Why, exactly, are so many comics artists so much slower these days?
Let me hasten to say here that I don't mean any personal criticism, or any diminution of the the talent of anyone. Hell, I can't even draw a stick figure, so I'm the last one to suggest that any artist is inferior because of their drawing speed.
No, what I'm wondering is, why there seem to be so many more "slow" artists in the industry today than there ever used to be.
According to Mark Evanier, when Jack Kirby left Marvel, his contract with DC called for a minimum of 15 pages per week. Read that again. Can you imagine? Many of today's top pencillers can't seem to manage 15 pages per month.
Obviously, The King isn't a fair comparison. But unless the rose-colored glasses of youth are tinting my memory, it seems to me that a much higher percentage of artists back then could handle the monthly deadline than are able to now. Comparing unbroken artist runs in the 1970s to the 2000s makes for a pretty striking contrast.
So, my question is, why is that? Have the comic companies encouraged "slowness" by tolerating it for "popular" artists? Could some of the artists meet deadlines if editors "cracked the whip," and insisted that if they want to draw X, they'd better "git 'er done?" Or is it just some natural artistic evolution, where the prevailing "style" of the day requires slower work, for some reason? Could (or should) artists be better able to make monthly deadlines, drawing faster (while possibly sacrificing some quality)? Or should they insist on a "it takes as long as it takes to do it right" approach?
Given that the Big Two regularly have "co-pencillers" finishing issues these days so they can come out (relatively) on time, it seems they've decided to adapt to the slower pace of modern artists. And there's nothing wrong with that, if planned well (Batman & Robin being a good example...although there are many other less...elegant...solutions out there).
So, I'm just wondering about this huge shift in the industry over the past couple of decades. Any thoughts?
(Unless, of course, it's all the inkers' fault. Damned tracers!!)
16 comments:
This actually came up in the comments section of one of my posts. It was a review of IDW's recent issue of Doctor Who, and I made a comment about why the comic changed artists every arc.
Well, some things were done differently back in the days of our youth, for instance when the artists could not make a deadline, they would put out a reprint or "inventory story" instead. I recall one of those "the Order Changeth" stories from the 1970s where after a few new pages it became a reprint of Avengers #16.
Or they would cut corners with the inking (Vince Colletta was notorious for this, sometimes leaving out entire figures from panels). Let's also not forget that the colouring process was a lot simpler back then (and that for some time in the 1970s an issue would only have 17 pages of story). Occasionally you'd have a desperation job like ASM #209 (October 1980), which was inked by no less than five inkers (including editor Al Milgrom) and then finished abruptly after 17 pages (by that time no longer the standard length) with no next-issue blurb, so you get a feeling that the pages that came after the ending of the fight between Spidey and Kraven had not been finished on time by penciler Alan Weiss or whatever inker had been assigned to them but they decided to go ahead and print it anyhow...
Also, I seem to recall that e.g. Jack Kirby on occasion would do pretty rough pencils, leaving a lot of the work to his inkers, whereas many later pencilers would go into a great deal of finicky detail, relegating their inkers to "tracerhood". And on Amazing Spider-Man in the early 1970s John Romita (Sr.) working as an inker would regularly leave the backgrounds to uncredited Tony Mortellaro (who had a way of putting his name on random billboards etc.). While on the other hand I seem to recall from an interview that some of Romita's earliest comicbook work involved him "ghosting" for another penciler...
I think it boils down to a matter of work ethic. I think older generations simply worked harder and had a better understanding of how blown deadlines could impact their professional standing. I don't sense much of that now.
Editors were also much more powerful figures decades back (some of whom, like the legendary Mort Weisinger, went way too far into "dictator" territory), so the fear-factor played a bit part in creators toeing the line. Today, it seems as if editors are merely glorified "traffic managers" who coordinate the work flow, but don't impose any sort of grand creative vision or sense of discipline over his creators.
Another, and maybe the most important, factor is a largely captive audience (us) who, for the most part, don't so much as blink an eye when a book is delayed. I see all over the message boards comments like "Oh, I don't care if it's late. Quality is worth the wait" or "I wouldn't want the artist to change in mid-story arc...so I'm fine with the delays". Irritating...and an attitude that does not punish the laissez-faire mindset of the publishers/creators who routinely blow deadlines. Until fans and dealers actually start cutting their orders for late books, nothing will change. Yet another unintended side effect of the Direct Market!
Mensh--the infamous "Old Order Changeth" reprint in Avengers #150 was actually because of a writer running late, but that's a long story.
Mark--Doubtless you hit a nail right on the head. Back in "the day," if you couldn't meet deadlines, your book was relegated to bi-monthly, or more likely, the artist was relegated to back-up features and the ilk.
I wonder, if the trade-off could work today--could artists be convinced/ordered to turn in work of, say, 10% less "perfection" in order to meet deadlines? And would fans be better served by more pages at lower quality from, say, JH Williams III, or are we better off with the sheer loveliness we get now, but only in small spurts?? I'm largely agnostic on the issue...
