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Xelkelvos posted:And it's not like writers are ignorant of how the medium is structured too. They put in recaps or summaries of previous relevant arcs or characters because they know that new readers exist and may not be aware of what's going on, but idk. Maybe try reading a comic book and jump in with something that looks good first and then figure out where to go after. There's even sites to read comics free to try before buying just like how people read manga. Even for free the lack of long term stakes and switching artists doesn’t make it worth reading. It’s like trying to watch a show where the actors get recast out every few episodes. Series like Runaways were nice because the artists only changed once or twice and the writer stayed the same. Plus there was a sense of real stakes. Whereas with mainstream superhero’s the only way to get that is in their other mediums like animation and live action
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Jun 18, 2023 03:55
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Ccs posted:Even for free the lack of long term stakes and switching artists doesn’t make it worth reading. It’s like trying to watch a show where the actors get recast out every few episodes. Why does something not having long term stakes make something not worth reading? Also, what would being recast out have to do with long term stake? Being recast doesn't mean the character is different, lmao.
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Jun 18, 2023 04:31
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mycomancy posted:[AS] has definitely rescued a couple of very good shows out of the jaws of corporate dumbassery. Unfortunately the Time Warner merger and subsequent termination of Adult Swim Streams happened, which was at least somewhat interesting and interactive TV. I still miss watching Picco and Block Or Charge on Thursday nights, and Stupid Morning Bullshit + Fishcenter were great background talk TV to have on while cleaning or working. Honestly, I think profit is just an excuse a lot of the time for these idiots. Its about asserting their authority, and getting rid of the stuff they don't like. There are bazillion stories of CEOs doing their best to cancel or bury a thing without even pretending profit is the reason.
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Jun 18, 2023 07:19
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Like that exec who basically cancelled fleabag because a sex scene made him uncomfortable, or something, despite the fact they show did pretty well
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Jun 18, 2023 08:09
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Huh? Fleabag ended on its own terms according to everyone involved
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Jun 18, 2023 11:32
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Happy Landfill posted:Like that exec who basically cancelled fleabag because a sex scene made him uncomfortable, or something, despite the fact they show did pretty well Escobarbarian posted:Huh? Fleabag ended on its own terms according to everyone involved Yeah, Happy Landfill, I suspect you're conflating David Zaslav's infamous Fleabag anecdote with his recent reign over at Warner Brothers Discovery -- during which, yeah, a lot of shows were cancelled, shelved, discarded, etc. but not Fleabag.
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Jun 18, 2023 12:36
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LOL I hadn’t seen that anecdote before, that’s loving amazingquote:In July 2019, the Zaslavs were on Geffen’s yacht, sailing around the Mediterranean with a crew that included Winfrey, King, and Lloyd and Laura Jacobs Blankfein. One night, they decided to screen the award-winning BBC comedy Fleabag, which was made by a production company that Discovery now owns but which Zaslav hadn’t gotten around to watching. A minute into the first episode, the group found itself in the midst of a hot and heavy sex scene. Pause! “So I put my hand up,” recalls Zaslav. “I go, whoa! So they stop it. And I said, ‘Okay, here’s the strategy. We either shut it off, or we put it back on and everybody only looks forward. We don’t look at each other until it’s over.’ ” (They opted for the latter.) David Zaslav asking Oprah and David Geffen to not look at him during a televised sex scene because he finds it uncomfortable is so loving telling hahaha
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Jun 18, 2023 13:46
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You guys are right  admittedly that was a story I had heard but had never had it corroborated. Thanks for the correction! The real story is much funnier
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Jun 18, 2023 14:46
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Escobarbarian posted:LOL I hadn’t seen that anecdote before, that’s loving amazing What a loving loser. Imagine having all that money and giving a gently caress what Oprah Winfrey and David Geffen think at all about anything.
