Friday, November 30, 2007

Big in Japan #2 page 1


Another pencils-only page from Big in Japan.
In this page which opens the second issue of the series, everything looks pretty straightforward in the first three panels. Then at the bottom, Seth gives the soldier a manga-style exaggeration to his surprised expression. (He is saying, "Megalosaurus?!?!") The readers who were expecting a regular superhero style book may have balked at the lack of seriousness of Seth's take on the whole story. I have to admit that except for Seth's I never read this type of comic book at all, so I can't compare it to others. But it certainly looks like camp to me. Though, considering the setting of the story, it seems appropriate to throw in a little manga.
The fact that the characters usually are drawn in more-or-less realistic proportions, and then occasionally are drawn in cartoony big-head style is one of the ways that he showed his amusement with the story. He drew a couple of those in the Batman story for DC also, but the editors there were having none of it, and took out his cartoons. I guess Batman is more of a sacred cow, as it were, than the Fantastic Four.





1 comment:

j_ay said...

Damn shame the editors took hold of Seth’s story, but yes I’d take a guess that Batman is consider the Holy Institution and can only be played with so much. Especially in an ongoing series.
Whereas Marvel seems to have a bit more of a laid-back attitude and were hiring Seth to be Seth. A miniseries entitled Big in Japan and the premise of monsters gone amuck just *has* to be fun!