The best thing to do up front is to hire artists who have a proven record of both quality and timeliness. Sure, usually the very best artists have trouble hitting a monthly schedule....and the guys who can get the work in on time generally aren't the highest quality pencillers....but there ARE artists out there that ARE capable of both high quality artwork and keeping a monthly schedule (Green Lantern artist Doug Mahnke comes immediately to mind). THESE are the talents you nuture and offer exclusive deals to...not the "it's done whenever I finish it" prima donnas.
Until then, I would recommend removing the "published monthly" blurb from the publishing info (usually on the splash page) for the habitually late comics. Talk about false advertising!
Ok I'm going to get slapped for this, but it is simply an matter of money all the way around. The artist (even the starving ones) are now making much more money then the artists in say the golden age (yes weigh for inflation.) Because of this they don't have the need to draw page after page. On the other side of the equation artists are now a name brand and not just the faceless folks who drew up 40 pages of starman. Because of this, comic book publishers not only pay them more money but also do not want to risk losing their talent by making the type of demands made by artists again the golden age. So in short, because times are better for artists they aren't producing as much.
Lazarus Lupin
http://strangespanner.blogspot.com/
art and review
ack apologies for errors in above post. I feel like a horse's jack'd ass.
I think it boils down to a matter of work ethic as that thankfully comics artists no longer have to work under the sweatshop conditions of the "Golden" Age or even the low wages of a Silver Age worker-for-hire and so can now take greater pride in their work.
As a consumer, I don't really see any advantage for me if artists produce only 90 per cent of their best in order to make a deadline (or if they are replaced by people who are only 60 per cent as good). If I am prepared to wait, I not only get better value for money (and here it makes a difference that an individual issue costs 3 or 4 bucks these days instead of a dime or a quarter, as it did in the "good old days"), but I also have to spend less on the title in question over a year. So where's the problem? (These days quite a few customers will in fact wait until the trade paperback comes out, so they have even more patience). Titles being held up could of course negatively impact major crossover events, but after going through so many of them I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing either. ;-) And since I don't just buy one or two titles and there are now so many more titles being put out every month than e.g. during the 1970s...
BTW, snell, could you mention an instance or two where an editor bumped a title back to bi-monthly because the artist could not meet their deadlines in the years 1935-1985? Somehow it does not seem likely to me, especially as pretty much all artists appeared to have been treated as replaceable then.
BTW, some of the scheduling problems back then are also likely to have been editor-made, ASM #209 for instance was from the transitional phase after Marv Wolfman stepped down as writer/editor of Amazing Spider-Man (and I do believe that the 1970s practice of letting many senior writers edit their own books did lead to a few problems). At that time Roger Stern also was called in at very short notice to write #206 (which I believe had been forgotten in the shuffle) and finish the long-running "JJJ goes even crazier than usual" subplot. (Foreshadowing how Peter David was suddenly handed the job of finishing the Hobgoblin mystery in one issue in 1987).
Lazarus -
Part of the matter is that the social standing and the legal position of comicbook artists has greatly improved since "the old days". Nowadays artists e.g. get to keep their artwork and can sell pages on the market that has developed for original art, while back in the day the publishers kept it all to dispose as they saw fit (e.g. giving pages away to customers or just putting them in the garbage). Also, for some of them producing creator-owned series is now a much more serious option. And these days being a comic-book artist is a pretty "glamorous" job, while well into the 1960s they were very much looked down on by their colleagues working in newspaper comic strips and other forms of illustration, while most of them were not even known by name by their consumers...
One more thing, a quick question: I haven't really kept abreast of this, but are Marvel and DC still producing titles as bimonthlies (meaning scheduled to appear once every two months) these days?
Mensh--Marvel has started re-embracing bi-monthlies, at least tentatively. Both Avengers Prime and Avengers: Childrens Crusade were solicited as bimonthlies.
Also, poor choice of words earlier, as I meant to say the artist was demoted to a bi-monthly.
In many other industries, the concept of the deadline still has meaning, although that might just be because the stakes are higher. In newspapers and magazines, if you don't make your deadline, you don't get published, and doubtless find less work offered to you later. In television, you have airtime to fill and advertisers to satisfy, so you don't get very many "we can't get the show done this week" excuses before the people responsible are fired and replaced, or the show cancelled. And, as I'm sure Mark can tell us, when you're a professional artist doing advertising or book illustrations or such, blowing deadlines simply isn't tolerated. It's interesting that only comic books have let that balance between business interests and artistic interests teeter so far to the artists' side.
I think in comic books, there is some value in keeping deadlines, and it's pretty obvious that the companies themselves feel that way, too; otherwise they wouldn't have worried about the late books that were plaguing the industry back in 2008, when entire arcs were jettisoned or finished months later in specials or annuals 6 or 10 months later. Now, DC and Marvel, instead of letting books run late, are lining up relief pencillers to finish stories, assigning limited arcs to artists, and scheduling bi-monthlies. They obviously find enough benefits (cost and revenue certainly, maintaining distributor/retailer relations, securing shelf space and brand loyalty, etc) to put the emphasis on getting books out on time
Maybe that's a good analogy: baseball starting pitchers used to throw 80% complete games; now relievers are common, and no one expects more than 6 or 7 innings out of their starters. old timers grumble, but it's just the way of the world now.
