G1 Comic Art

[GoktimusPrime]

This thread is for the discussion of G1 (1984-1992) comic book art and artists, as spawned from this thread.
________________________________________________

Not really. Andrew Wildman nor Geoff Senior rate much in my book.

Yes, but that's your individual opinion. What I'm saying is that, according to the common/general fan consensus as illustrated by annual results from the Trannies year after year after year, the fandom as a collective rate Wildman and Senior as their two favourite artists from G1.

I mean, I personally like Beast Machines, but I recognise that it's just my own individual opinion and that the fandom as a collective doesn't rate it very highly. And if I were going to start talking about my liking of Beast Machines, I would be required to back it up as it would be a bold statement in terms of going against the common consensus.

The TF fandom has expanded since and while the stories from that era are celebrated by fans, I think that there are modern sensibilities at play now and many of the returned fans of the last few years are more inclined to Don Figueroa style than a Senior one.

That's more retro-G1 than actual G1. And none of this stuff existed when the Trannies Awards were conducted. Someone might need to conduct another survey - it would need to be quite extensive (i.e.: across several communities from around the world).

There's been an evolution in Transformers art and I think it would be naive to ignore that. Senior was a product of his times but if he drew modern stuff, that would severely put many like myself off. Maybe its the older fans who will like him but I certainly feel they are creatures of the past.

Yes, but thisroller's thread topic specifies "TF comics in the 80s" (and it would cover the early 90s too as the TF comics did go into 1993), so we need to be looking at comics from that era in context of that era.

Can't stand black and white. I like b&w to look at the artists raw details but generally I do not like buying a B&W unless it fits the book. Transformers needs to explode off the page. They're machines and futuristic. That's part of the appeal. Drab ol' B&W steal the life out of them.

Colour really doesn't help with the colourist is as poor as Nel Yomtov. I would much rather have a well done black and white comic over a poorly coloured comic any day.

It also depends on the artist - some artists' work just looks better in black and white than colour. A good example is the artist from the Transformers G.I. Joe series from Dreamwave that was set during the 2nd World War. I collected the original issues which were coloured and I thought the art looked kinda "messy" to me. Then I saw the reprint in black and white and I gotta say that the black and white version looks beautiful. If not for the fact that I already have the colour version, I would've bought that black and white print.

A lot of mangaka's work look better in black and white too. I remember when manga was just beginning to creep into local comic stores, there were some publishers who felt the need to colour in the English-translated manga... it looked horrid.

And really good colouring doesn't compensate for shoddy artwork... you all know that I'm no fan of Pat Lee's art, but I think Dreamwave did a good job colouring his work. In spite of that I still think his art sucks.

One thing I didnt like much of Wildman's art is that his TF's face were too "liquid" and drooly.

That was actually the fault of one of the inkers. I can't remember his name right now, but yeah, there was this one inker that kept on adding spittle, drool etc. to Wildman's pencilling. WEIRD! There was also another inker that added eyeballs (like, black dots) to José Delbo's pencilling too (making Delbo's already sub-par art look worse)!

Sure they have to evoke a certain emotion but giving them cheekbones and all well, they kinda look like humans with painted faces and battle armour on. He started fine but as the series went more on and on it kinda gotten more Fleshy.

Wildman admits that this is because he never set out to draw robots and during the 80s and early 90s he didn't "enjoy" drawing robots. Wildman was an avid fan of X-Men and became a comic artist so that he could draw super-heroes like X-Men. Then he got hired to draw Transformers - apparently he wasn't keen on the idea, but Furman coaxed him into it. So Wildman decided that he would draw Transformers in his way of drawing comic characters - like X-Men!! That's why his Transformers look so human.

That's one thing Senior does better than Wildman - Senior sees that he's drawing robots, so he sets about the task to make them look like robots.

Having said that, Wildman draws humans better - and especially super-humans. I really love his rendition of the Neo-Knights (he must've loved drawing them).