A little about cats making this world a better place. Their unspeakable adorableness, fur, outlook, weirdness, jitteriness, sixth sense, and cat logic Speaking of which, I believe felines have a life catchphrase that goes something like this: Why do things the human way when I can do them my own way? People who have never had a cat may wonder what the cat way is. And, because pictures are worth a thousand words, Bored Panda brings you this spontaneous Instagram page with a massive selection of some of the silliest and wittiest cats caught on camera, as well as Much More to Make You Laugh.
Harry Bliss is a famous American cartoonist and illustrator. He's a New York Times best-selling artist known for his humorous and artistic "Bliss" comics. Since 1999, Bliss has published many books and collaborated with authors like Doreen Cronin on the well-loved "Diary of a Worm" series. His unique style and wit make his cartoons stand out, earning him recognition in the world of illustration and cartooning.
Bruce Timm
Original sketch of a grouchy explorer.
Working late tonight on some Lady Killer pencils
Sometimes, muses can live right next to you, and if you are willing to notice them, they will inspire you on a daily basis.
Although he was a proud Canadian, it was the American age of Camelot that held an enduring fascination for him as a designer, artist and storyteller
Art style refers to the distinct characteristics and techniques used by artists to create their works. It encompasses a wide range of visual elements,
Comics and graphic novels have gained respectability over the past few decades. They now receive cultural awards and attract audiences that were once unthinkable. But even as their stature has grown, they seem to have lost some of the drawing ability that comics once enjoyed. The ability to achieve a likeness, to convey subtle body language or facial expressions, to stage complex scenes, or employ similar tools of visual communication seem largely missing from many of the most prestigious comics and graphic novels today. Superstar comic artists such as Speigelman, Ware, Panter, Brown, Beaton, Trudeau, Bechdel and many others simply don't speak that visual language. Perhaps it's because they have different aspirations for their art. Perhaps it's because they don't draw well enough to employ the vocabulary. Perhaps those two reasons are related. I can think of no better example to demonstrate the lost language than Leonard Starr's intelligent and graceful strip, On Stage (1957 - 1979). Every day for the next few days I am going to focus on a different aspect of Mr. Starr's visual storytelling. Today I would like to show how he uses the language of hands. Starr writes like a dream, but note what his hands add to his text: Hands wiping away a mock tear enrich the tone of the words. This gesture of the kiss off adds a visual punctuation mark to the text. Two hands clasping the phone tells us something about the speaker's state of mind A dismissive and controlling wave Starr's hands provide a separate stream of information, parallel to the text, which enhances the expressive quality of the picture. Sometimes they run in contrast to the text, as in the following drawing where the hands alert the viewer that the character is faking his sincere speech: But you are not likely to see these kinds of tools employed in today's esteemed graphic novels. Many of today's artists can draw hands performing basic functions such as holding a coffee cup or throwing a punch, but have lost the ability to use the language of hands in this more sophisticated manner, to enhance the expressiveness of the drawing. For example, contrast Starr's drawing where rubbing fingers together denotes a rogue... ...with this drawing from The Best American Comics 2010 where rubbing fingers together even to squish a bug requires an explanatory narrative: All too often, contemporary cartoonists and graphic novel artists have to rescue inadequate drawing with words. Here, a clenched hand requires written explanation in the recent Twilight graphic novel: Below, Chris Ware helpfully writes out what these hands are doing so we can understand what is going on: In all these cases, words prop up mediocre drawing, rather than the drawing enhancing the words. In the following image, note how Starr employed a hand gesture to convey that the girl is young and flighty: ...while in the next drawing (honored by the Smithsonian Institution in its 2004 Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Stories) the hand either conveys that the man is picking his nose, or scratching his cheek, or perhaps thinking, or perhaps something else. This disparity in powers of observation and technical skill, and in the ability to orchestrate multiple levels of information in a single drawing, is hardly uncommon. The drawings in today's most esteemed comics have generally become simpler, rougher and less informative. Pulitzer prize winning Maus Chris Ware depicts a hand to help convey emotion using his "abbreviated visual words." Ware's drawing is mediocre, but in fairness he seems more interested in the ornate architecture and design of his "symbolic typography" There are many reasons, some of them better than others, for the simplification of comic drawings and the de-emphasis on technical skill. Even Starr simplified his drawings in later years to meet a changed market. Simplicity is a great virtue in drawing, but simple-mindedness is not. We see some of each in today's award winning comics, but we should endeavor not to confuse the two. That's why I'll be spending a few days musing about what we have gained and what we have lost as a result of this migration in comic drawing styles.
Explore Maya iDA's 10 photos on Flickr!