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Jun 18, 2023 15:01
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Xelkelvos posted:Why does something not having long term stakes make something not worth reading? Also, what would being recast out have to do with long term stake? Being recast doesn't mean the character is different, lmao. Difficult to care about a character when the way they’re drawn is completely different and the way they emote is different. Heck it’s more like they recast everyone and switch up the cinematographer because the way different artists compose pages is also different. Can you imagine watching the MCU and all the avengers were played by different guys in every movie? It would lose the feeling of continuity and feel like why should I care about these characters?
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Jun 18, 2023 17:57
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I don't know about you but I watched Fleabag with a napkin draped over my head to hide my shame from Zaslav
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Jun 18, 2023 17:58
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Ccs posted:Difficult to care about a character when the way they’re drawn is completely different and the way they emote is different. Heck it’s more like they recast everyone and switch up the cinematographer because the way different artists compose pages is also different. Because the characters are still the same despite the different actors? Superman and Lois literally just did this in the recent season because the previous actor for Jonathan was fired and while is little different, it wasn't jarring because the goal was consistency between the two actors. I feel like you're assuming that they wouldn't do that though and are making a ton of other weird and extreme assumptions like how you're assuming the writer doesn't also have a hand in directing composition on a page and it's solely the artist's purview (it's not always the case, but it varies greatly between teams and where artists will switch between individual issues, the writer has more say on it) Also, cinematographer? You are aware those aren't always consistent between movies in a series, right? It does seem you're expecting something different out of cape comics than what people who do enjoy cape comics desire. That you feel taken out of the weekly narrative because they have a different artist that week seems like a you problem rather than a medium problem.
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Jun 18, 2023 19:12
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Every person I know who got disillusioned with American comics said it was because the writers/editors/companies were obsessed with the shortest of short term profits to the detriment of any kind of storytelling. Why get invested in anything if they're going to be revealed to be secretly a nazi for shock value, or they might become too popular and have their solo series get atomized by 20 different crossover events. Logically the bad runs shouldn't subtract from the good runs, but that's not really how people think, otherwise nobody would care if the ending to something is bad or if it's all just a dream. In theory a change in writers or artists doesn't mean everything is going to get thrown out and they could continue the narrative threads of the old creative team, but that's often not the case.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:23
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In theory you can keep a sense of continuity even when exchanging all the staff working on a project, but in practice, swapping out artists can really ruin a series' vibe since a large amount of reading comics comes from aesthetic enjoyment anyways. Swapping out writers, it depends on how complicated the story it is and how many notes the writer leaves behind as to what they have planned. And that's a thing that has plagued plenty of other sorts of projects other than comics. It doesn't make comics unreadable, but it is a thing that will periodically grind away at you as you keep reading. With movies you can often expect each individual movie to provide context to introduce you to characters and make you care about them for each individual entry even when they're doing a different interpretation, but you can't always expect that from comic issues since they have so little space to work with. An episodic show can swap out writers a lot more readily because the show's status quo unites everything, but since comics lean towards being soap operas, writers will often make big decisions that have more chance at backfiring.
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Jun 18, 2023 20:46
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I don't know how badly I'm misreading this but I can't read this and see it as a request for more of the most interminable scenes of being in the DMV or something https://twitter.com/SenorWoberto/status/1669087074543181825
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Jun 18, 2023 20:49
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I wanna say he's basically complaining about characters being too witty the same way people complain about there being too many jokes/zingers in MCU movies? But yeah, it reads like he just wants boring animated movies, which... I mean, you do you Guillermo, you sure know more about the art of film than I do I guess.
TwoPair fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jun 18, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 21:16
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Xelkelvos posted:Because the characters are still the same despite the different actors? They’re not though. A Robert Downey Jr take on iron man is completely different from how a lesser actor would play it and the reason marvel was willing to spend the big bucks on him. A good artist puts so much life into a character. Ryan Ottley was able to develop the way he drew Mark Grayson in Invincible over time until you really felt consistency out of that character. Manga creators can spend decades with a character and you really feel their soul behind the eyes. In American comics that’s all missing. In the worst cases it’s because people like Greg Land are drawing it and they suck but even in the best cases the artists have very little time to get to know the character through the art. So guys like Leinil Yu draws all men the same and all women the same, for the most part. Other guys like Adrian Alphona have a bit more range but then it’s even worse when they get switched out and replaced with someone who draws in a much more stereotypical style. It’s true that some people don’t mind but American comics sales have plummeted while manga does better and better so I think readers at large have similar opinions. I doubt the industry will change though because at this point mainstream superhero comics are just a way to farm story ideas for the movies and series.
