recognize that it generally takes a great deal more work to draw a comic than it does to write one. This is why so many writers are able to juggle multiple monthly titles, and it's why very FEW artists are able to do the same.

I'm not saying that the writer is less important than the artist. It's not diminishing in the slightest to the contribution of the writer to realize that drawing a book simply takes more time, and in most cases, more effort. I think this is something that we can recognize if we're being honest with ourselves. So, if for no other reason than out of respect for the amount of work that goes into drawing a comic, then YES, artists deserve equal billing.

McFarlane was right on in this regard:

I think it's too easy for a writer to put stuff on paper that he doesn't have to draw. So, in other words, if I'm writing and I don't have to draw it... well, I wouldn't actually ever write this, because I know somebody would have to draw it. But if I were a writer and I never drew, then I would go, "Oh! Let's do a fleet of aliens coming down from 12 planets, about a thousand of them, and then heads are floating over the Capitol Building, make about 18,000 of them dropping down, and then we're going to have, like, The Avengers and The Defenders coming," and you're starting to get into Independence Day.

Well, you know what? For me to describe that scene, I can type that in about two and a half minutes. It takes four days to draw that damn picture. Three minutes to think it up, four days to draw the double-page spread. It's just painful.

[Adam O. Pruett]

Also--

A newspaper article with the headline "Biff! Bang! Pow! Comics aren't just for kids anymore!"

Steve, don't you know it's the LAW that all articles about comic books share that exact same headline? It's also required for newspaper writers to get at least one fact about comics wrong when they write these articles. The classic Captain Marvel was created by Jack Kirby? "Sure, uh, that sounds right. He was the 'Kingpin' of comics, he created everyone, right? No need to fact-check this thing too hard."

[LA Rabbit]

To those of you who were dismayed with the original post regarding the artists of comics not getting proper due, here is a little revenge.  The Los Angeles Public Library has ebooks for let (that will be discussed in my resurrecting a separate thread), and I was scanning the titles.  You can search by several criteria.  There is no author category but instead lists "Creator."  In the books I checked the creator was always the penciler (obvously with so many titles I couldn't check them all). 

http://audiobooks.lapl.org/46D1ABA0-8A55-498E-AE3F-16C22E1482B1/10/366/en/SearchResults.htm?SearchID=41834784&SortBy=author

Further, when you click on a title, Marvel Adventures Iron Man #4 for instance, as to credits they only list the penciler, inker, and colorist.  No mention of a writer (or letterer) at all.

http://audiobooks.lapl.org/46D1ABA0-8A55-498E-AE3F-16C22E1482B1/10/366/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=5DB4713D-F299-4C9B-9267-C6D7E4EDFA98

So you wouldn't even know there was a writer involved.  It is all swings and roundabouts.  Thanks.