Art or a good story. what is your preference.

[JamesC]

The story is everything to me and I follow writers over artists.
I do sometimes wish decent stories could be re-drawn or re-coloured though! I could probably come up with 10 comics off the top of my head that I'd love to commission someone to re-do the art for.

[I, Cosh]

Am I being a heathen? Or, like me, do most readers think that as comics are primarily a visual medium it's all about the art?

Completely the opposite for me.

Obviously, the ideal is to have script, art and lettering all of the highest quality and working together to create a synergistic experience greater than the sum of its individual components. A work whose shimmering, holistic beauty becomes the axe that breaks the frozen sea inside the heart of the disillusioned reader.

In reality, I'll happily buy comics by a writer I like with mediocre or even actively bad art but wouldn't consider the reverse.

[TordelBack]

In reality, I'll happily buy comics by a writer I like with mediocre or even actively bad art but wouldn't consider the reverse.

That'd be my position. No matter how good the art, if they're pictures of things I don't like, I'm not interested.  I can certainly marvel over the work in Arkham Asylum or Camelot 3000, but it's telling that I don't own a copy of either.  Conversely I do have a fair chunk of stuff drawn by Jacen Burrows whose work I don't really care for, because he keeps drawing comics for Alan Moore and Garth Ennis.

The great comics, the ones I read over and over again, are books where the creators inspire and build on each other, and the script and the art are inseparable and indistinguishable from the comic.

[Hawkmumbler]

A comic with a great script but mediocre to rough art (eg. The O Men, The Promised Neverland) is better than a story with great art but not so great script writing (eg. Savage). Sometimes you get the best of both, sometimes you get American Reaper. They can't all be winners!

[JamesC]

While art may objectively good (or bad) it has to suit the story.
To take a couple of previously used examples, Ed McGuinness may be okay at super hero stuff (I don't like his work personally) but can you imagine if he'd drawn From Hell?! Likewise I wouldn't want to see Eddie Campbell doing Superman.

[TordelBack]

Likewise I wouldn't want to see Eddie Campbell doing Superman.

I dunno, it was pretty good.

[JamesC]

I prefer my Supes a little more 'classic'.

[Colin YNWA]

I prefer my Supes a little more 'classic'.

Well you don't get more classical than Eddie Campbell's take!

[Hawkmumbler]

Aye, Eddie Campbell is one of those classic artists who could completely redesign any iconic character and make it work.

[ZenArcade]

Some cracking new threads appearing on the forum lately.  I'm basically a Sci Fi fan in a general sense. The art is as a flower is to a honey bee in terms of the cursory first glance. But more is required. At heart the story should be preeminent. Z

[Tarantino]

I've read all the responses to my question and I'm getting a huge majority in favour of story over art.

That's fair enough, I wasn't trying to undermine the importance of a good story, it's clearly essential for the longevity of a character/title, but surely if you are placing story above art and most of you have said you would sacrifice art for the sake of a good story then God forbid maybe you should be reading actual books.

I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, I'm just saying, the fact that we are reading comics in preference to books, then surely we subconsciously  place a higher importance over the art then we care to admit?

Tarantino

[Fungus]

The 'book' argument crossed this mind too. And am I in a small minority yet again ?-)

[Frank]

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Bit of both. I don't buy stuff by writers I don't like, but I'm more likely to buy stuff by writers I like if the art is great.

I don't think you can separate the art from the story. Ideally, comics would be single author works, like Dan Clowes, but I don't want to live in a world without D'Israeli comics just because dialogue isn't his forte.

[TordelBack]

...the fact that we are reading comics in preference to books, then surely we subconsciously  place a higher importance over the art then we care to admit?

But it's art that has to tell the story in comics. I'd suggest that if it was really the art I was interested in I'd hang round the National Gallery all day: what I'm interested in is comics - characters, worlds, stories, ideas, jokes, images communicated through art.

[Colin YNWA]

but surely if you are placing story above art and most of you have said you would sacrifice art for the sake of a good story then God forbid maybe you should be reading actual books.

The thing is that assume that comics are just prose novels with pictures and they're not. Its a unique art form that uses its own storytelling technicques, has its own voice and way of presenting information, pacing and impact.

If the 'read a book' arguement held you could very well provide the counter arguement 'if you like the art why don't you just go to a gallery or get an art book?'. Comics are just the combination of words and pictures, by doing that they offer they become their own thing.