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I may get shot for this...

Started by marko10174, 23 April, 2017, 09:52:14 PM

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Goaty

We are so lucky that 2000AD got so many amazing artists! And writers too!

The Legendary Shark

There's a lovely interview with Ron in one of the ECBT2000AD podcasts. Well worth Googling out.
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Geoff

I wonder what it was that, for so many of us who admire Ron's work so much now, put us off when we were younger...

I'm definitely in the camp that marvels at how good his work is now but really didn't appreciate it back then.

He's the king of the weird and wonderful Mega Citizens. So many of the memorable cits are Ron's, Otto Sump, Citizen Snork (brilliant!), Dave the Orang-Utan and his mate, the Blobs, Chopper and the Phantom and the League of  Fatties...

These and others really define Dredd's world for me. 

The citizens these days are a bit of a miserable lot (although, you can't really blame them I suppose..)   

TordelBack

Yup, when I think of the citizenry of Dredd's world (Cursed Earth included) it's Ron Smith's work I'm thinking of. But I also adore his OTT action shots, and his animals are amazing (even his idiosyncratic dinos). I'd say his buildings and vehicle designs are the only bits I don't care for: and maybe Anderson's hair, which never looked right.  The Agros and Black Plague sequences are probably my favourite widescreen Dredds, just incredible showcases for Ron's strengths.

JOE SOAP




While Ron was drawing for the weekly prog he was also knocking out several Daily Star strips every week for several years so I'd say his days were fairly packed.

Fungus

Genuinely loved Ron's art as soon as I saw it (maybe I'm a connoisseur  :) ). His colour double-page spreads of Dredd at the start of the 80's cuddled my eyes like nothing else. Then Otto Sump, Unamerican Graffiti and that was that. His three-quarter Dredd-head is frankly the default one for me. Carlos is great too but when he got back to Dredd for the 'War, his Dredd was never as...  heroic (?) as Ron's.

Funny the way this 'Carlos' thread has meandered.

Spikes

The Daily Dredd collection would be an ideal purchase for those unfamiliar with his craftsmanship.

Remember how he condensed the full Apocalypse War tale into less than a dozen panels, and it was still a thrilling read?

positronic

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 26 April, 2017, 03:26:09 PM
If you didn't like Ron Smith's work, fair enough. But I'm struggling to see why it makes a difference that he have himself time limits to do it.
I work as a commercial artist myself - when you're working to a brief with a deadline, you have to get the job done. Ron Smith was a comic illustrator, not some independently rich Bohemian lounging about till the muse struck. He had bills to pay, just like the rest of us.

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about Smith's work and had no particular axe to grind with him prior to having read his own comments about in Thrill-Power Overload. Smith was one of the list of regular or main Dredd artists in the first decade of 2000 AD. We all have our own rankings of which ones we prefer over others, so everyone's list is bound to have someone's name gravitate downwards below other artists' names who they prefer, and who they personally rank higher. My subjective impression (whether true or not) at the time of being exposed to his work was that Smith seemed perhaps some years older than many of the other Dredd artists, and that his work appeared to me to be somewhat less 'contemporary' for the times by comparison. Purely a subjective opinion. Surely I'm allowed that.

I only really thought lesser of him as an artist when he made those comments about his working method, since he knew full well they'd be read by his fans. It made me think he was sort of biting the hand that feeds. I can't help feeling that way about it.

Fungus

I don't believe Ron Smith was 'biting the hand that feeds'.
Again, sheesh.

Mardroid

I could understand that if he left the work half done, but I doubt that's what he meant. Only that an artist (comic or otherwise) can often see more that they'd like to add if time allows, but at some point they have to draw a line under it (so to speak) and move on.

That doesn't mean that the work done does not fit the specification.

positronic

Quote from: Fungus on 27 April, 2017, 12:48:36 AM
I don't believe Ron Smith was 'biting the hand that feeds'.
Again, sheesh.

Of course all commercial artists have deadlines, and there's a point at which any one of them needs to declare the page as finished. That's understood.

Why in the world Smith should choose to focus on the time demands of the work as opposed to any other aspect (that presumably his fans would be more interested in focusing on) baffled me. He's making a distinct choice to not discuss the artistic aspects of his work, but purely the timeclock-punching involved from his perspective. It just seemed like a strange response to an interviewer with curiosity regarding the work under consideration, to be preserved for the edification of the magazine's history.

Jacqusie

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 26 April, 2017, 01:07:19 PM
he drew the citizens of Mega City One with more character than anyone else.


I'm just re-reading Citizen Snork for the Nth time - such a great story and wonderful art - my introduction to Rons work way back when and he drew some fabulous big noses!  :)

JOE SOAP

Quote from: positronic on 27 April, 2017, 01:02:12 AM
Of course all commercial artists have deadlines, and there's a point at which any one of them needs to declare the page as finished. That's understood.

Why in the world Smith should choose to focus on the time demands of the work as opposed to any other aspect (that presumably his fans would be more interested in focusing on) baffled me. He's making a distinct choice to not discuss the artistic aspects of his work, but purely the timeclock-punching involved from his perspective. It just seemed like a strange response to an interviewer with curiosity regarding the work under consideration, to be preserved for the edification of the magazine's history.


Ron Smith is from a different generation - a modest old gentleman who flew Spitfires during World War II. He's  probably surprised people admire and are so interested in work that was considered throwaway and ephemeral back in the day. It's a testament to how great his work still is that people rate him so highly, out of so many other artists, decades later.



Fungus

"Focus on the time demands of the work" ? What?!!!
I remember it was a multi-episode, interesting interview with a well-respected artist.
The time-keeping aspect is a modest, illuminating, side-bar. Can you see that?

positronic

Quote from: Fungus on 27 April, 2017, 01:24:40 AM
"Focus on the time demands of the work" ? What?!!!
I remember it was a multi-episode, interesting interview with a well-respected artist.
The time-keeping aspect is a modest, illuminating, side-bar. Can you see that?

I'd have to re-check the book for his other comments. (I'm not sure if the book has an index, that would certainly make it easier). My initial impression was that those comments were the ones that stuck in my mind as what he had say to the interviewer in summarizing memories of his work on Dredd.

The quotes may or may not have been lifted from a lengthier interview which I never read, but whether he had other comments (extracted in Thrill-Power Overload) on things which just didn't register a strong impression one way or the other, that's the characterization of his attitude towards the work which I was left with, not a "side-bar", and one which I didn't find illuminating at all, at least not in any positive way.