I'm Swearing off the Trivia Contest

[comicinvestor-migration]

Okay, you guys may think I complain a lot, but this week's trivia question was incredibly lame. I could care less if I win (and I wouldn't have either way), I just detest when something is this utterly wrong:

 

"What was the first comic book drawn by Jim Lee?"

 

Now I asked this of noted comic experts and each one stated Alpha Flight 51. When I told them the Solson issue, their reply was essentially:

 

"But he only inked that issue, he didn't draw the art for it"

 

Oh yeah, and for you Disciples of Jens (with 3-4 answers per reply), great work!! Next time, everyone post a full biography of the artist and crash the server.

[murph0]

That's his first Marvel work, there's even another book before Samurai Santa. Anyways, I think I'm done with it too until they make it ONE answer. Too many people wrote like 4 different answers in their text...I mean hell..If I write enough stuff I'm sure to hit the right answer eventually.

 

Brian

[Rickdogg]

The rules should be like my "guess the price" contest on the Thor CGC 10. 1 answer and no revisions.

[comicinvestor-migration]

That's his first Marvel work, there's even another book before Samurai Santa.

 

Yeah, but he didn't draw the art for Samurai Santa so that doesn't count. If there is a full comic book (not a pin-up naturally) with Jim Lee art in it pre-Alpha Flight 51, then I stand corrected, and plan on asking some of my buddies about their answer.

[fantastic_four]

Inking IS drawing. Refdesk.com definition of the verb "draw" relevant to comics: "to produce a likeness or representation of by making lines on a surface". Both inking and penciling are drawing.

 

Had the question specifically stated pencilling or inking, you'd have a point; but it used the more generic verb "draw."

[ArAich]

Both inking and penciling are drawing

 

Gotta agree with you there. Look at any Silver book and you will see both a penciller and an inker in the credits. The penciller is the rough draft and the inker is the final draft but they both participated in drawing the book.

[fantastic_four]

A lot of people look down on the inker as just the insufficiently_thoughtful_person who traces what the penciller does; that's the basis of people not thinking that inking is "true" drawing. It's pretty easy to minimize a lot of artistic positions.

 

How about this one--film actors are just the insufficiently_thoughtful_persons who say what the screenwriter writes. Or David Letterman and Tom Brokaw just read what their writers give them. Anybody can do that!!!

[keithdagen]

How about this one--film actors are just the insufficiently_thoughtful_persons who say what the screenwriter writes. Or David Letterman and Tom Brokaw just read what their writers give them. Anybody can do that!!!

 

Except that Letterman's writers don't get in front of the audience and test their lines out first, nor do screenwriters get in front of the cameras and act.

[comicinvestor-migration]

I happen to disagree, as I was always taught that the art of drawing starts with creating something from absolutely nothing. Starting with a blank slate and creating a likeness from there.

 

Inking is an art form to be sure, but no way in hell's half acre will I ever equate it with drawing.

[keithdagen]

CI,

 

Kind of like me taking a paint-by-numbers, finishing it, and comparing myself with Da Vinci.

 

Art and inks are two different skills, but you can't equate the two.

[lighthouse]

Oh yeah, and for you Disciples of Jens (with 3-4 answers per reply), great work!! Next time, everyone post a full biography of the artist and crash the server.

 

As one of the people who listed multiple answers, I find the fault to be with the question, not the multi-part answers.

 

First comic drawn by Jim Lee: probably some cartoon he drew while he was in med school...

 

First comic book drawn by Jim Lee: Wild Boys, his collaborated submission that got him the job at Marvel, which pre-dated the Samurai Santa book, but was never published so it clearly doesn't count.

 

So then the struggle becomes "Which of the incorrect answers is the examiner looking for?" Do they want the first time he pencilled a page, the first time he inked a page, the first time he worked on an entire published story...

 

It's as if they asked the question, "When did the CGC market crash start?" You have to spend some time defining your terms or the question isn't valid...

 

Although we all know the crash started at 6:22pm EDT on August 3rd, 2002....

[Guest]

I happen to disagree, as I was always taught that the art of drawing starts with creating something from absolutely nothing. Starting with a blank slate and creating a likeness from there.

 

Inking is an art form to be sure, but no way in hell's half acre will I ever equate it with drawing.

 

If you knew what sort of shape some pencilers turn in their "artwork" you wouldn't be so quick to say that. Just because someone is listed as an inker, it doesn't mean they haven't had to do a lot of "something from nothing." For example, anyone that's inked someone with very loose pencils (like Denys Cowyn or, for that matter, Jim Lee) will tell you about "something from nothing." they'll give you more info than you bargained for.

 

That's not even talking about lazy pencilers. One superstar at Marvel a few years back (on one of the X Books) on occasion used to turn in nothing but HEADS rendered fully. Nothing else was anything more than a sketchy outline. That's an extreme example, but there are plenty of people that noodle in "tech" backgrounds and expect the inker to make sense of it.

 

And, of course, this is all ignoring the fact that inkers are usually the gatekeepers to depth, texture and the illusion of three dimensions on a comic page.

[comicinvestor-migration]

You seem to be under the impression that I look down on inkers, and that's far from the truth. I just feel that drawng means starting out with a blank page and creating an image or likeness from the ground up.

 

That doesn't make the inker second-string by any means, he's just not drawing in the pure form (as I see it).

 

The reason I feel this way is by your loose definition, the colorist is also drawing, the letterer is also drawing, heck even the guy who puts notes and layout additions on is also drawing. I always go back to the source for the drawing, and who started out with a blank sheet in front of them.

[Guest]

On another day (when I had more time/ energy) I might be inclined to argue that the colorist is "drawing" as well As for letterers- Old school, hand letterers were drawing. That's how one creates a uniform, readable, font by hand- you draw it. It's not the same as "writing."

 

But whatever, this is just a semantic argument. No real point (which is why I'm not doing the colorist thing ) It does illustrate how vague the question was, though. If we can go on even this long trying to figure out what "drawing" means.... that doesn't bode well for the clarity of the question.

[ArAich]

, the letterer is also drawing

 

Yes the letterer does indeed draw. The letters don't just magically appear....

[comicinvestor-migration]

If we can go on even this long trying to figure out what "drawing" means.... that doesn't bode well for the clarity of the question.

 

Sure, but let's look at it a different way. Ask the following question to 100 die-hard comic fans:

 

Who DREW Uncanny X-Men 108:

 

1) John Byrne

2) Terry Austin

3) Joe Rosen

4) Andy Yanchus

 

Then total them up and you'll have the consensus opinion on what DRAWING means in the comic world. 'Nuff Said.

[ArAich]

 

Alright...I give up...Who did draw X-men 108...

[PovertyRow]

It is a bogus question open to much interpretation. (And I transposed the 51 into 15 to make things even sillier).

[Illiterati-migration]

It is a bogus question open to much interpretation. (And I transposed the 51 into 15 to make things even sillier).

 

I think we're ignoring the real issue here... with the advent of computer-coloring, we are seeing the Fall of the Inkers! I forsee an Inkster Crash in the near future.

[lighthouse]

I forsee an Inkster Crash in the near future.

 

Juli Inkster is gonna be in a crash??

 

Man, that's a shame... she played so well in the Chick-Fil-A championship this year...

 

So Khaos, any predictions on the Duck-Jayhawk game tomorrow?