Alex Ross is probably my favorite comic book artist that is still alive. The late George Perez was my favorite comic book artist of all time...but all good things need to end I suppose. RIP George Perez. I learned that (just yesterday) Alex Ross is going to be at San Diego Comic Con this year, and he will be seated at booth #2415.
If you are one of the lucky folks who attend the convention, and you happen to also be one of the lucky folks who get to meet Alex Ross at his booth (I'm sure it will have like a three-hour line that will rapidly run out of product), you will be able to purchase his new comic book called Origins: Fantastic Four. Yes, I want a copy of this book desperately (as soon as I heard it was going to be available). And I can also just put my name on the waiting list (which is what I'm doing) that you can find at his website HERE.
Given that money is sloshing everywhere in our economy, I'm sure the $195 price point will not deter any of his fans (especially since Brandon Sanderson had fans that contributed $45 million to his platinum-lined coffers for books that they know nothing about). That's why inflation is running amok. People in this country appear to be loaded, but unequally so. The haves got money running out of their arse. The have nots...well...they are really struggling.
If you are unfamiliar with Alex Ross, he has a photo-realistic style that I really enjoy. Not only are his comics fun to page through, but pages of them are quite honestly frame-worthy. If I had full-sized prints in frames, I'd put them on the wall of my game room. This stunning, realistic style is in contrast to a lot of other kinds of comic book artists, who use line art with coloring to bring their heroes and stories to life. For lack of a better example, Ross paints his heroes and villains with the kind of passion as a renaissance painter. This serves to capture the emotion and movement and power of a scene in a different way. To look at his work technically, he uses gouache and wash paints (think of watercolor) but gouache is more opaque and wash is less opaque. The effect is to produce layers of color that have no clear brushstrokes. Below is an image he did of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, and you can immediately see what I'm talking about.
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Have a great weekend. I'm seeing Thor: Love and Thunder tonight, so I'll probably be reviewing that movie on Monday.
I love Alex Ross's work. I really like when an actual artist puts a lot of time into a comic instead of some things these days which look like the artist ran out of time and just handed in sketches. Reading 3 volumes of Dr. Strange recently on Amazon Prime, one volume (where he goes to space) had real Ross-type art. Then another (where he's a surgeon again) had really more of a Sunday funnies type art. And then another (where Loki is sorcerer supreme) had that really bare style I hate.
ReplyDeleteI lot of people don't mind but I think Ross's style is great because it's a lot of work--and it shows. It's the difference between reading a book that's written well and edited well versus one that's obviously just a first draft with a lot of typos.
Even when he just does the cover like with The Immortal Hulk or some old JSA ones it's still worth the price just for that.
You like what you like. There will always be haters. I find that there is no "right" when it comes to art. What speaks to you doesn't necessarily speak to everyone else.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get your comic sooner rather than later.