It Looks Good and I Like It

In yesterday's post I listed some of the artists I showed the class but I couldn't remember all of them. For the sake of thoroughness, here are the ones I left out: Sonny Liew, Scott Mills, Tony Millionaire, Jay Hosler, Eric Shanower, Jeff Lemire, Steve Lieber, and Charles Vess. If you're familiar with comic book artists, you have to agree that that is a decent range of art styles. If you're not familiar with comic book artists, you probably already got so bored that you stopped reading this post, so never mind.

Art appreciation is a nebulous skill that generally takes years to develop and only comes as an outgrowth of a personal interest in the artform. Still, I wanted to get the kids at least thinking and talking about different art styles. Today each student chose a different book and gave a short presentation to the class, describing the art style in that book, how the artist used line and color, what kind of emotional state the art seemed to convey, and what made the art good. They didn't get into a lot of depth, but I like to think that these activities got them noticing the art in a way they didn't before.

The surprise hit of the day was The Last Lonely Saturday by Jordan Crane. It's a small comic, 80 pages with two panels a page, so unlike most of the other books you can read it in just a few minutes. A few of the kids did read it, and were surprised by how emotional they got. "It looks like it's going to be funny," they said, "but it's so sad!"

That's an effective choice Mr. Jordan Crane made, to use a charming cartoony art style to tell a melancholy and ultimately kind of creepy story.

Next week: Batman!

Sopwith Camel Vs. Camel on a Magic Carpet

We continued on with our focus on art today. I brought in 20 or so graphic novels and then had the students compare the different art styles. Some of the artists represented were Carl Barks, Herge, Stan Sakai, Mark Schulz, Andy Runton, Chris Sprouse, Craig Thompson, Lewis Trondheim, Manu Larcenet, George Pratt, Jordan Crane, Dave McKean, David Mazzuchelli, Walt Holcombe . . . I forget who else. Writing them down, I realize that they were all men, like every other artist I've spotlighted, which is an inequality I really need to address one of these days.

Pop Quiz! Can you tell the difference between these art styles?

A. Walt Holcombe

B. George Pratt

Bonus points if you can place both artists on McCloud's Representation/Picture Plane/Idea pyramid.

Anyway, my criteria for selecting books were that they be non-superhero comics, preferably self-contained, and that they not contain profanity or nudity or other R-rated content. That last requirement knocked out a bunch of big name cartoonists like, say, Robert Crumb. 

If you had set yourself the goal of finding 20 different cartoonists with 20 different art styles you might have a hard time of it. I, on the other hand, could just stroll into my dining room and look over the bookshelf for a few minutes. You see, world? It's a good thing I've bought all these comics over the years! My obsession has paid off. Who's laughing now?