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Jun 18, 2023 21:32
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del toro's arguing against the use of visual shorthand in film, which reduces every character to a series of stock archetypes. somewhat similar to tracy butler's old tutorial on proper expressions in comics we've already seen what del toro likes in animation because he directed the excellent pinocchio film last year (as opposed to the terrible pinocchio film last year), but something like anomalisa would probably be up his alley as well
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Jun 18, 2023 21:44
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"Raised eyebrow, crossed arms, sassy pose" - he's talking about Shrek, and how so many animated film characters over the last 20 years have emulated that "Permanent, Walking Smirk" Dreamworks attitude.
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Jun 18, 2023 22:24
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Guillermo is a huge weeb, the down-to-earth grounded animation with some kind of real life relevance that he's praising is stuff like your Ghibli movies, or the gifs that get retweeted by sakuga anime accounts. Compared to your Ice Ages, your Despicable Mes, the Hotel Transylvanias, etc. Illumination is so much worse than Dreamworks in this sense.
mycot fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jun 18, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 22:41
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I watched Batman The Doom that Came to Gotham. Not bad! Much better animation than Gotham by Gaslight although still nothing special. The best animated stuff from DC was all done by Telecom but it seems they don’t use them much anymore, maybe they’re out of the price range or too busy. The art and voice acting are also decent.
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Jun 18, 2023 23:20
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Ccs posted:A good artist puts so much life into a character. Ryan Ottley was able to develop the way he drew Mark Grayson in Invincible over time until you really felt consistency out of that character. This is a good example because the issues of Invincible not drawn by Ottley were pretty dire in some instances. Heck, that they gave the epilogue of the series to the also-ran artist instead of Ottley still baffles me. It kinda left a bad taste in my mouth, not something I think you'd want for the capstone of a decade-long series
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Jun 18, 2023 23:37
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I think the also-ran in this case might have been Cory Walker who was the original artist from the first 7 or so issues, but he’s not as good at doing expressive or appealing characters. They relied more on his designs when they did the tv series though because his designs are more animation friendly.
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Jun 19, 2023 00:31
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mycot posted:Every person I know who got disillusioned with American comics said it was because the writers/editors/companies were obsessed with the shortest of short term profits to the detriment of any kind of storytelling. Why get invested in anything if they're going to be revealed to be secretly a nazi for shock value, or they might become too popular and have their solo series get atomized by 20 different crossover events. Logically the bad runs shouldn't subtract from the good runs, but that's not really how people think, otherwise nobody would care if the ending to something is bad or if it's all just a dream. There’s also the format itself which is pretty hostile to new readers. A standard superhero comic is perpetually ongoing and the line between one storyline and another can be kind on murky. So if you want to hop into a series you often feel like you’re missing important context if you aren’t already familiar with the status quo. Granted, if you stick with it you can usually figure things out since most of the 70 years of backstory don’t matter, but a lot of readers aren’t that patient. Compare this to a manga, which functions much better as both a continuous long-form story and collection of smaller ones thanks in large part to an easy to obtain and navigate backlog which doesn’t fractally spiral out into 500 adjacent franchises, and it’s easy to see why people are drawn to one over the other (despite most manga being kind of poo poo). Also, as I’ve said before* those references to past issues that superhero comics rely on are incredibly alienating and absolutely awful way to get readers up to speed. Just explain that poo poo in the comic damnit!  *see post #18463 in BSS
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Jun 19, 2023 02:16
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Oxxidation posted:del toro's arguing against the use of visual shorthand in film, which reduces every character to a series of stock archetypes. somewhat similar to tracy butler's old tutorial on proper expressions in comics I love her totally calling out Mookie and Buckley, with the C-mouth and side-mouth 
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Jun 19, 2023 02:34
