something I am grateful for today

[johncomic]

Looking back at my old work and being able to see good in it... it's nice to be able to like what you do.

Comments

Good Job

[alisonebruce.livejournal.com]

And I like it too! :)

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes I wonder if we ever really improve as artists or if the nirvana derived from completing a piece blinds us enough to love what we have created and move on to the next piece. If we could see the work as it is, with years of reflection in the here and now, how many images would end up in the trash rather than on the racks?"

-- Jim Lee

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

Some of us are willing to accept that our work has a “right to exist” despite its imperfections...

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree... actually, I find it passing strange to see Mr. Lee talk about art "as it is," when art is always viewed through an intensely subjective pair of eyes.

It seems plausible to me that a single piece of art, in the opinion of its artist, might be trashed, then treasured, then trashed, then treasured, over as short a span of time as twenty years.

I've also read that a certain Mr. Windsor-Smith familiar to you has criticized Mr. Lee on the grounds that his work has no emotional intimacy. I'm not sure what that means either.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what it means, but I feel that I can grasp corners of it on a gut level... something like surface beauty with no emotional investment by the artist or possibly on the part of the reader? The characters aren't alive? Maybe something like that....

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought so too... but then I thought "How can Mr. Windsor-Smith tell what Mr. Lee's, or my, emotional investment is in Mr. Lee's work? What is the objective yardstick for emotion?"

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

It's a subjective yardstick!! :P

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

He also said this about Liefeld's art. Well, I can see what he means there, because IMO Mr. Liefeld is... not very good. It seems more mechanical in execution, a job to be done, and in his case, not done very well. I could point to specific examples that are objective in this sense.

Mr. Lee is more accomplished. It's harder for me to be sure it was just a paycheck for him.

I recently read the two Batman sagas The Long Halloween and Hush. Same writer, but the artist for the first is Tim Sale and for the second Jim Lee. They could not be more different in style, and I think Mr. Windsor-Lee would probably say, in emotional intimacy. It would be interesting discussing these differences with you in e-mail if you've read them both.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

Haven't read (or heard of) either, actually...