| Rarely am I excited for the addition of another new character to the PvP cast list. Cynical? Maybe. But I sometimes feel that Kurtz drastically under-utilizes his current cast, resulting in stilted characters. If there was more real development, I think that his story arcs would carry a good deal more gravitas. To be fair, it's not a Buckleyesque level offense, where one moment the characters are talking about 'VIDEO GAMES!' (tm. Tim Buckley) and the next moment somebody is tragically losing a baby. Still, I miss the days when Francis and Jade were more regularly part of the strip. Be that as it may; we have a new addition today:  On the plus side, it is another chance for Kurtz to stretch his art...and we know it's not traced ;) I like some of the smaller details; the collar, the reddish nose, the fact that his mouth fits neatly within his face. I'm not sure I'm feeling the hair, but maybe that will grow on me. What do you guys think? |
Friday, August 21
Daddy Issues
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While it's easy to make the joke that Cole "Doesn't have his father's eyes... or mouth", I really am impressed with how similar he and his dad look. I didn't see it in the little teaser sketch (So I wasn't even expecting it), but I sure do here.
ReplyDeleteA character whose mouth is constrained by his cheeks? It's glorious! I can entirely overlook the cat nose, too, since a lot of artists do "weird" things with drawing noses and I certainly don't agree with all of 'em... Cole Senior's nose is just a bridge between Cole's nose and something more nose-shaped, anyhow. The hair may or may not be related to Cole's single Charlie Brown brow hair (Probably isn't?), but weird hair always works for me on a pretty old guy. Gives me a strong "This ancient guy lives alone and doesn't even think about how unkempt his hair is" vibe.
The shading and highlights always seem at odds with each other, BUT... and this is important... if you aren't thinking about it, then they still combine to add a lot of depth and implied lighting, even implied texture, to the strip. If I had to choose between a strip with incongruous light sources and a strip without shading or any kind, well, there's no choice at all.
Actually, I found "Dad"'s facial features to be far more lifelike than Coles. Even his nose.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that you don't recommend the Erfworld. Any particulare reason, other than the lack of actual comic for the summer?
(Can someone give me a hand moving this lay-z-boy into here?)
Congratulations on a successful coup!! Hail to the new Moderator!!!
JAI! JAI! JAI!
Regarding lifelike features: I actually was saying that his features are more lifelike than Cole's, yes... if you were responding to me, Jes? The mouth stays where it should, between the cheeks (Cole's goes deeeeep into the sides of his face), the nose is more like a real nose (More than Cole's is), the hair is more like real old guy hair.
ReplyDeleteThe Erfworld... I DO read that! I even totally recommend it, but I think it would be confusing for me to link to their website while they're doing summer updates (Even though I like those entries). Someone new to it would just see a lot of writing, unless they went to the archive for "Book 1". It may be that I'll just link to that archive, but -- originally -- I couldn't help but feel that would also be less than ideal.
There's actually quite a lot of comics (Besides Erfworld) I want to recommend... but for various (And I must stress this) worthless, pedantic reasons have not yet linked to. Sin Titulo (Because it's not funny! Ever! To include it, I'll be opening the door to include a bunch of incredible-but-not-"webcomic" material), Shrub Monkeys (Low volume update schedule, focus is entirely reality-based, has gone on huge hiatus before), The Meek (Waiting for it to get back to real updates, also it's pretty new), Rob and Elliot (Only one comic a week), Much the Miller's Son (I don't even remember what the reason was)... Beaver & Steve (No longer updates), Perry Bible Fellowship (No longer updates)... the list goes on. We'll see links to most, if not all, of them before too long.