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Continuing my DC animated stuff watch, I saw Batman the long Halloween. This was one of my favourite comics series about Batman. Maybe the only one I really remember in detail. The animated version was almost good. Like it tried for the style and it got pretty good voice actors, but the number one problem is shot composition. The source material is full of amazing compositions that use black in amazing ways and compose the frame in a way that adds some much gravitas to a comic about masked weirdos. The animated version replaced that with an aversion to pure black and a lot of much more boring shot compositions which makes me wonder why the storyboard artists weren’t referring to the comic more. It’s not bad it’s just kind of a disappointment
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Jun 19, 2023 03:56
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Just to put it out there about consistency of style in comics and how it affects the characters; Mike Mignola's Hellboy tends to suffer when other artists besides him take the helm for the main storyline. He has such a distinct way of inking and crosshatching it just looks offputting when some one else is doing their expressions. The Pilot for The Amazing Screw on Head looks loving amazing for example because they managed to successfully adapt his style to screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbsDvGtTRWU That being said Hellboy is notorious for its massive side story compilations that are all considered part the canon. In those cases when it's referring to the different jobs the characters have taken on the change in style can sometimes feel appropriate as an offshoot. Flopsy fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 05:13
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That amazing screw on head pilot is awesome and I’m very sad that the hellboy stuff that did get full animated movies didn’t try to match that style. Sean Galloway is a good character designer but he’s too cutesy for hellboy.
Ccs fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 13:44
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Speaking of, Mignola did the original Doom That Came to Gotham comic and it was extremely disappointing to see that the adaptation didn't even try to do it in the same art style.
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Jun 19, 2023 15:22
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It does a better job than The Long Halloween does at capturing the source artist’s style. Not great but there are moments where I was like “oh that’s actually an affecting drawing” And because I’m still annoyed about it let’s look at how Long Halloween watered down a great scene  
Ccs fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 15:57
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Ccs posted:It does a better job than The Long Halloween does at capturing the source artist’s style. Not great but there are moments where I was like “oh that’s actually an affecting drawing” The composition here is a pretty big step down. I'm not even getting into the character designs.
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Jun 19, 2023 16:42
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I’m more forgiving of character design because of animations limitations but use of black and just drawing interesting poses and composition that the comic is providing them is pretty bad. I can’t even blame the outsource studio for that as it should have been sorted out in the storyboard and designs.
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Jun 19, 2023 17:16
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Ccs posted:I’m more forgiving of character design because of animations limitations but use of black and just drawing interesting poses and composition that the comic is providing them is pretty bad. I can’t even blame the outsource studio for that as it should have been sorted out in the storyboard and designs. Oh no I agree complicated designs are hard to translate to animation but Jesus the difference between them gathered around the desk to having them hover around an empty room is loving stark. Flopsy fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jun 19, 2023 |
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Jun 19, 2023 21:16
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Flopsy posted:Oh no I agree complicated designs are hard to translate to animation but Jesus the difference between them gathered around the desk to havering them hover around an empty room is loving stark. Having one artists doesn't always solve this. See Bleach, where by the last half everyone is standing in a white void talking. It used to have some decent backgrounds, never anything amazing. Kubo was at his best doing new costumes and should have done more power ups with costume changes drawn from all angles.
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Jun 19, 2023 21:18
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pixaal posted:Having one artists doesn't always solve this. See Bleach, where by the last half everyone is standing in a white void talking. It used to have some decent backgrounds, never anything amazing. Kubo was at his best doing new costumes and should have done more power ups with costume changes drawn from all angles. Kubo as a manga artist was also being overworked like a farm animal. Did the man even have time for backgrounds after all was said and done? Like even Eiichiro Oda has a crew come in to help out with background work. I don't know if this guy was afforded that luxury.
