So, I was going to wait for the Friday comic to be posted, but I'm heading out for Friday night in a bit and I wanted to comment on Thursday's opus at least.
Let's start with the beginning, where Cole's father sets up the strip with a little exposition. It's clear that Scott has the voice of Cole's dad well in hand. Curmudgeonly, indignant, a bit old fashioned with the 'silly-boy' it's in character and it sets up the realization in the fourth panel quite well. The artwork in panels one and four seems well-executed as well.
We had some discussion about word-bubbles earlier in the week, and Scott seems to have rebounded nicely, especially with the triple bubble in the first panel. It looks good, especially the 'Hmph!' and it's out of the way, not distracting from the action of Cole's dad packing his pipe.
The fourth panel is also well executed. It's a subtle pull away of the pipe from the mouth, but Kurtz' new mouth art, as well as the dialogue, serve to create an aura of surprised realization without any overly dramatic action, such as the character leaping from his chair or gesticulating wildly.
Unfortunately, we must now come to panels two and three.
I'm going to say panel two is filler. OK, maybe Scott wants to show the guy sucking on the pipe a bit; a moment of reflection before the big realization...fair enough. It's still dull. Nobody reading that strip let their eyes linger on panel two for more than a second. This isn't a mortal sin, but it seems a little lazy.
Panel three is the real offender. I would be super-interested to hear what Scott was going for with the artwork in this panel. The face lighting up? Ok, I mean you are writing a comic strip, so absolutely...take a little license with reality. We expect that. The three little exclamation points over the fathers' head are also fine. Common, even, and probably would have been enough.
When your internal thought process manages to also light up your chair, sweater, and pipe, a line in the sand must be drawn.
I don't want to go nuts here, so let's just list some obvious problems:
The light thrown by the lamp remains consistent on the wall, however...the lamp itself is lit up by the force of the father's (this guy really needs a name) epiphany. Even if I was willing to grant that the exterior of the lamp's shade could be further lit, there is NO WAY that the stem of the lamp could brighten further. If anything, I suppose, the top part of it would be SHADED by the lamp shade. (This assuming that Cole's father is the source of the new light...which is indicated by the luminescence of his skin but contradicted by the way his arms are shaded.)
The smoke is under-lit, along with one of the sleeves, but the chair the other sleeve and the father's face are all illuminated from above.
The desk top appears to be lit, (Again, this should fall under the purview of the lamp) but the white coffee cup is unaffected.
The shading in this third panel is, to be generous, a mess.
It doesn't ruin the strip, because truly the first and fourth panels are the setup and punch, but it's certainly an unfortunate distraction. I don't want to be too cruel about taking Scott to task when he is experimenting or taking risks with his art, but I am very curious to know what he was trying.
If I had to guess, I would say he was trying to make 'illumination' a literal concept. And that's fine, clever if done well. In this case, unfortunately, I think the lamp and poor attention to detail doomed the effort.
(As an interesting aside, the smoke is somewhat detailed in the second panel, then extremely detailed in panel three...before it loses all detail in the final panel. Strange.)
Book (or blog) keeping note:
I'm assuming a Friday strip will show up at some point, but my next post will be Saturday when I do the 'weekly recap' of PvP and talk about a few other webcomics...which I promise I will only do on the weekends.
Until then, enjoy your Friday evenings!
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Kids Get In Free! -
ReplyDeleteYou would think that Cole just realized that his dad is the real Santa Claus. In panel #3, one might even think that Cole had spent some time doing stand-in work for Stimpy.
At least this strip gives us a sense of how much time has elapsed from Wednesday's strip to today's. And, it gives us firm confirmation that Sr's name is in fact Cole Richards Sr. This fact has eluded me sole-ly due to Cole's initial inability to recognize his own father in a picture taken in the '50's. I'm still not sure if this means I'm stupid, or if the presentation needed work.
I suppose the point of this strip isn't lost. Now Cole has an actual real-life role-model in his father (on his own terms), in the place where his childhood imaginary heroes were giving him something to aspire to be. For a man to be able to look up to his father is important, I think. And, we all know Scott feels that way.
In (comic) reality, however, Cole Sr. has still spent Cole Jr.'s childhood being the person he was. This being after his stint as a tv comedy sidekick. And, we still don't know why Sr. had forgotten about it in the first place. It still feels open-ended to me. Nothing has really been done to bridge the gap between them, other than:
1- Sr. having to admit that he was wrong, and Jr. was right:
2- Cole "choosing" to re-affirm a sense of admiration for his father, based on a trivial and irrelevant factoid. And, since there can never be any meaningful reciprocation, this doesn't really count.
The last panel, with the BanthaCON poster, was a bit clever. Although, whether it's a depiction of Cole Jr's inner imagination, or foreshadowing of Sr.'s re-embracing his more colourful past (which would serve the purpose to attempt to satisfy my last paragraph), wasn't entirely clear to me.
What is clear, is that this wasn't ever going to get very deep. I'm not surprised, but a bit disappointed... in myself, for thinking that there would/could be something more than this.
Overall, this arc and strip have shown a lot of great potential. But, the wrap-up (which I believe this is) lacks any real punch.
I do look forward to reading whether or not Jai and R.W. have anything to say, especially about the art.
There is at least another week of this story-arc. We have to see what happens at Banthacon.
ReplyDelete(Still tastes better than shit pie.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the forecast, Scott; I was also wondering about that.
Very nice notes on the externalized "internal realization", RW. I do have a couple of things to add to that: The new light source seems to be located both above the lamp (The shade has brightened highlights, and because of the smoke) and below Mr. Richards' left arm. Also, the coffee cup did not receive a highlight because it's already stark white. However, it COULD have been shaded in the 3rd panel to turn the white into the highlight.