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IT'S HERE -- part 2 of 2 in a long-awaited series.
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Whether Zenith Phase IV, starting in Jun 1992, represented a tailing-off in narrative and character is perhaps a matter of opinion, but it can hardly be disputed that Yeowell’s art took a nosedive. The joint credits of “Yeowell/Hart” probably indicate a split between inks and colours, and Yeowell seems to entirely slack off, providing only basic outlines for Gina Hart’s equally crude digital decoration. There’s still – there always is, in Yeowell – a basic knack for effective composition, and some hint at the subtle expressions from earlier work, but the lines are slashed out in a rush, blocky and thick like something for a kid to colour in. The figures stand in a blank vacuum, ready to be filled in with a click of the first “light green” or “light blue” that came to hand.
Maniac 5, from the 2000AD1993 summer offensive that saw Morrison produce the mindless Ecstasy-drool of Really and Truly, finds Yeowell and Hart working on an equally throwaway script from Mark Millar, and producing the same flat work. Again the underlying structure is there – it’s not like Yeowell ever seems to lose his talent – but the backgrounds are left empty for a quick wash of unvaried colour, and characters are sketched in a rush.
Yeowell teams up with Morrison again for the Invisibles in September 1994, and seems to recover his earlier enthusiasm: the art here, coloured by Daniel Vozzo, has the solidity and detail – in simple terms, just the care and attention – of Yeowell’s late-80s work on Phase III and Hitler. His guest-spot on Doom Patrol, around the same period, is of the same style.
Inked by Dick Giordano, though, his pencils are barely recognisable beneath the fussy, unappealingly scratchy finish. The trademark talent for striking layouts is just about discernable but the overall look is uninspired, old-fashioned, generally unappealing.
Giordano seems to ease off in the next episodes, and the clean-cut, sure but quick Yeowell emerges: nothing striking, but at least it’s competent rather than ugly. A far cry, though, from the peak in Zenith Phase III when you could linger in wonder over individual frames – not an exaggeration, I used to photocopy and enlarge them to A4 to enjoy the single images. This art would do for a fight between Transformers, or a Spider-Man spin-off: it doesn’t jar, it tells a story, but just as you don’t stop to peer at it in distaste, so you don’t go back to admire it.
And this, from the penultimate Invisibles, is just baffling – according to the credits, Yeowell pencilled and inked it, but again, apart from an underlying knack for composition you wouldn’t pick it out of a line-up as Yeowell art. The textures are finicky, scratchy; the backgrounds lazy. It’s as though Yeowell decided to learn from Giordano’s nasty inking technique.
Finally, the Zenith postscript: written by Morrison as cheeky satire, and Yeowell’s more cartoony art is appropriate in that context – but interestingly, his black and white inks, with their solid light and shadow, their witty attention to detail hark back to the Phase II style of the late 1980s.
Is it just laziness that allows Yeowell to slip from such heights to undistinguished lows? Is he best when handling all aspects of the art duties, rather than providing only the basics for an inker or colorist to complete? What was he like on Zoids? What’s he doing now and is it any good? |
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