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Things that went over your head...

Started by ming, 09 January, 2012, 11:00:01 AM

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Jim_Campbell

Quote from: positronic on 17 April, 2017, 07:19:15 PM
Well, this is another example where you don't know. —SNIP—

Well, that really was an awful lot of words deployed in service of disagreeing with a point I didn't make.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

A.Cow

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 17 April, 2017, 11:47:06 PM
Quote from: positronic on 17 April, 2017, 07:19:15 PM
Well, this is another example where you don't know. —SNIP—
Well, that really was an awful lot of words deployed in service of disagreeing with a point I didn't make.

I read it as "you don't know" in the vernacular (i.e. "one doesn't know") rather than it being a personal reference.  Or have I misunderstood?

TordelBack

#782
I always find the "Brett the copyist" discussion fascinating, because that was his style. When I started reading 2000AD regularly, Ewins was the main man. His Rogue Trooper, his Dredd, his Anderson, his Dark Judges. I neither knew nor cared that  some of his figures  were heavily referenced or even exact copies of other artists' panels: it all looked like Ewins to me, and it all looked good. And I still feel that way: his chunky-tech heavy-black pages are bold and lively, and everything fits together, the borrowed bits and the new bits, all making for a good looking well-told strip. Even the re-using of blown up pixelated photocopies of his own work on Bad Company works within his scheme, actually becoming something interesting in its own right rather than a 'cheat'. A style born of necessity, but one that really works.

Incidentally, that Judgement Day cover not only graces one of the best RPG modules I ever played,  it's also a superb image, regardless of the Dredd being traced from McMahon: it's inked and coloured n such a way as to form the heart of a great new cover .  And it's also perhaps worth noting that all the interior illustrations, and all the interior art in the main boxed set, are reprinted panels from the comic: at least here we got something partly new. Stick an 'after McMahon' box in the corner and we're good.

I can of course see how that is/was irritating for the artists concerned, and what the wider issues are, but I can't feel that way myself. When i look at the work I just see good comics.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: A.Cow on 18 April, 2017, 12:57:30 AM

I read it as "you don't know" in the vernacular (i.e. "one doesn't know") rather than it being a personal reference.  Or have I misunderstood?

The rest of the post was a discussion of things I didn't say. All I said was that Ewins had form for swiping, and that I'd read that Mick was particularly narked about that specific cover -- ISTR he didn't name Brett but said that an unnamed artist had got paid more for tracing a Dredd cover of his for Games Workshop than he'd been paid for doing it in the first place. Didn't require a huge amount of detective work from there.

FWIW, I owned Judgement Day, too, and I never clocked the swipe until it was mentioned. When you put the two side-by-side, however, it is pretty blatant.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

positronic

Quote from: A.Cow on 18 April, 2017, 12:57:30 AM
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 17 April, 2017, 11:47:06 PM
Quote from: positronic on 17 April, 2017, 07:19:15 PM
Well, this is another example where you don't know. —SNIP—
Well, that really was an awful lot of words deployed in service of disagreeing with a point I didn't make.

I read it as "you don't know" in the vernacular (i.e. "one doesn't know") rather than it being a personal reference.  Or have I misunderstood?

Yes, perhaps I should have said "nobody knows", but that's it. There's a basic inequality in trying to judge the motives behind the creation of a piece of Dredd merchandising art against what was normally being published in 2000 AD.

ming

And then there's this...  I'd love to know how this one came about; swipe or no swipe it still remains one of my favourite Future Shocks.

Quote from: ming on 16 March, 2014, 08:56:52 PM
This just came up in discussion on the FB art group... The classic Gary Rice / Brett Ewins Future Shock from Prog 206, 'The Last Man' bears a striking resemblance to a story published in Heavy Metal the very same month (April 1981).   As detailed in the blog linked to below, "'Good-bye, Soldier !', written by Ricardo Barreiro, with distinctive black and white art by Juan Giminez".

Anyone know whether this was printed in French earlier in Metal Hurlant?



You can see the whole story via the link below; too similar to be a coincidence, although Brett's visuals for the ending are unbeatable...

http://theporporbooksblog.blogspot.no/2011/04/heavy-metal-magazine-april-1981-heavy.html

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: positronic on 18 April, 2017, 08:57:31 AM
Yes, perhaps I should have said "nobody knows", but that's it. There's a basic inequality in trying to judge the motives behind the creation of a piece of Dredd merchandising art against what was normally being published in 2000 AD.

Again, I didn't say anything about motive, only that Ewins had previous form for swiping and that McMahon had expressed displeasure at the close similarities between his Dredd art and a piece of GW cover art by another artist. The only motive I'd speculate on in that scenario is, given his tireless experimentation and reinvention of his style, that Mick probably felt he'd have done a better job on a homage to his Prog 61 cover than another artist doing a fairly straight lift.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Eric Plumrose

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 17 April, 2017, 06:34:57 PM
Quote from: A.Cow on 17 April, 2017, 01:53:36 PM
If I read it right, Ewins argued that deadlines (& the need to emulate existing artists) led to the tracing incident, which he claimed was a one-off.

Apart from the innumerable swipes from Gibbons in his Rogue Trooper run, and the similar number of Bolland lifts on Anderson, which were also (presumably) "one-offs".

