Thursday, May 26, 2011

WHAT KILLED ROMANCE COMICS (EXPANDED)?

What killed romance comics? I wish all questions were as easy to answer. It's pretty obvious that what killed love comics were.....good realistic artists.  Expert draughtsmen like Neal Adams, simply couldn't master the surreal, grotesque world of twisted love.  Good draughtsmen took over the romance comics and drove the readers away.

I know what you're thinking...Jack Kirby (above) was a good draughtsman and he did a great job on the romance comics, so where does he fit in? The answer is that Kirby was the rare exception who had the imagination of a bad draughtsman combined with the technical skill of a good one.  Less imaginative,  realistic draughtsmen like the artists at D.C. simply couldn't get down and dirty enough to imagine the bizarre poses that romance requires.

BTW: How do you like the Kirby drawing above? I like the way the man with blocky fingers wraps his arm around the girl with the webbed claws.  Amazingly, their faces seem to occupy the same space.


Above, a story about a girl who has to choose between a handsome normal guy and a loathsome hippie. With a subject like that it should have been a great cover, but the editor handed it over to a technical artist who had no soul. You see the result.

Here (above) a less skilled but more imaginative artist does a better job. The giant wicked city woman looms over her tiny boyfriend and lays it on him that she's slept with every man in town. The man should have been red-faced, but that was impossible given the position of his hands. Undaunted, the resourceful colorist instead made the man's hands red...and it works. Technical artists never do fun things like that.


  How do you like the "Man Starved" cover above? The figures are pretty stiff but the tryst is solemnized by the unnatural, stylized neck poses, the poker chip moon,  and the devil car watching on the bottom right. Only a lesser artist would have thought of cool stuff like this!


Boy, artists were fond of those wonky neck poses (above)! In real life the girl's neck might be broken by a pose like this this, but it works. The man's hand is goofy too, but it fits with the weird heads and horror comics color. You accept it as a stylistic flourish. 


Is this guy (above) kissing a cardboard cutout? What are those ginger root thingies on her arms? And why is she posed like that? I don't know, but it works for me. This is the kind of artist who belongs in the romance biz. 



The girl (above) puts her tiny little arms around her giant behemoth of a boyfriend, who appears to be sucking on her forehead. The artist is on to something here. The real life size difference between men and women is often shocking. You can't imagine how people so different could even procreate. Only an imaginative lesser draughtsman would be bold enough to take the trouble to comment on this.  


Here (above) the girl has the usual tiny arms, awkward perspective cheats, and fish fingers.  That's okay, I'm used to it. 

What I'm not used to is the way their faces fit on their skulls, The girl's face is extremely wide, and wraps around the whole front of her head. The boy's features are just the opposite...they're pinched and cramped on a thin, vertical strip on the front of his face. You see incongruities like this all the time in real life, but only the lesser draughtsman is brave enough to comment on it. 


I wonder if sci-fi artist Fletcher Hanks (above) ever tried his hand at romance comics?


Imagine a story where a big, angry boyfriend discovers another guy trying to muscle in on his girl. Fletcher Hanks would have aced it, and created a comic classic.

Many thanks to Romans for the comment that identified this artist.  



NEXT POST ON MONDAY MORNING,  MAY 30TH!

22 comments:

  1. Romance sure is weird.

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  2. maybe it was Roy Lichtenstein...

    The Kirby's not timid... a lumpen contorting pile of flesh- Romantz!

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  3. Is what you're saying is that the quirky, naive or (more likely) ignorant artist are what made romance comics. While talented ones were so use to using proper techniques like perspective to make them appealing? Or is it that they didn't want to draw dirty/explicit pose? Either way, I can't say I disagree. Probably more money in Superhero genre too.

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  4. Wilson12:17 PM

    You could say that Kirby fits into the bad artist role because he also draws people anatomically incorrectly. Or do you mean bad morally?

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  5. Wilson12:18 PM

    How rude of me, I also wanted to say that, knowing little about the subject, this was a very interesting essay. For some reason I thought you assumed my enthusiasm. Thanks.

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  6. Interesting concepts. Well if you want to depict romantics as people caught in a vertigo of sorts, then having proper, unspooled images would likely destroy the intended effect.
    In real life, lovers are often caught half in or out of poses, similar to drunks I'd suspect. It's a crazy dynamism that is worth doing (and redoing) till you get it near-right.