"If I am prepared to wait, I not only get better value for money (and here it makes a difference that an individual issue costs 3 or 4 bucks these days instead of a dime or a quarter, as it did in the "good old days"), but I also have to spend less on the title in question over a year. So where's the problem? "
Here are a few of the problems:
1. Comic book shops depend on a steady cash flow to stay afloat. Big delays of heavily-ordered titles mean that their large outlays of money are tied up on books that are not on their shelves.
2. For all the lip service we pay to attracting and retaining new readers (see: "Free Comics Day"), how does a new reader become a steady customer when the title he's interested in doesn't stick to a monthly schedule? If a new reader can't predict (or be told) when the new issue will actually arrive, I suspect we've lost their business.
3. Delayed titles, especially in these tight economic times, are often some of the first cut from customer orders and/or pull lists. Rather than waiting indefinitely for issue #4 of Uber-Late Comics, lots of these folks will pocket the money....which isn't a great outcome for the comic shop, the publisher, or the long-term health of the title in question (and, by extension, its creative team).
4. It's unprofessional. I'm an artist myself, and throughout my career, the artists who pull the "you can't rush art" attitude are often some of the laziest people I've ever known. This attitude also reflects badly on those of us who ARE hard-working professionals who hit deadlines...since their bad attitudes reinforce the stereotype that artists are all these groovy souls with their heads in the clouds, sketching and etching whenever their muse whispers in their ear. I once heard Jeph Loeb defend late artists by stating something like "Hey, this isn't GUM we're making".....to which I would answer, "No, but it's not the Sistine Chapel Ceiling either, Michellangelo."
5. It's false advertising. When Previews solicits a title for a certain month, that's essentially a promise to a customer that the product will be available....just like it is in every other industry. Likewise, when a comic book is listed as "published monthly" in the small print on the splash page, that's another type of promise to both the customer and the dealer who carries it. Breaking promises is a bad proposition in most business....why should the comics biz be exempt from that? Just because there are complacent, undemanding customers doesn't mean that promise should be blown off at random.
Shedd mentioned distractions, and to a point that's a decent defense, and then again not. In the old days, many artists worked in, say, Marvel's Bullpen, alongside other artists, and writers. As far as I know, a lot of artists work from home. I know at least one independent artist who has a studio in his basement.
That means your right there to be distracted by your family (especially if you have kids), but as far as entertainment goes, the only thing you should have in a studio, if one were to ask me, would be a radio. I probably wouldn't have an internet connection unless I needed it to send artwork to the editor.
When I get annoyed is when the art team has like five names in one category alone and the book is still late!
snell -
Thanks for clearing that up. Also good points in your follow-up about publishers' current efforts to relieve the situation and intersting baseball analogy! It does seem to me also that the problem does seem to have been lessened of late.
Mark -
Well, I was trying to explain how things look from a consumer's POV, seeing that you blame them for behaving the way they do. It's apparently not enough that we provide the cash for the comic industry's paychecks, apparently it is also our duty to put it in order and enforce standards free of charge. A few comments re. your 5 points:
1. Yes, this is a problem for the retailer. However, the buyers won't be hearing about it unless retailers decide to dump the story of their financial woes on them. Retailers and customers don't always share the same interest - thus in the 1970s reprint issues like Avengers #136 and 150 were okay for the retailers, but not so much for the customers.
2. I would say that good comic is more likely to attract a new customers than an inferior product even if the latter is better at making the deadlines. Especially as to me it seems more likely that the really new customers would not be hanging out in comic shops but come in via TPB collections in other outlets.
3. Where's the problem for customers, and isn't this exactly what you want them to do more often to encourage a greater respect for deadlines?
4. But what's in it for me as a customer to admonish your colleagues to behave in a way that makes you feel better about the image of your profession. (OTOH lazy artists put themselves at a disadvantage in the competition for assignments and jobs, if they worked harder this would hurt people like you financially).
5. In Previews it also says "Please note that release dates are tentative and subject to change." As far as "promises" go, I did not ask the publishers to promise me to put out a title monthly and am frankly more concerned about the misleading-to-false advance publicity about the content of the titles I'm interested in.
"But what's in it for me as a customer to admonish your colleagues to behave in a way that makes you feel better about the image of your profession."
It's not to make me feel better about my profession, but rather a reasonable expectation of all occupations to conduct themselves in a professional way. I'm not sure why comic book artists should be exempt from that rather basic expectation. Sure, what we, as artists, do certainly isn't as important as doctors or police officers...but at the same time, people shouldn't expect anything less than our best within the parameters of the arena we chose to play in....in this case, the monthly periodical market. If you can't keep up, you have no business taking work from those who can....not to mention causing the problems I outlined above.
The arrogance of delay has many, many unintended consequences beyond one specific customer who isn't terribly bothered by it.
Huh, interesting discussion.
Makes me think about Stuart Immonen. Guy used to be the slow type.
So, he changed his art style so he could go faster, and honestly? I like his Nextwave and later stuff better than the older work, even if it's all good.
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