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Jun 19, 2023 22:39
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Flopsy posted:Kubo as a manga artist was also being overworked like a farm animal. Did the man even have time for backgrounds after all was said and done? Like even Eiichiro Oda has a crew come in to help out with background work. I don't know if this guy was afforded that luxury. Yeah, the end of Bleach is pretty infamous for being a near-death march, and I believe he was quoted as saying he didn't want to take a break because he felt he'd never be able to come back and finish it if he did. (See also the current rough, rough finale of My Hero Academia...)
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Jun 19, 2023 23:27
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Manga artists are NOT treated well, it's an industry that preys on people's passion and desire to create and sucks them dry for it. The anime industry is the same way, and I'm not saying this because I hate anime and manga. I love a lot of anime, I love a lot of manga, but for the love of God let the people who are creating these things I enjoy be paid fairly and live decent lives instead of being worked to the point it makes them physically sick. This is also how I feel about western animation and video games, so many artists are mistreated and exploited and are never given fair compensation for their labor.
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Jun 19, 2023 23:37
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I’m an animator in vfx so I’ve been on a few death marches to hit deadlines but I was always paid for my overtime. Anime creators are paid either by the drawing or a very low flat rate (around 30k a year) to work 10-16 hour days 6-7 days a week. Brutal industry. Manga is similar. Berserk’s Kentaro Miura was apparently doing 16 hour days. That’s also common in western comics too though and the creators of western comics don’t even get royalties because they don’t own the IP and their work reaches far fewer people than manga. Anyway I just watched Batman Under the Red Hood. This one moves better than most DC stuff, at a level similar to when Telecom animates for them. This one is done by Answer studios which is also in Japan. The story isn’t very good but that’s not a consequence of the adaption, the source material was also pretty silly. Not a fan of the Joker in this one. None of his lines are funny and DiMaggio’s joker voice isn’t very interesting. Just sounds like a more guttural Hamill without any genuine glee. Not sure why this movie ranks so highly on lists. I guess many people must like the source material better than I do. Ccs fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jun 20, 2023 |
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Jun 20, 2023 00:23
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Ccs posted:That amazing screw on head pilot is awesome and I’m very sad that the hellboy stuff that did get full animated movies didn’t try to match that style. Sean Galloway is a good character designer but he’s too cutesy for hellboy. It really was. The animation was wild. Plus I'm totally gay for David Hyde Pierce. I should really bring back my old Emperor Zombie avatar. I really liked that one. edit: Oh yeah, Emperor Zombie's back baby Megillah Gorilla fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Jun 20, 2023 |
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Jun 20, 2023 11:48
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Escobarbarian posted:I finished season 2 of Human Resources. I know most people are sick of the Big Mouth universe now, which is fair, but I thought this was one of the better seasons to come out of it all. Plus it’s wild that they can get people like Florence Pugh and Miley Cyrus to play regular characters. I love that this spin-off has meant that David Thewlis can have a bigger role as he’s always been my favourite part of either show. Plus there’s less children which helps with how creepy some people find that element of the main show. The main kid in this season was in a storyline about helping a non-verbal autistic child communicate a want, which I thought was legitimately excellent. It's a surprisingly good show on its own merits, and you're right, this season really is hitting its storylines well and developing its characters at just the right pace. If there's one gripe I have with the show, it's about the animation, and not in the way you'd think. It's that the animators are SUPER into the "rub the back of your neck to express discomfort or embarrassment" gesture. It's such a dumb pet peeve of mine I guess but it's just ... so dumb. People don't actually do that! Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it a gesture that was developed by anime fan-artists who couldn't draw hands and so hid them behind the character's head whenever they were laughing uncomfortably or whatever? And then actual anime picked it up as though it were an actual thing people did, and/or people started doing it for real, and now it's metastasized all over the place? I mean maybe it's just evolving body language, fine, whatever. But even at that, the show just leans on it super hard. Any character who is ever uncomfortable or hesitant in their mannerisms just does it constantly
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