Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Older, but still relevant

This is from an old Newsarama feature on Daughters of the Dragon #1 back in January, but I've been meaning to point it out for a while.

The layout sketch:


Artist Kari Evans' judgement:
As you can see, there are slight changes from the layouts… panel three totally changed, and went for a more dynamic landing in the last from the layout version.


Completed page:


Allow me to repeat that with emphasis:
[...] went for a more dynamic landing in the last [...]

31 comments:

  1. So...dynamic equals over balanced and about to fall over?

    Interesting.

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  2. She went from "ready for action!" to "ready for action."

    Oy.

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  3. If he really wanted "dynamic" she'd be in some sort of crouching position, and her back would most certainly NOT be broken.

    How do these guys keep getting work? I guess some editors must really believe in the male-reader wank factor. I keep thinking, if guys wanted this they wouldn't get it from comics when they can get enough actual porn online...

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  4. Even the placement of the sword is more phallic, uh, I mean dynamic.

    It's crap like this that turns Mom's against comics and that in turn puts them offlimits to new readers.

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  5. This is why, as much as some people raved about it, I never picked up *Daughters of the Dragon*.

    (Not to mention every time I saw the artwork, I always thought, Where do they put their car keys?)

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  6. I wasn't aware Frank Cho was still working for Marvel...

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  7. Urrrm...The poor girl is going to
    need a chiropractor, or...or traction or SOMETHING! I don't think that's physically possible!
    Does her right arm telescope or
    something? The proportions are
    dreadful. This is supposed to
    be "sexy"??! It just makes me
    snicker.
    Heh.

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  8. Evans apparently looked at the layout and thought, "I can't be posing her like Spider-Man! What was I thinking?

    Kalinara makes a good point--Colleen Wing looks like she's just executed a deft ninja leap onto that balcony; it's not perfect and over-dramatic, but at least it conveys a sense of the physics involved.

    The second panel is just embarassing, or ought to be, for the parties involved. It's porny and makes no sense in the apparent context of the scene. She doesn't look like she just got there--it's more as though she's been doing tantric yoga for the past fifteen minutes or something.

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  9. To be clear, I meant that Wing looked like she just leapt to the balcony in the first panel, not the second. I was a trifle vague.

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  10. Clearly, "dynamic" in this case is a synonym for "shitty."

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  11. It took me several minutes before I realized that her hand was not, in fact, coming out of her rear.

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  12. While that panel was obviously changed to be more sexual, and I'm not objecting to you point about it being wrong that this was changed; In looking at the page on the Newsarama site, the panel in question here is panel 5 on the page, not panel 3. Panel three originally had a full shot of Colleen jumping, and the revised panel just showed her foot as she jumped.

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  13. Reminds me of an old saying go... "one person's 'dynamic landing' is another person's 'looks like they're about to take it up the pooper.'"

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  14. Phillip -- Yeah, but there was no landing in panel 3. She was jumping in panel 3. The landing was panel 5, which the quote refers to as "the last"

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  15. Actually, Ragnell is a bit right there. Khari is listing the changes done on the page, and the "panel three totally changed" part is talking about the upper right hand corner. Then he goes on to talk about "went for a more dynamic landing in the last from the layout version," which goes with the quote "sometimes it's debatable whether 'pushing it' makes the most natural figure. No, no it does not.
    And on first glance, I thought he had added a bunny tail to the costume, and that the sword was just floating. It made no sense, but since the pose also does make sense...
    By the way, on Panel 3, he had a stiff panel which he did in fact try to make more dynamic. However, the action added to the panel actually takes the readers eye up and away from the page. If it has another page to the right of it, the natural feel will be to skip the next three panels on the page and go to the next page. If it's an odd-numbered page, suddenly you've got a reader looking for something else to look at entirely.

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  16. Full disclosure: DotD has been one of my favorite guilty pleasures in recent months. That said, Khari Evans has some...unusual notions on how female anatomy works. Never mind the overt sexualization - are girls actually supposed to be able to bend like that in the first place? The contortions he puts them through look downright painful. You'd think poor Colleen would spend all her free time at the chiropractor's...

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  17. "And by 'dynamic', I mean, really fucking gross."

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  18. Not only that, but is she grabbing the katana by the blade, or am I just seeing it wrong?

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  19. Ragnell, do you mind if I post this to the LJ feminist community?

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  20. Every single change they made is for the worse.

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  21. Unless Colleen's been downing some of Ralph Dibny's discarded Gingold, that CAN'T be comfortable!

    What the hell was he smoking (or jerking) when he came up with those changes

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  22. Looks like she's just giving birth to a ninja. The miracle of life!


    But seriously, although the first pose may have been pretty generic/unoriginal, at least it would have done the job. After seeing the second one, he should've redesigned the entire panel.

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  23. "Not only that, but is she grabbing the katana by the blade, or am I just seeing it wrong?"

    Yes, she's holding it by the blade.

    The artist probably thought that made the phallic symbolism even stronger.

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  24. The book is simply two-bit Danger Girl. You just gotta put your hands in the air and go 'whatever' instead of lamenting the loss of more evenly balanced female characters in the Marvel U.

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  25. I've passed this post around my office, and we have agreed to name the final image "Go Go Gadget Suppository Sword!"

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  26. Your footer is very loaded. Like this nice blog.

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  27. I'm with bomster I thought that very short cartoon dude (whose name I cannot recall) who wears a too big helmet and gloves was up her ass and being the friendly little guy he is caught the sword for her - and yeah! by the blade even!

    Great blog.

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  28. While the position of the hand is ridiculous in the second take, the position of the hand on the sword is the same in both. I'm not a martial artist (INAMA), but presumably the sword remains sheathed during the breaking and entering phase to allow for acrobatics with minimal risk of self-injury.

    Michael

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  29. I asked my 14 year old brother for an opinion: "Which one looks more dynamic?"
    He said the bottom looked more dynamic, but then, I noticed a difference in how he talked about the panels:
    He said "she" when talking about the bottom panel, but "he" in the top panel.

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