Genius vs. Genius: Bishie hair, two PhDs, one hot MESS

[kali921]

Look, this is just a hot mess.

Everyone has bishie hair, the inks are heavy, Jocasta's pose is awkward, Cassie's looking a bit...more mature, as we shall say.

But I can't decide if this is completely batshit awesome or horrible. I am literally in no man's land about this, deeply buried in a philosophical and existential conundrum

Comments

[megatexas]

Do not like that art at all. Gratuitous reuse of inks bothers me on the best of days, but the Liefeldian faces sink the ship at the exact same moment that the awkward poses break the camel's back.

I love the phrase "how dare you," because it is such an asshole thing to say.

[kali921]

Art on which? The MA or SS? I dislike the MA art, although I admit to kind of liking Herc and Hank's bishie straggling hair on an aesthetic level - it looks like they just wandered in the door after a sweaty and prolonged deathmatch with Ultron and haven't had time to grab a comb (like Herc even bothers). Except for the fact that Hank looks only about sixteen years old with hair like that.

Edit: How DARE you! "How dare you" is NOT always an asshole thing to say! Umbrage is taken! (Seriously, I think of it as an expression of outrage, a clear semiotic demarcation when boundaries have been transgressed, and sometimes it's totally not an asshole thing to say.)

[megatexas]

First one. No prob with the second, good house style, third panel lacks in readability but that's natural, there are a lot of drawings in any given comic and it's tough to make them all perfect.

Repeated panels just fundamentally do not work for conversation. I think it's a sign of a deep-down lazy artist, because you can see their thought process -- "Oh, it's just people talking, how boring." For people who find conversation more compelling than fight scenes, it is anathema...

[kali921]

Utterly and completely agreed on the repeated panels thing, although sometimes it's funny when used as a technique to decompress time or show people frozen in a certain reaction. But Marvel's gotten lazy that way, and I blame Michael Gaydos and Alias for making it more acceptable and au courant.

[megatexas]

It's possible too far in the other direction -- I've found that if you don't repeat certain things (especially in the background), the audience gets the feeling that the background is "swimming" instead of staying stable. The "Waking Life" effect in comics terms. Old comics got around this by...just not doing backgrounds.

But people? People are always in motion. Especially when talking about something important. Is this artist trying to tell me that Pym just had his fist pre-clenched in case he thought of something cool to say to Richards? Meh.

[kali921]

Fists Perpetua-Clenched™ and teeth Perpetua-Gritted™ are two of my LEAST favorite tropes in superhero comics. People don't really BARE THEIR TEETH when monologuing or threatening each other. Neither do they walk around with clenched fists. In fact, out here I only see fists clenched when people are pumping them in joy over something righteously awesome OR when used to punch something/someone.

Edit: Hank I give a free pass here. He's been pissed off and on edge since Jan's death, so I can buy him already bracing for a confrontation with Reed over the Pym particle stuff.

[megatexas]

A lot of people rest their hands on their fists when they're thinking or tired. I find that to be a difficult pose to convey.

Joining the Avengers was the worst thing that ever happened to Pym, and I mean back in Avengers #1 or whenever it happened. I almost feel sorry for him. I wish his "adventuring" career had panned out, because he and the Avengers have a toxic relationship.

[megatexas]

IMO, the three phrases most commonly followed by absolute asininity are:

How dare you
Make no mistake
Actually

:)

[kali921]

So. Make no mistake. I actually use all three of those with depressing regularity, although I try to use "actually" such that it's fraught with irony. What are you doing even reading my journal? I PHAIL.

[megatexas]

lol.

You make it work somehow.

I seriously do appreciate that you write so much/give me so much to read. It's extremely interesting to me.

However, unless you're declaring war on a middle eastern country, Make No Mistake is a phrase fraught with bad context.

[kali921]

A loaded phrase, swollen with insidiously threatening subtext that calls to mind deeply misguided foreign adventurism!