what's with ASM and having three artists work on the same issue? It's annoying as hell!
what's with ASM and having three artists work on the same issue? It's annoying as hell!
Agreed, I think it shows a real weakness in editorial to get to the point where more than one artist is needed for a single book. It's been a problem in ASM since Ottley left and they clearly had no back up plan.
The only times it doesn't bother me is for double or triple sizes issues or when it specifically adds to the narrative of a book, e.g. regular art for real world and a completely different style for a dream or flashback (even then I'd prefer one artist using different styles).
It's actually a big bugbear of mine when they change the artist during an arc (e.g. parts 1-3 by one penciller then 4-5 by another). During one issue completely breaks the immersion for me.
"Has Sariel summoned you here, Azrael? Have you come to witness the miracle of your brethren arriving on Earth?"
"I WILL MIX THE ASHES OF YOUR BONES WITH SALT AND USE THEM TO ENSURE THE EARTH THE TEMPLARS TILLED NEVER BEARS FRUIT AGAIN!"
"*sigh* I hoped it was for the miracle."
Dan Watters' Azrael was incredible, a constant delight and perhaps too good for this world (but not the Forth). For the love of St. Dumas, DC, give us more!!!
Fr, was hoping it would end w/ Spencer and they would pull it together.But they went in the opposite direction and hard.
Editorial needs to pull it together.
ASM has been a mess for most of this volume, with Ryan Ottley doing 3 or 4 issues in a row and then leaving for 5 or 6. It REALLY became a carousel once he left ASM for good. A lot of that has to do with the ridiculous schedule, with Nick Spencer pumping out 2 or 3 books a month (sometimes even OVERSIZED books) just to advance the numbering and meet a quota, so that ASM could hit legacy numbering with #850 and then hit it again at #900 in time to celebrate Spider-Man's 60th Anniversary. As a result, this volume of ASM has been a rushed mess of issues pumped out as fast as possible and the art AND writing have really suffered. Hopefully things will calm down some and get better and more consistent after the book finally hits the #900 mark and the big Anniversary issue has come and gone.
Last edited by Uncanny Mutie; 09-22-2021 at 06:23 AM.
I miss Ottley, do we know why he left? He drew one of the most menacing Green Goblins, and his Kindred was nice, both creepy and Goofy looking.
I also agree, that having rotating artists in one issue breaks the immersion. I often couldn't recognize if it's Harry or Norman.
"Has Sariel summoned you here, Azrael? Have you come to witness the miracle of your brethren arriving on Earth?"
"I WILL MIX THE ASHES OF YOUR BONES WITH SALT AND USE THEM TO ENSURE THE EARTH THE TEMPLARS TILLED NEVER BEARS FRUIT AGAIN!"
"*sigh* I hoped it was for the miracle."
Dan Watters' Azrael was incredible, a constant delight and perhaps too good for this world (but not the Forth). For the love of St. Dumas, DC, give us more!!!
Yeah for marvel number 1 hero they don't have consistent art that's one of my issues with this run.
"He's pure power and doesn't even know it. He's the best of us."-Matt Murdock
"I need a reason to take the mask off."-Peter Parker
"My heart half-breaks at how easy it is to lie to him. It breaks all the way when he believes me without question." Felicia Hardy
There are two separate topics.
Why do we have multiple artists on the title? The main answer is that Marvel prefers to publish more issues of Amazing Spider-Man than even prolific artists can draw. I believe this is the right call.
As for why we have multiple artists on a single issue, this is mainly because Marvel prioritizes getting books out on time over artistic unity.
There are likely ways to have this work out better, although those require prepping in advance, which makes the series less able to adapt.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
Even when Ottley was around that was still happening, as early as ASM#1 vol 5 when Ramos is drawing Mysterio's trial for some reason, other issues like ASM#6 vol 5 had art switching for no real reason too.
It mostly wasn't happening when Ottley was around, but unfortunately, still happening.
I think with the Mysterio trial thing in #1 it worked fine cause I recall it was a backup story, I'm fine with switchups if there's a legit reason like it's a backup or is purposefully part of the story but otherwise I agree big time on the major sentiments that the inconsistent art has been a big problem for much of this run specifically.
From the outside it just looks like editorial isn't planning things right with how it's constantly needing multiple artists for just a single issue, it's sloppy and immersion breaking. I want a single story arc to have a consistent vision, most cases it just ruins it for me. My favorite stories this run were probably most of the ones Ottley drew because he was able to do full stories to himself. Gleason's first arc got derailed midway through by bland fill-ins.
The Spider-Verse comic being advertised as being drawn by Coipel like a big deal, then had Camuncoli drawing half of it. Wasn't a big fan of that story either but visual consistency would have helped it in my eyes, I just don't see how a story can be definitive if it's inconsistent artwise- comics are a visual medium and art shouldn't be interchangeable for a story.
It's still odd that Mysterio's story in ASM#1 had an artist change, specially since it was rather short, it was kind of a warning of what things would be like lol.
And yeah, the artist change within the same issue is just lame, at the very least they usually happen during scene changes but, meh, if you're calling more than one artist, should have the others mimic the main one for the sake of consistency.