Drawing in literal mode: Doom Patrol #14 page 5

Early on Seth learned to draw the small realistic details of everything. They were the real particulars of a street scene, or of a face, or of an interior that he used to create dark areas in his drawings, or to show perspective, or to indicate impact. In this page from Doom Patrol, for example, he has drawn the eyes and nose and hair of Ava (aka Elasti-Lass) with the folds and creases that we have on the smoothest of bodies. The skin of Beast Boy as a dinosaur is suitably unevenly lumpy, as a lizard skin would be (I think). Anyway, it has the look of realism.
At the bottom, the robot monster's head breaks the sidewalk as it hits, and the rubble looks very rubbly. The buildings in the center frame are simplified, but if we saw buildings from that distance, we would see them simplified.
He was still drawing in a mainly literal mode, though he did use elements of graphic design in his drawings. With his Marvel work, however, he began to draw in a style that was much more heavily graphic in style. The monsters here are realistic-looking. The ones in Big in Japan are just as detailed, but the details have design interest rather than only descriptive interest.