To clarify lest anyone misinterprifies, Brett said he swiped once-only from Mick not that he hadn't done so from other artists. From 2000 AD: THE CREATOR INTERVIEWS:

Quote from: Brett Ewins
There was one image that I did, as I was racing against time, where I used a Mike McMahon image -- I only did that once . . . But there are times I've had to lift an artist because otherwise there's not going to be anything on that page. So there's a couple of times I've had to trace stuff off, but literally there's only one time I've had to do that with Mick's work.
Not sure if pervert or cheesecake expert.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Eric Plumrose on 18 April, 2017, 10:53:41 AM
To clarify lest anyone misinterprifies, Brett said he swiped once-only from Mick not that he hadn't done so from other artists. From 2000 AD: THE CREATOR INTERVIEWS:

Interesting. Thanks for that.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

positronic

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 18 April, 2017, 10:04:01 AM
Quote from: positronic on 18 April, 2017, 08:57:31 AM
Yes, perhaps I should have said "nobody knows", but that's it. There's a basic inequality in trying to judge the motives behind the creation of a piece of Dredd merchandising art against what was normally being published in 2000 AD.

Again, I didn't say anything about motive, only that Ewins had previous form for swiping and that McMahon had expressed displeasure at the close similarities between his Dredd art and a piece of GW cover art by another artist. The only motive I'd speculate on in that scenario is, given his tireless experimentation and reinvention of his style, that Mick probably felt he'd have done a better job on a homage to his Prog 61 cover than another artist doing a fairly straight lift.

No, you didn't mention motives. What I'm saying is that you/we/anyone shouldn't just assume that Ewins received NO specific directions  from Games Workshop prior to the execution of the final Judgement Day cover assignment illustration.

Possibilities include verbal instruction, visual references, etc. -- down to the point of Ewins potentially having executed the illustration based on a cover layout designed by someone else that was supplied to him, or even the possibility that he was specifically given or sent a copy of McMahon's cover for Prog 61, and directed to include that image of McMahon's Dredd on his Lawmaster.

A merchandising art assignment isn't directly comparable (if Ewins is being tried for the accusation of swiping) against a normal page of artwork Ewins might have drawn for a story published in 2000 AD, where I think we can fairly assume that the 2000 AD art director isn't micro-managing the details of composition on every story page. 2000 AD covers may be treated differently than interior pages in terms of how much they are art-directed.

Maybe I should just have lifted the URL of the actual image in your post, as opposed to simply quoting the entire thing. My comments weren't directed at you personally for what you said, I'm just raising the point because it seems like something people fail to consider when debating the guilt of "swiping".

Eric Plumrose

Quote from: TordelBack on 18 April, 2017, 01:14:37 AM
I always find the "Brett the copyist" discussion fascinating, because that was his styleit all looked like Ewins to me, and it all looked good.

Yup. Unlike one art droid who still can't settle on whom he wants to be and once O'Rourked 1981-vintage-Mick's entire style, I don't think at any point I've ever looked at Brett's artwork and been unconvinced by him stylistically. It's also kinda fun picking out his swipes (there's at least two I can think of in 'The Case of the Urban Gorillas' from the 1981 2000 AD Annual).

Quote from: TordelBack on 18 April, 2017, 01:14:37 AM
Stick an 'after McMahon' box in the corner and we're good.

As Cliff did here:

Not sure if pervert or cheesecake expert.

JudgeJudi

On re-reading - I've just realised that the Dredd Strip 'Night of the Bloodbeast' (Prog. 138) features cameos from Digby (Dan Dare), The Spirit, E-Man and at least three other characters who are clearly meant to be someone but I don't know who...

positronic

Quote from: JudgeJudi on 22 April, 2017, 07:10:16 PM
On re-reading - I've just realised that the Dredd Strip 'Night of the Bloodbeast' (Prog. 138) features cameos from Digby (Dan Dare), The Spirit, E-Man and at least three other characters who are clearly meant to be someone but I don't know who...

E-Man? Now there's an unlikely cameo homage. I was reading another 2000 AD story the other day and almost thought I saw an homage to John Byrne's robot character ROG-2000 from Charlton Comics, but after looking more closely, I decided it was probably a simple coincidence of similar design. Obviously that wasn't the case in Prog 138, since several different characters appeared in cameo homages.

positronic

I also just finished reading Judge Dredd: The Cape & Cowl Crimes, a collection of stories satirizing various popular superhero characters from other publishers.

JudgeJudi

#794
Quote from: positronic on 23 April, 2017, 01:28:45 AM
Quote from: JudgeJudi on 22 April, 2017, 07:10:16 PM
On re-reading - I've just realised that the Dredd Strip 'Night of the Bloodbeast' (Prog. 138) features cameos from Digby (Dan Dare), The Spirit, E-Man and at least three other characters who are clearly meant to be someone but I don't know who...

E-Man? Now there's an unlikely cameo homage. I was reading another 2000 AD story the other day and almost thought I saw an homage to John Byrne's robot character ROG-2000 from Charlton Comics, but after looking more closely, I decided it was probably a simple coincidence of similar design. Obviously that wasn't the case in Prog 138, since several different characters appeared in cameo homages.

I wonder who the man at back left is intended to be and the woman?

http://imgur.com/a/oEOIr

(Cannot work out how to embed?)