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  7. So are these examples of good or bad artists?

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  8. Anonymous2:23 PM

    Iy yi yi. If these guys are bad, what does that make me? :(

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  9. The guy kissing the cardboard cutout just made my day.

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  10. John: These examples are all by artists that did a commendable job, at least in the panels I put up. In other words, they're imaginative and not willing to settle for photo realim.

    Wilson: I rewrote what I said About Kirby, but I still didn't succeed in articulating what I had in mind. Oh, well.....

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  11. I never thought much of romance comics, but your take gives me an open mind. What a gold mine it would be to discover a lost trove of Fletcher Hanks romance work!
    I always felt that a lot of the appeal behind Kirby's style was an outcome of his hack, journeyman's efficiency--which has a type of elegance I guess.
    I read somewhere that Graham Ingels of EC was a romance artist before he came into his own as a horror artist. He was supposed to be quite bad at romance-would be interesting to examine him with your take.

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  12. Romans: HOLY COW! I didn't recognize the name Fletcher Hanks so I did a google search on him. AMAZING! Yes, it would be interesting to see romance comics done by this man! Many thanks for the tip!

    I'm not surprised to hear that Graham Ingels did romance comics. A lot of early romancers had a horror flavor.

    John: I rewrote a section of the post to make my point clearer, but the rewrite forces me to amend my answer to your comment. It should read "All but one of the examples I posted were commenable."

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  13. But who are the good artists that ruined romance comics? Maybe I'm missing the point...?

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  14. I see a bum and the back of two legs with cellulite where Stardust's chest should be. Does this have something to do with his super powers?

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  15. I'm surprised that everyone is so confused.

    Eddie's just saying that the real point of romance comics is to poke fun at love... to expose romance's inherent ridiculousness.

    A technically perfect drawing gives gravity to whatever it's depicting. So isn't a quirky, semi-ignorant drawing better in making romance look foolish?

    An expert draftsman who can draw everything in proportion, in perspective, and anatomically correct is missing the point completely.

    At least that's what I think he meant. I don't want to put words in his mouth.

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  16. Adam: Thaaaank you!!!!! You articulated it better than I did. I'll just add one more thought i.e., if I were doing this type of comic I'd take it seriously at the same time I was making fun of it. I really do believe in romantic love, and have genuine sympathy for people who are having trouble with it.

    Thomas: Flether hanks: you either love him or hate him.

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  17. Anonymous1:20 PM

    Hey Eddie. Are there good examples of what happens to a couple when they get a divorce or separation in a romance comic? Just wondering. My father made a huge mistake to put it lightly and it's plunged my family into chaos, especially with my mother. It's probably worse than anything that's happened to me all year or late last year. I try not to worry about it too much, but it's still quite painful to go through deep down inside.

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  18. Robero: Aaaargh! I'm sorry to hear that your family has that problem. I never saw divorce discussed in a romance comic, but I do have an opinion about it. If you were lucky enough to fall in love with a really admirable and nice human being who loved you back, don't ever split up.

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  19. Man, I should just stop trying to be a good artist and draw some romance comics. Sounds like it'd be more fun!

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  20. Hi Eddie, what do you think of Frezetta's Romance comics, he's of course an excellent, illustrator with rather sophisticated techniques and I think his work is also what you would call sensual or lush, lots of thick broody shadows and people draped in each other’s arms, which perfectly suits the tone of these type of melodramatic stories.

    Also while I adore Kirby I think Frezetta is probably better at this type of stuff because he was just really good at drawing pretty woman and handsome, chiseled guys.
    Here's an example I from the Golden age comic book stories blog.
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PB-O1yT5EYg/S-30PYDzDII/AAAAAAAA75A/bWlRfoMZ5BE/s1600/untamedlove_03_fritz.jpg

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  21. Hi Eddie and Jules,
    Now that Jules brought up Frazetta...he was the guy that I was first going to mention, before I brought up his antithesis, Fletcher Hanks.
    The thing about Frazetta is that I end up just studying his drawings-I sorta loose track of the story. With the less apt artists, they can make the story more interesting.

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  22. Not many people know that Jack Kirby & his partner invented romance comics.

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