Fruits Basket Vol 19

[meganbmoore]

After 

Comments

[cerusee]

I pay attention to both writing and art when I read, but one's got to be pretty bad for me to reject a comic if the other's good. I tend to put a bit more emphasis on writing than art, because I am prejudiced and think writing's better for narrative than art...but I'm not sure I should, because I'm just now beginning to understand just how much a skillful artist can prop up iffy writing; what I often sum up as "good art; bad writing" is art that COULD do a better job of pairing with iffy writing, if the artist was...well, a better narrative artist.

What I am often looking for, and which does not require either writing or art to be brilliant, but usually does not happen if either one is awful, is the nifty fusion purpose in art and writing that makes a comic worth telling as a comic and not in another medium.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, that's why I put a lot more emphasis on visual STORYTELLING than in how pretty the pictures are. It's graphic storytelling, not slapping down pretty pictures to go with words
average linework with great flow is much better to me than randomly assorted pretty pictures.

[cerusee]

I had an artist friend who tended to fixate on the art, and reject comics she thought had bad art out of hand. She did kinda get it, though: the final item on her checklist for comic book art was always, "Does it support the story?" I still use that as a guidepost today, and I will cut a book slack if everything's only so-so, but it's got that synergy thing going on.

[salimbol]

I'd second this motion! While I like pretty artwork as much as the next person, I'm willing to put up with quite a lot of iffyness if the procession of panels and placement of art on a page is telling a good story. Actually, three of my very favourite manga start out with fairly ugly artwork, but they tell one hell of a story. I'm thinking of Basara here among other things, Megan; I remember finding that artwork almost off-putting at the beginning, but the story was just that compelling that I had to keep reading.

[meganbmoore]

I'v e never really understood the huge issues people have with Basara's art. It's not that good at a glance, but once you really look at it, it's beautiful in its way.

I know Hana Yori Dango is one of the other favorites...what's the other?

[salimbol]

Oh, I love the artwork now; it just took some getting used to. I think if you're accustomed to neat, clean lines in manga artwork then Basara's a bit of a shock to the system. It's got that fly-away/sketchy quality, after all, and the pictures aren't 'tidy'. But it's got tremendous vitality and expressiveness, and I think it's pretty amazing.
As to other favourites: well, you know I like SDK *grin* - but I've never had any problems with the artwork in that! One of my other favourites is 'Please Save My Earth', which has got fairly messy artwork and slightly malformed-looking characters early on. Once again, the storytelling itself got me past that.

[cerusee]

Oh, and, I think Takaya's art is very good at conveying the story she is telling. She's certainly gotten stronger over the course of the series (for an example of how much simple practice can help in improving visual storytelling, look at Sluggy Freelance; Pete Abrams was a godawful cartoonist when he started the comic, and while he's not exactly Naoki Urusawa now, he's clearly learned how to draw, and how to illustrate the story he wants to tell). It's sometimes very hard for me to tell, though, because I love the story and the characters very much, and what you love is beautiful.