#comic books

[weirdlandtv]

How to depict blinking in a comic? Oh hello, by the way. Yes, I'm still alive. I'm fine and how are you and all that but—how to depict blinking in a comic strip? Carl Barks used this method—

The ducks' huge eyes are split in two, with one set of slightly faded pupils in the top half (see image 1), and another of solid black pupils in the lower half, both sets cut off in such a way that the “stacked” pupils don't appear like one large elongated pupil (a thin white horizontal line separates the two states as well); and that, with the added "Blink! Blink!" gets the job done perfectly. Here’s another slightly different blink:

(Now that I'm writing this stuff about top half, bottom half I'm suddenly reminded of a Barks gag I came across: a file cabinet in the background of a panel with one drawer saying TOP SECRET and the one below it saying BOTTOM SECRET.)

Really though, Barks's brilliant stories are en endless source of great ideas, gags, splash pages, twists, visual tricks, pacing, phrasing, suspense building, the whole proverbial "shebang", whatever a shebang is: I've said it before on this blog but any budding artist or writer—heck, even a professional one—could learn a lot from Barks's best work. Fireworks of creativity.

Re-reading some of Barks's stories, as I sometimes do by way of therapy, it struck me that many panels consist of three main elements: a foreground element, a middle section where the action takes place, and a background:

This foreground element can really be anything. It can be a bush, a tree, a rock, even a wave:

It can be a chair, a table, or any other piece of interior:

It can be a character, or just their silhouette:

And of course it's also a good way to hide snooping villains:

In the Gyro Gearloose stories the foreground element is often Little Helper having a kind of silent slapstick adventure of his own (in Dutch here as it’s from my own copy):

…Also, how is this for dark:

[why-i-love-comics]

DC Pride: Love & Justice (2024)

art by Sophie Campbell

[shyjusticewarrior]

[After Knight Terrors]

Tim: It seems Jason is more mentally ill than I realized.

Steph: Yeah duh.

[bad-comic-art]

From Green lantern volume 3 (1990)

They are Kyle Rayner (Green lantern) and Donna Troy (darkstar)

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submitted by @ajaxxx-x

[camo-wolf]

WHY DO THEY KEEP GIVING HIS SUCH UGLY ASS SUITS GET HIS ORIGINAL BACK!!!

(Edit it’s Tim I’m so sorry everyone still ugly though)

[kekwcomics]

PHANTOM STRANGER #41 (DC, 1976)

Art: Jim Aparo

[illyanarasputinfan]

Joshua Robinson

[machetelanding]

Norm Breyfogle

[why-i-love-comics]

DC Pride: Love & Justice (2024)

art by Stephen Byrne

[shyjusticewarrior]

I don't really have strong feelings about what Cass and Jason's dynamic should be. But I think people who think Jason would hate Cass for believing in not killing don't understand Jason as a character.

[comicpitt]

[camo-wolf]

WTF is going on

(Edited)

[robot-carl]

Just two crime lesbians and their sleeping bisexual boss. Crime is tiring business.

[superheroes-or-whatever]

Batman (2016-) #146 art by Jorge Jimenez