Thursday 8 October 2009

Good art, design, wit and character

Check out this artist who is doing some really detailed and crazy comics and graphics for various websites, promotional material and actual published work too. I love the layout of this one. Also, having tried playing Dungeons & Dragons at uni, and in the end not really having the patience, this image is fun too.

Without going into much detail, I wanted to give Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-men another mention (which I've already written about here). Cassaday has to be one of the 2 or 3 best comic book artists out there, tied with someone like Frank Quitely. Cassaday doesn't just draw what happens, he draws us into a scene so we are positioned close to the iconic characters, masterfully pulling away again for bigger movie-like shots of the action, whether that's so we can see the insanity and power of a loyal warrior jump into the vacuum of space to escape his captors, new X-girl Armour beating the odds in a scrappy fight in the mansion, or X-man Colossus heaving a wall across the ground to block out a rampaging crowd.

Whedon has a very special connection to these characters, especially Shadowcat (Kitty Pride), Emma Frost and Cyclops, and the while the 3rd arc "Torn" focuses on Emma, the fourth (and connected) story "Unstoppable" is more well-rounded, and surprised me by bringing to light a new side of Cyclops. It is a wonderfully conceived finale to a consistently impressive series of comics. I'm not looking forward to seeing the following issues, created by a different writer/artist team, who have not received the same sort of praise...

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