“I don’t take a lot of time to talk about the art in comics. What can I say, I’m a words guy. But I just wanted to take a second to talk about how much I like Rob Guillory’s art in this book.
Amount: One “A Lot.”
Guillory has a great style. I really don’t think anyone could draw this book the way he does, and at the same time as you read, you never get lost in the page. It’s easy to see which dialogue balloon comes next.
People who are unfamiliar with comics will sometimes tell me their hesitance comes from the fact that they don’t know how to read comics. How to know which balloon comes next. I tell them that they’re reading the wrong comics.
A good artist/writer duo knows that the art has to serve the story. The story has to progress through the art, and as much as an artist might love a splash page here and there, they have to grind through those scenes of two characters talking in a warehouse. Lots of comic book stuff seems to go down in warehouses. If you wanna be big in comics, draw warehouses, docks, and if you can draw a great forklift, you’re in.
Dave McKean is an artist who, while I think his work has great atmosphere, I have no idea what’s going on. Try ‘Cages’ if you want to see what I mean.
On the flipside, sometimes you read something where the art does a fine job moving things along, and that’s it. It doesn’t blow me away.
I talked to a friend about Saga, the current “It” series at the moment, and my friend made a good point that the art rarely has backgrounds or other interesting things in the panels other than the main focal points. I see some awesome line work in Saga now and then, but I had to agree. Sometimes the panels feel fairly joyless.
Guillory puts little stuff into everything. It’s a little bit like a Mad Magazine or a Simpsons episode where every billboard, every food package, every t-shirt is another opportunity to add a little something to the reading experience.
Style and skill. Guillory forever.
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