Hi there!
creating STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES for Comics + Illustration
As Henry waits by the door for his mail, Olive wonders what his package could possibly contain.
Here's a little treat of great comics for your day. These comics will probably make you surprised at how good they actually are. They have everything that a great comic needs, and even extra: great sense of humor and style, killer punchlines and a dash of consistency. This whole mixture is almost guaranteed to make you laugh out loud.
from R. Kikuo Johnson’s Night Fisher
This manga story ‘A Dream To Have In Heaven’ by Maki Sasaki appeared in the November 1967 issue of Japan’s Garo, a monthly manga anthology magazine, founded in 1964 by Katsuichi Nagai (1921 – 1996). It specialized in alternative, experimental and avant-garde manga until it ceased publication in 2002. As Miranda Remington notes, at its … Continue reading "Vintage Avant-Garde Manga in Garo by Maki Sasaki, 1967"
This lovely drawing was a single panel in a story by Mort Drucker for MAD Magazine in 1972. It occupied a mere 3.75 inches x 12.75 inches in the magazine. You could not possibly see or appreciate the variety of faces in this panel. Until now. Here are 25 of my favorites, larger than life: The brilliant Drucker drew for MAD for over 50 years, producing hundreds of stories containing thousands of such panels overflowing with distinctive faces. Also hands, figures and complex backgrounds. He dispensed his talent with an abundance that I still find astonishing.
When I turn the page and read the pages from any Graphic Novel I can instantly recognized the art and the artist that drew in each comic panel. Reading comic books and Graphic Novels for 15 years …
I'm told I should be tagging these #Inktober2018 #inktober #InktoberDay4
Decades after fine artists embraced photography as a tool for drawing and painting pictures, illustrators remained wracked with guilt about the practice. Artists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, Toulouse Lautrec and Eakins enthusiastically used photographs as a starting point for their work. They openly enjoyed the exciting new medium. But illustrators-- nursing a giant inferiority complex-- remained concerned that using photographs might somehow be cheating. Norman Rockwell recounted his shame when he began to use photographs: At a dinner at the Society of Illustrators, William Oberhardt, a fellow illustrator, grabbed my arm and said bitterly., "I hear you've gone over to the enemy." "Hunh?" I said, faking ignorance because I realized right way what he was referring to and was ashamed of it. "You're using photographs," he said accusingly. "Oh...well... you know...not actually," I mumbled. "You are ," he said. "Yes" I admitted, feeling trapped, "I am." "Judas!" he said, "Damned photographer!" and he walked away. More than a century later, commenters to this blog hotly debate whether Norman Rockwell's use of photographs undermined his artistic legacy. Fine artists never felt compelled to justify their methods. Illustrators on the other hand, remained defensive. As a result, the most thoughtful, self-conscious analyses about the use of photography in art tend to come from the field of illustration rather than gallery painting. One of the more articulate artists on this subject was the talented Austin Briggs, who used reference photographs early in his career but soon discovered the limitations of photographs as a tool for quality art: It was only as I discovered that I did not really possess an image of the object I desired when I took a snapshot that I relegated the camera to its proper place: that of a gatherer of information which has not yet been digested. Only when I reverted to the laborious task of drawing the object directly did it begin to reveal its hidden forms. Briggs' splendid drawings made from photographs clearly showed how he digested data and probed for the hidden forms. Photographs provide an undeniable head start by translating three dimensions into two dimensions for the artist. Nevertheless, Briggs described how artists still need to make important choices in order to distill information from a photograph and find the hidden forms most meaningful to the artist. The glory of drawing is that it is a limited medium; it cannot mechanically capture all data the way a snapshot does, or reproduce a snapshot, and still be successful. It is also well to remember what [drawing] is not. It is not tone, value or color, although some semblance of all these qualities may be obtained by the sophisticated use of line. Line (drawing in its most straight-forward meaning) is the most limited medium, being solely a matter of measure. It is long or short, angularly obtuse or acute and subject to measure. Measure is the characteristic of line... and line is drawing. It's necessary to know the limitation one is dealing with in order to use its positive qualities to its fullest advantage. To draw an oak leaf is "an exorcism of disorder" Without knowing what a line cannot do we'd try to express the whole leaf with it, but once we know what a line cannot do, we are on our way toward expressing the leaf in the marvelously simple way a line can function. We begin to to look for the object's anatomy, its real shape reveals itself to us because we must speak with such limited means. Thumbnail sketch by Briggs captures the essence of the forms Note how Briggs digested information from photographs in this award winning series for TV Guide. It does not bother me if a drawing starts from photographs as long as the artist exercises his or her judgment and taste in reducing the photograph into a line medium. That is the part of the artist's job that most interests me.
Against The Rocketeer, and for it, too.
