The influence of animation on comic book artists

[Aldous]

Something Mxy said.....

Uncle Mxy wrote:

If you really want to pay close attention, you film the actual comic book art, then crudely animate around it. 

This would have been too far off-topic, but in the comics I was reading the other day, the spirit of animation is alive and well, from what I can tell. This scene is a good example:



You could definitely animate around the panels in these old Gottfredson comics; or, to turn it around, they are like watching a cartoon with the "inbetween panels" removed.

There are other types of comics with this quality. They are very fast-moving and fun to read, even involving simple little stories like Mickey Mouse vs. Pegleg Pete.

[Permanus]

Hmmm, I think comics are essentially static and shouldn't try to emulate animated cartoons or films. You can suggest movement within one panel, but showing a succession of movements in several panels is ultimately pointless. I love Floyd Gottfredson's art, but these panels are just too busy, with too many motion lines cluttering them up.

[Aldous]

Hmmm, I think comics are essentially static and shouldn't try to emulate animated cartoons or films. You can suggest movement within one panel, but showing a succession of movements in several panels is ultimately pointless. I love Floyd Gottfredson's art, but these panels are just too busy, with too many motion lines cluttering them up.

You're coming at it with a present-day sensibility. This is a comic from 1934. Those "motion lines" were drawn years before the first motion line appeared in a super-hero comic.

You're looking at ground-breaking art.

[Uncle Mxy]

FWIW, what I was alluding to in my initial post was the '60s Marvel animation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvel_Superheroes_Show

Check out these videos to get some comparison.  Here's the DC animation done by Filmation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3n2V8PdQw8

And here's the Marvel animation done by Grantray-Lawrence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIWXV1K_6pE

One closely copies the style, then is animated crudely.  The other actually photocopies the art, then animates even more crudely. 

[Permanus]

You're looking at ground-breaking art.

Far be it from me to impugn on Gottfredson's abilities! I just don't think it works very well, is all I'm saying. Comics aren't a cinematic medium and I don't think they should aspire to be. But I take your point.

[TELLE]

I think Gottfredson is one of the best strip artists from that period.  One of the things I like most about the depiction of violent action in strips like this is the exageration we get through the addition of graphic symbols within the drawing.  The speed lines, explosions, and stars add to my experience of the action.  Being a static image, I can experience the violence over and over again by rereading the panel.  Something I would have to press buttons to do these days with animation (and could never do in the past).