I've been on a classic comic book binge lately, browsing through "the best of" comics of the Silver Age Marvel, and I noticed something. Lee's and Ditko's Spidey is so goddamn wordy compared to other stuff that it's hard to read at times. At first I chucked it up to Stan Lee being himself, he's known for excessive narration. But then I read Kirby's FF and Romita's Spidey, both written by Stan, one is older than Ditko's Spidey, and they were fine even at their wordiest.
So how did this happen, and who's to blame?
 CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
 Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
Ditko adhered to a strict panel structure while Romita liked to get creative with it and would try new things.
All Marvel comics from the 60s, 70s and even most of the ones from the 80s are wordy messes.
That's not true. By the time Romita got into his groove, he was making, for all intents and purposes, a modern comic book. The stuff that was made back then is still used as a template for comic book artists today, though they do it was a lot more digital painting (and a lot less skill).
Modern comics don't really give a character several word balloons in a single frame. Everything a chsracter has to say, they will say in a single, sometimes a double balloon. Doing it like here with a double balloon and then two more normal balloons is very archaic.
It also presents more information per page. Captions and thought balloons were the other methods to present information. Without all these, the art has to take much more space to tell the same story. Having two characters exchange words in the same panel gives a brisker, livelier pace.
>Doing it like here with a double balloon and then two more normal balloons is very archaic.
I think in that panel, it was also prompted by the open areas the art left.
Yeah, right.
Wait she’s alive again already?
Yeah, she was revived like a week later.
Being dead for comic book characters is like getting a flat tire on your car. It's a minor setback.
Don't you ever learn?
?si=on_R4dVwihbrRaZG
Jeez, that could have been milked for eight pages. Nice sense of a conversation going back and forth.
Stan and Steve weren’t on the same wavelengths and the plots were arguably a tad more complex in terms of what was happening compared to the visuals. Jack was very meat and potatoes and could focus on action, Ditko liked crowd scenes and interactions.
I mean in that page alone look at how many characters Ditko is drawing
This is so true. Kirby was much more about characters doing things than Ditko was. And of course, Stan Lee saw Spider-Man as more of a soap opera strip than Fantastic Four with more exposition.
You guys need to regear your mental processes for early Silver Age comics. They were much denser as far as informtion per page. Most stories were told complete in one 20-odd page comic, and many comics had two or three stories in each issue. You've grown up on decompressed comics that move much slower. Today's comics will take three or four pages to show a sequence that would have been one or two panels in SA. Modern comics usually take at least a five part series to tell a story that a Silver Age comic told in 22 pages. Neither approach is good or bad, just different styles.
You all had better start reading some mainstream novels meant for grown-ups before you get too set in your ways. John Steinbeck or James Michener are good starters. Comics are popcorn and cotton candy, novels are a meal.
>Cinemaphile - Comics & Cartoons
>>Cinemaphile - Comics & Cartoons
Not all there is, nor were they meant to be.
>James Michener
CENTENNIAL was fine. That was at the same time I was deep in Wouk's THE WINDS OF WAR,
Michener is overdue for a reappraisal.
>while miles away
>miles
you fricker you did that on purpose
Watchmen drawn by Ditko would have been very interesting. I imagine some spectacular display of powers by Dr. Manhattan and some crazy shit for the alien.
Manhattan at the end would turn into some Dr. Strange dreamscape to show everyone having hallucinations
I have no doubt he could handle it though because he could load his pages up
By the time of Watchmen, Ditko would never have drawn it. He was lost in Objectivist ideas that a hero should have no flaws and everyone is either pure good or pure evil.