General Category > Artist Spotting

Art Spotting in general

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fan777 (RIP):
I'm glad we're working on this topic. I've been fascinated with the Iger studio for awhile and all the question marks in the Grand Comic Database.  It seems like Mr Iger encouraged his staff to copy or trace the styles of the better artists adding a mass of confusion as to who did what or what part of the panel was done by whom.  For me, I'm focusing on Maurice Whitman who worked for 10 years at Iger doing a variety of characters and covers.  An old index by Al Dellinges with Henry Steele gave most of the credit for the Jungle covers between 132 and 163 to Whitman. This has been disputed by Jim V.  I've put together a publication of covers and splashs so that I can flip back and forth between images. Any strong evidence as to which of these covers Mr Whitman made a strong contribution to would be helpful as I present my case to Jim. I've also got a run of Alter Egos to plow thru for data.

JVJ (RIP):
I agree with you regarding #s 1 & 2, bchat,
but I was hoping for #3 - a place where one could go to find out who drew a story.
I guess I don't understand the benefit of someone studying, say, the work of Gene Colan to learn how to identify it. After all these years, how many undiscovered Gene Colan stories are there? So, yes, you could assemble scads of Colan samples and hope that someone would study them and learn what makes a Colan story. And then what?

MAYBE that will translate into a "lesson" that will eventually develop into a class on Art Spotting, but I don't see it happening. It SHOULD be happening. More people should be learning the skill/art since there has never been a time when MORE comic samples have been so easily available. Yet it's hard to name more than a couple of people who have contributed to sorting out Golden Age artist credits - and most of them were doing it long before GAC or DCM came along. What new Art Spotters have developed? And how do we make that happen?

My experience, and I can only speak for myself, is that if you've got the art spotter's gene then all you need to do is memorize the names of the different styles. If I wanted to teach you what Clem Weisbecker or Sam Glankoff or Barbara Hall looked like, yes, I could give you a bunch of scans with their names on them and, if you had the gene, that would be enough. The next time you saw a Glankoff story, you'd know it was him. If you didn't have the gene, you probably wouldn't know. Me, I have half of the gene. I look at a Glankoff story and say, "Yeah, I KNOW that guy. He worked at Parents doing True Comics." Then I go and look through my True Comics index cards that I did with Hames Ware and as soon as I see Glankoff's name, I know who it is. There's the memory component of the connection with Parents that leads me to the answer. Perhaps others can make the direct connection. I seldom can.

I will only say that I prefer to see a full story. Splash pages and covers are often atypical when it comes to style (and are easily copied). I need to see the mundane work, the average efforts, not those meant to impress. That's where the real artist comes out, in my mind. It's the general crowds or the secondary characters for me - the one's that don't have stylesheets that might make it difficult to tell when one artist replaces another. The characters that don't require thought are more indicative of style. Just as the way a panel is laid out and the characters positions in that panel is more indicative to me than the contrivance of a cover.

Showing a bunch of samples of a bunch of artists certainly can help (and definitely can't hurt) those looking to develop the skill of identifying unsigned comic book stories. But I don't see it as how the next generation of spotters is going to emerge. I believe that once someone finds that they have the skill, they'll find someone who knows more than they do and apprentice themselves to him. Before that, they are likely to refer to GCD to see who they think the artist might be, adding that name/style to their repertoire. Again, that is my experience. You either have it or you don't. You can learn more names but the "HOW" is in the genes. I would LOVE to be proved wrong.

"disputed" is a strong word, fan777. Until I have studied the covers noted, I can only say that I question the blanket attribution to Whitman.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

Yoc:
I have put a message out there inviting the experts that populate the Timely-Atlas-Comics Yahoo group run by DocV.  A more knowledgeable group would be hard to find.

If Henry or Narf would let the GCD gang know about here it would be appreciated.

John C:
Take this with an obvious grain of salt, Jim, since I have only the vaguest interest in the art side of things, but it seems to me that a lot of the process of any skill is actually just exercise.  It might not be "productive to the cause" to have someone who can spot Gene Colan, but there's no chance (to use myself as a guinea pig) I'm going to look at someone's unknown page and see it without getting used to what to look for with regard to an artist that can be easily verified.  Bumbling around on my own, I don't know from line weights or composition.  I'm lucky if I can name a dozen colors...

Organization like is being suggested, I think, helps someone interested see past the content of the art and to the artist behind it.

JVJ (RIP):
Let's continue to hope that you're right and I'm wrong, John.
I would very much prefer it your way. It's just that I've had no experience of that happening.

(|:{>

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