How cheap are OA collectors? 2 2

[Bird]

16 minutes ago, vodou said:

Where's that place? I don't think it exists. That's what bums me out, that what currently exists doesn't support that level of discussion without somebody crying.

I was at a show maybe 10 years ago with a friend who is a huge comic fan but not into art much (he has 5-10 sketches though, Neal Adams and such). He would accompany me on my artist alley jaunts a bit. We talked to Jim Starlin who had a few prepared character pieces with him and as we left the table I said to my friend that Adam Warlock would be walking in circles with one leg that much longer than the other. My friend said something along the lines of "hey, it is Jim Starlin and Adam Warlock, what do you care if one leg is longer than the other, just enjoy it." I was really surprised at his comeback. I think that there is a place for critique but do not know where that place is either. I would like to talk about Gene Colan's midsections but no one seems as bothered by them as I am!!!  

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Bird

[Carlo M]

5 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

I don't see why you can't critique art here - no one would stop you from posting about it I don't think. Assuming it was done in a mature way, assuming you picked items that had characteristics about which you could write both positively and negatively. It would be hard to keep it interesting though because I believe that most of us are well aware of what we're collecting, we know if our beloved page is schlock, and much of the allure often seems to be tied up in the schlockiness of the entire thing when it is in fact schlock. For those few that are deep enough involved to spend time here that do not think about it very deeply... well, you may risk offending a few people if you don't handle things properly, but that can happen in the normal course of a conversation and I don't think it should be held against people if it happens while they're attempting to engage in relevant conversation.

Exactly.  I would love love to have a place where I could read commentary about OA (including my pieces) whereby I could learn more.  I for example need to learn more about inking, and what best way would there be other than reading comments on the inking technique on a piece of mine.  Still not entirely sure what cross-hatching is!  Or being able to see when imitating one other's style can be due to a positive influence or just swiping.

Anyway I agree entirely that negative comments left just for the sake of it do not help anybody and reflect poorly on  the person who leaves such comments.  But I am sure there must be a way to have a meaningful commentary forum and personally I would be certainly open to balanced critique on my pieces if this would help me understand them better, or to make better choices in the future.

But may be it comes down to the fact that we are different.  Some people would like to go a bit deeper, some people care less and that is fine!

Carlo

 

 

 

[vodou]

16 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

I don't see why you can't critique art here - no one would stop you from posting about it I don't think. Assuming it was done in a mature way, assuming you picked items that had characteristics about which you could write both positively and negatively. It would be hard to keep it interesting though because I believe that most of us are well aware of what we're collecting, we know if our beloved page is schlock, and much of the allure often seems to be tied up in the schlockiness of the entire thing when it is in fact schlock. For those few that are deep enough involved to spend time here that do not think about it very deeply... well, you may risk offending a few people if you don't handle things properly, but that can happen in the normal course of a conversation and I don't think it should be held against people if it happens while they're attempting to engage in relevant conversation.

Sounds good but I don't think that's how it would play. You pull a specific piece, out of anybody's collection but your own, and start to work on it...the owner will pop in and take a big dump on you, probably for being a super D-I-C-K to question somebody's childhood memories and the first comic they got from their long-beloved and recently deceased grandmother. And then the dogpile mob will follow and either run you out of town or marginalize the original intention so much that it's impossible to find amidst all the hate mail. Eff that. I'm too old and too tired for that. Maybe the way to get there is to pull pieces from one's own collection, start the dialogue and let others move in and add or subtract. That's almost an interesting idea...have to see what I think about it tomorrow after sleeping on it...

[SquareChaos]

Just now, vodou said:

Sounds good but I don't think that's how it would play. You pull a specific piece, out of anybody's collection but your own, and start to work on it...the owner will pop in and take a big dump on you, probably for being a super D-I-C-K to question somebody's childhood memories and the first comic they got from their long-beloved and recently deceased grandmother. And then the dogpile mob will follow and either run you out of town or marginalize the original intention so much that it's impossible to find amidst all the hate mail. Eff that. I'm too old and too tired for that. Maybe the way to get there is to pull pieces from one's own collection, start the dialogue and let others move in and add or subtract. That's almost an interesting idea...have to see what I think about it tomorrow after sleeping on it...

Sure, you are likely to get that response from time to time, especially if you pull out a page and go "Hey everyone, look at this piece of !"... in so many words.

 

I'm a little surprised to hear you complain that A) you can't critique work, and then B) you're too old and tired to follow through. Is this one of those 'having your cake and eating it too' situations? 

[vodou]

3 minutes ago, Carlo M said:

...some people care less and that is fine!

That's probably the crux of it. These are hobbyist sites not art sites, so the majority of the population is tuned into hobbyism not art criticism. All good and I'll quietly go away (lol..not likely )

[vodou]

1 minute ago, SquareChaos said:

I'm a little surprised to hear you complain that A) you can't critique work, and then B) you're too old and tired to follow through. Is this one of those 'having your cake and eating it too' situations? 

