These first three images are from long-time AD artist Greg Staples, and wow! Just wow! Isn't it gob-smacking to see people still putting this kind of work into a British weekly sci-fi rag?
Often you'll see artists who use this kind of painted style (including Staples himself) fall into a number of traps; either the picture isn't well composed, and the visual language doesn't flow correctly, or elements come off looking "wooden" or "posed"; or the colour contrast doesn't turn out completely right, leaving the art with either a washed-out appearance, or with details so sharp that they overwhelm the image and the eye gets distracted and wanders off.
Not so here. Everything's nicely composed, different elements work together, and the eye is guided over the page in a pleasing manner, always knowing what's going on and where it's going next; scenes seem "alive" and "in-motion"; and while there's obviously a high level of detail, even on the ghoulish creatures, it's restrained enough that everything bends together cohesively.
(Okay, maybe the outstretched hand in the bottom left of page 2 is a little flat, and Dredd's floating head on the top right of that page is a tiny bit over-worked by comparison, and Anderson's belt on the last page is slung distractingly low, but c'mon, that's just nit-picking.)
All up, I reckon this shit is ace, and you could do a lot worse than looking at it for practical examples of how to do things right. ... Which is exactly what I have been doing.
This next page was done by another long-time AD man, John Burns. I quite like the ink-and-paint style he uses here. The drawings are incredibly well constructed, and the loose, hurried-looking penmanship actually helps to give life to the picture. Also, this isn't just a collection of black outlines, like you often see in comic art today; instead, he's using squiggles, varied lines, hatching, and solid ink blobs to create a sense of body, weight, and texture.
It isn't all perfectly executed, though. The girl's face in the centre-left frame, for example -- the hair should frame the face and make it stand out; instead, because the details of the face lack weight, or because the details of the hair are too stark, the hair ends up dominating and pushing the face back. A shame considering how good the rest of the page is.
But probably my favourite aspect of this work is the composition and visual language. In the first panel, the figures are coloured in a monotone blue, which makes them stand out from the background (and emphasises that they are riding in shadow); but the way they lighten as they go up, makes the figures' faces the central point of focus. In the second panel, the background is greatly simplified, except for the one element that frames the characters' faces -- the eye is not meant to linger here. The next panel, even more so; it puts a complete focus on the characters, by omitting the background altogether. Better still is the next panel. Our heroes are rendered in warm brown tones, while the antagonistic knights are rendered in blue. This separates the two groups, but also assists in "framing" the knights as the focal point. Also, the natural lines created by the tops of all the figures' heads, the mountains, the road, and the hanging coffins, work together to draw the eye from a wide focus on the left of the image, towards a tight focus on the right.
Very nice work indeed. And another fine example that someone like myself can take something constructive away from.
This one's from Patrick Goddard, and honestly, I'm not that impressed with it. It doesn't have the same life as the others; it looks flatter, and more rigid. I talked about the black-outline effect you see a lot in comics these days, and I'd almost call this an example of it. It basically looks like it was drawn to be coloured and just hasn't been finished yet. But I didn't include this one to talk about the art ...
One of the things I love most about sci-fi/fantasy is the way it can lure you into a fanciful, fictional scenario, while surreptitiously setting up a parallel to something in the real world. If it does it right, it can catch you completely off guard and really make you question your preconceptions.
AD has a long history of this sort of stuff. This particular series comes from the creator of the magazine, Pat Mills, with the first installment being the opening story in the very first issue, way back in '77. Back then, it was mostly a simple what-if story about the Soviet Union (fictionalised as the Volgan Republic) overrunning Western Europe. It wrapped up, probably in the early '80s, when I guess the focus of a lot of writers turned towards the antics of the Thatcher government. However, it was revived in about 2005, seemingly as a response to America's war on terror. There are some nice sharp little one-liners thrown in there: "'Terrorists?' That's what the bigger army calls the smaller army, isn't it?", has obvious implications; and Quartz's, "I have two words for you. Raptor drones", is basically a direct quote from Obama.
I'm happy to see AD is still going, still producing inspiring artwork, and that at least some of the stories still have a little bit of an edge to them. Digital issues cost £2, and can be purchased here, if you're interested.
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