Well, issue #4 of Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin was about what I expected. The story is still very good and you have our heroes facing off against this great anti-Batman and Robin duo with the Red Hood and Scarlet (I like the concept of the characters a lot).But the artwork just isn't cutting the mustard for me.
And that's not a knock against Philip Tan's artwork. I think his artwork is fine. I do find the page setup a bit confusing and cluttered. But with that said his character design and his artwork in general is really great!!
On a side note, I suppose I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to page layout anyways since I cut my teeth on How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way and I still layout my pages pretty much in that style. And most artists have been doing their pages in the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man/Spawn style for some time now.
I can't help being a relic ;-)
For me, his style just does not fit the feel of this Batman on acid world Grant Morrison has created for this series. And Frank Quitely's work fit the nature of this series perfectly.
Philip Tan's artwork just seems too clean and tame for this insane world. Probably in one of the other Batman titles it would be fine. But it just doesn't fit for me.
If you like it, that's fine. Like I said, he's a very good artist and if you're a fan of his work you have every reason to be. It's good. But I think an artist like a Frank Quitely, Simon Bisley or Andy Fish would be better suited for the feel of this particular series.
4 comments:
I thought the drawings were fine overall, but I found his storytelling difficult. I'm from the school that storytelling is the MOST IMPORTANT part of a comic book page. You should be able to tell what's happening even without word balloons. In that regard Phillip Tan failed. I had to study certain panels (especially in the opening sequence) to tell what was going on, and that disrupts the reading experience.
Pretty cover, though. :)
Yeah, I found his artwork overall to be fine but the panel structure was way too cluttered for me.
So with that said, the issue really didn't grab me at all.
You can have non-conventional panel structure and still have clear storytelling. Next time you're in the comic shop take a peek at Detective Comics. JH Williams is doing the work of his career in there, and it's gorgeous stuff.
Take a peek here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhw3/3727524054/in/photostream/
I see what you mean. That is quite good!! The pencils are really clean and tight. Something I can never really achieve.
And the style itself fits the feel of the more conventional Batman series.
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