Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Doom Patrol #13 page 1

I like this opening page from Seth's Doom Patrol arc. I like the clever title lettering, plus the way he starts out as if he were doing the opening credits in a movie, by showing the shabby outside of the building, slightly tilted, I guess because everything in this story is just off-kilter. Then we move inside the apartment where we hear the players bickering and see the details of their lives together.
(Look, Jay, big areas of black. He certainly did not do it often, but in the places where he did, it is very effective. He may have been tinkering with the idea of using more black in his work. In the bottom panel the black bubbles seem to be psychological rather than pictorial.)

2 comments:

j_ay said...

Mmmmmn love that black. It even more shocking after you’ve been showcasing some pencil-only pages!
Of course with Seth’s comic book work he knew that it would later undergo colour, usually colour with a wide palette (as his images are *so* expansive), so it is certainly worth speculating what kind of approach he would take if it were to solely be a black and white comic…also the texture lines on the woodwork is something different for Seth. Variety is the spice of life, etc.

The breakfast cereal of “Pro-I” mean any thing to you, Vicki? Maybe some kind of riff on Fruit Loops, which has (had?) a toucan as the mascot….

Also a nice page that works well standing alone, as the dialogue is good/funny.

And in this day and age where writers seem to be stealing the limelight away from what is essentially a graphic medium (not that writers shouldn’t be getting lots of praise…), it’s nice to see Seth’s name bigger than all the others credited!

For more on this take a look at some recent books where the writer’s name dwarfs not only the artist’s, but the name of the character(s) whose book it is!

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/cr_review_wonder_woman_love_and_murder_wonder_woman_14/

http://www.amazon.com/New-Avengers-HC-Bendis-Variant/dp/0785129553/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196934320&sr=1-12

Vicki said...

Jay, I didn't even notice the Pro-I box, although it seems to be the wrong shape for breakfast cereal (Seth was careful about that sort of thing)--more likely pop tarts or something like that. No, that name doesn't ring any bells for me. Maybe Pro-I just means something like Self, an indication of the characters' initial inability to be interested in anything other than their own immediate wants. I don't know.

I agree that this page works well standing alone. It has a good overall look with the dark and light areas and the great title lettering, and, as you pointed out, interesting dialogue.

As far as Seth's name being a little larger than the others, I always assumed that that was because it was added later by another letterer, and didn't quite jibe with the other names...