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McKeever's work often seems to lack a narrativity which (narrative) comics probably ought to possess, however there is the occasion, which appears to be nothing more than a happy accident, where the bends and folds and inappropriateness are actually far better at communicating than a more studied attempt could portray. If there were several versions of each page, and only those Happy Accident pages were retained for publication - oh, what wonders! But, no, instead, there's a lot of serviceable work.
I don't buy comics, usually, for just the writing or the art (because comics are writing and art, or they're just pictures grouped with a text or a text accompanying a picture), however, I will excuse one side being slighter than the other, as long as it's 'serviceable', doing it's job even at the meagerest. McKeever's a bit better, I'd say, at illustrating Pollack's 'Doom Patrol' writings, than the recent artists of 'X-Men' have handled Peter Milligan's scripts, but I don't find Rachel Pollack to be as good as Milligan... so it balances out. The best written comic could have upside down stick figures in a blurry haze and I'd probably be cool with that.
Anatomy and photo-realism adherence hold very, very little value to me. There's leagues difference between the work of Rob Liefeild and Pablo Picasso, and yet, damned if sometimes both of them have drawn birds that would never actually hold a sustained flight in the really real world.
Gilliam said something, somewhere, about his 'Bros. Grimm' film, and how, with the (were)wolf, they had to stretch out the face, sometimes, because at certain angles, a realistic wolf's head would appear to the audience to be more like a bear. They had to lie, visually, to communicate correctly.
Similarly, the film 'Mori no Densetsu' begins as a series of still illustrations just being slid around, like the jiggling old Marvel cartoons, before becoming, with maturity, first some vaguely-empty, black and white outlines, and then lush, colorful, full animation, as it tracks the life and times of one of the greatest type of cartoon animal ever, the flying squirrel. Because visually, those elements communicated pre-birth, childhood, and maturity (of a sort) in our protagonist in a way strict photorealism - even a real flying squirrel - could not.
I wonder if McKeever's better with personal, stand-alone pieces? Anyone know? |
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