Sunday, November 2, 2014

A Comparison

Remember when I said below that craft is not enough to produce great art, but a world vision isn't enough either?...


Robb Armstrong, "Jump Start," Sunday comic strip, January 17, 1993 [originally published in color].

The above Sunday page doesn't represent offensive stereotypes of black people. On the contrary, these characters act and talk like real people which means that the characterization is quite well done... and yet... 

The drawing style is dull: the lines are heavy; the backgrounds either don't exist or are a generic "I drew these books and bookshelves and people, but I could very well draw other books and bookshelves and people instead" kind of backgrounds...

Worst of all though: the situation depicted is rather plain and the worthwhile anti-racist message lacks any kind of punch (even if the punch line, precisely, is the best part of the page). 

Now, compare the page above with these two panels below (I don't think that I need to add anything; the power of the images and the power of the words talk for themselves):


Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Alberto Breccia (a), "Mort Cinder," Misterix # 799, March 6, 1964. [Night at the Thermopylae. Some wounded man complains. He must be a Persian to wail like that... / The Fates weaving, laughing because they have almost no thread... So many lives will end soon...]




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