Gaia

     As I was looking through some comics online, I have been paying a bit more attention to the backgrounds to see what there is. For example, if there are buildings around, if there are trees, or if the characters are in a room, how does the room look and what is in the room. Some have more detail than others and some just don't really have backgrounds at all. I came across a comic called Gaia done by Powree and Oliver Knorzer and I was basically drawn to it by the cover.

 

I really like the character design as well as the simple background. The sky in the back with the faded mountains just looks neat to me and I really love how the grass and the two rocks on each side were done. Sadly I still wouldn't be able to do this. I'm pretty bad when it comes to backgrounds and surroundings. When I try to think of a background to do, I over think it and tend to make things complicated for myself. I end up wanting to jump into drawing detailed backgrounds even though I have no idea where to start. I do realize that I should take a few steps back (maybe a lot more steps back) and start with simple and less details.

     When I went to the next page I didn't expect to see this: 

      I am just really impressed with how that whole image in that one panel came out. And here I thought this comic wasn't going to have this much going on with backgrounds and surroundings. The perspective is well done. I'm still trying to get the whole perspective down, but it is still difficult for me and I just don't really have the patience for it. I have a lot more respect to those who do this kind of work all the time. As much as I hate having to work with perspective, I know it's something very important to know in order for my own drawings to be accurate and more interesting. I can't always rely on someone else doing backgrounds for me all the time (as nice as that may be). 

Garfield

     As I was looking for some comics online, I came across Garfield comic strips by Jim Davis. I use to love reading these comics in the newspaper when I was in high school. Instead of doing some homework during study hall, I would grab the newspaper that would be in the class room and just read the comic strips in it.

   

     The ones in the newspaper were in black in white of course. What I really like about these is that they are so simple. Yes, they can be rather boring. Especially if you are used to reading longer and action packed comics, but these are mainly for humor. Some of course are funnier than others and also some are a few panels longer as well. Like this one:

     In these Garfield comics I noticed that there isn't much background going on and the characters are almost always in the same spot from panel to panel. I assume that there isn't much of a background because 1) the main focus is on the characters and 2) a Garfield comic strip comes out everyday so the artist's time is spent more on the characters and wouldn't have to worry so much about doing backgrounds all the time. There are a few that the scenery changes once in a while depending on what the characters are doing. So it's nice to see a change in scenery from time to time. But for the most part almost all of the Garfield comic strips have a blank background.

DC comic contest

    When I first read the original DC submission request page, I really didn't think much about what they were asking for. I just figured they want to see what art works they get and who's good at portraying what they want. But after reading Jezebel's article and what others thought of the contest, I can see why the contest is bothersome. The whole suicide thing is bad as it is, but putting a popular or favorite character to commit it, or try to, can be disturbing to many. I get that the purpose of the contest is to see what talent people have and hire someone new to work for them, but they could have easily have the content for the panels be completely different. It just seems now to me that they have a different purpose other than giving someone the chance to work for them, though I have no clue to what that could be. I still don't personally care so much of what the art content is since I see it as not being real, but to someone else it may be and that does bother me. It would worry me to see that type of art work hurt someone emotionally or even bring someone out to do those acts. Especially if they may be having those types of thoughts. The contest is a great idea, but they should really consider how people may react having to draw or even just see that type of content.

Unsounded

I found this graphic novel online done by Ashley Cope and the first things that grabbed my attention was the art style and color. This has a manga feel to it but still has a touch a cartoon feel as well. The color was very well done. It seems like things just pop out more using these sets of warm and cool colors rather than hiding things like detail in other comics/graphic novels when they are more dark colored.

The main thing I like about this graphic novel was the detail in landscape and background. Don't get me wrong, the characters were nicely done as well, which also has the art style I tend to enjoy more (anime/manga). You can see the detail worked on in almost every page. There is a dark colored scenario where one of the characters is "eaten" by a giant plant like creature and shows the character inside. What I really liked was how even in this dark scenario, detail was still consistent.
I mentioned before that I prefer graphic novels done in black and white, mainly because I prefer having my own drawings in black and white, but with out color here, it would be a bit harder to see the detail and appreciate it as well. As far as why most graphic novels tend to be in black and white, I believe it has to do with how long it may take to color the work in and also how much have it would cost to publish it. Especially since most graphic novels are longer than most comics.

Comic: Eternals

I have to admit, it has been a long time since I have read or even held a comic in my hands. I have mainly been into manga graphic novels. I have been so used to the graphic novels being in black and white that I almost forgot most comics are in color. Now even though I mainly like seeing images in black and white, I enjoyed seeing the images, of the comics I picked up, in color.

One of the comics I picked up was Eternals by Marvel, published in 2008. The main thing that attracted me to this comic was the cover. On the cover it has an image of Iron-man and another character that I am not too familiar with. I may have liked it because it had Iron-man, and he is one of my favorite characters, but I also liked the art. It had this realistic look to it. The art work in this comic was nicely done, but it is not my favorite. I found the images to look a bit too realistic and I prefer for the art to still have a cartoon feel to it. The artist, Daniel Acuna, did a great job with color and shading. Some images almost had this 3D look and feel to it which was interesting, but again, not my favorite.

I was mainly looking at the images, so I haven't had a chance to read the rest of the comic, but just from the first few pages, I feel lost to what is going on. Mainly since I probably need to read the first issues and this is a continuation form those, so I don't know anything about the story. What I like is that it does have a decent amount of text, but it is not cluttered with it. So we can enjoy looking at the images.