No, just that I don't want to do it in a vaccuum (start a new forum/site/blog that nobody goes to...echo chamber of one) or set off another flame war sorta thing. No middle ground (that I see). I guess it would be nice, assuming there are a few folks that are interested other than just myself, that a discussion could occur that would invite those that would participate without alienating (or worse) those that wouldn't be.

[SquareChaos]

3 minutes ago, vodou said:

No, just that I don't want to do it in a vaccuum (start a new forum/site/blog that nobody goes to...echo chamber of one) or set off another flame war sorta thing. No middle ground (that I see). I guess it would be nice, assuming there are a few folks that are interested other than just myself, that a discussion could occur that would invite those that would participate without alienating (or worse) those that wouldn't be.

I guess it depends on what you really want to accomplish - critique is typically  more of a soliloquy than a dialog, so a blog or web page, even if it results in an echo chamber, can still let you get it off of your chest. But if you want to have a dialog about it, I'd say give it a try here. You could always start with one of your own pieces as you mentioned 

Personally, I would read it with interest, I'm not sure why you think the pitchforks and torches would come out. I'm the only one that felt like artists were perhaps being unfairly maligned in the modern forum's 'Worst covers ever' thread, but I didn't raise a stink 

 

[John E.]

12 minutes ago, vodou said:

No, just that I don't want to do it in a vaccuum (start a new forum/site/blog that nobody goes to...echo chamber of one) or set off another flame war sorta thing. No middle ground (that I see). I guess it would be nice, assuming there are a few folks that are interested other than just myself, that a discussion could occur that would invite those that would participate without alienating (or worse) those that wouldn't be.

I just don't see CAF as the place to do it. There's no point in critiquing someone else's nostalgia, and for reasons you stated. Actually, kinda going with your example, I've stated that my grandfather got me hooked on comics and the last comic he bought me was New Mutants #100. Yeah of all artists, Liefeld. I'm completely aware of the all the anatomical deficiencies, but I don't care; a page from that issue means much more to me than the art itself, though I've come to appreciate how fun those comics were. So why rain on my parade because Rob misproportioned the torso and *editorial* let him get away with it? I feel like this kind of commenting is akin to giving feedback on a piece like you would at art school, but instead you're giving it to a collector and not the artist. I guess that's where I scratch my head. 

But, yes, perhaps this your point and I'm missing it, some art misses the mark and it's best to be educated as not to spend huge wads of money on something poorly drawn. That I get, but to call it out publicly? I don't know if that's in good taste. If CAF was a place where that happened at its conception, I never would have joined. 

[Bird]

36 minutes ago, Carlo M said:

Still not entirely sure what cross-hatching is!

Cross hatching is the process (my words here) of applying straight lines tightly spaced and then going over the same area again with more tight lines but at a different angle to the first set. Repeat, lather and repeat as necessary. (Wow, cross-hatching is hard to explain!) I guess it creates depth. You vary the lines and how often you cross them for effect.

 

 

Ooh, edited to add this one

Edited November 10, 2017 by Bird

[Bird]

16 minutes ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I feel like this kind of commenting is akin to giving feedback on a piece like you would at art school, but instead you're giving it to a collector and not the artist. I guess that's where I scratch my head. 

I agree that there is not much "value" in going over a Liefeld page at this point. I wouldn't enjoy trashing art. But art is not photography and artists have to utilize their skill in conveying a story; therefore sometimes the finished work reflects such a distortion of reality that complaining about anatomy is silly. But that is where it gets interesting to me. Why do people respond the way that they do? I remember reading Excalibur (I think it was) and Mark Badger did a fill in issue that made me angry when I opened it because I thought that it was so poorly drawn. But then by the end of the issue I was groovin' on it pretty strongly. And some artists (I mentioned Gene Colan) have styles that tread a fine line between styles and I wonder sometimes why people overlook things that bug me (did I say anything about Colan's torsos?). Some people even groove on the very thing that bugs someone else. A discussion between those two people would be fun and fascinating.

Earlier this year I stated my belief that Will Eisner might be overrated, mostly due to my belief that his writing was inferior to his art. I felt the rage through my computer! I was hoping more for examples of what I was missing but it didn't happen.

[vodou]

26 minutes ago, Jay Olie Espy said:

I just don't see CAF as the place to do it. There's no point in critiquing someone else's nostalgia, and for reasons you stated. Actually, kinda going with your example, I've stated that my grandfather got me hooked on comics and the last comic he bought me was New Mutants #100. Yeah of all artists, Liefeld. I'm completely aware of the all the anatomical deficiencies, but I don't care; a page from that issue means much more to me than the art itself, though I've come to appreciate how fun those comics were. So why rain on my parade because Rob misproportioned the torso and *editorial* let him get away with it? I feel like this kind of commenting is akin to giving feedback on a piece like you would at art school, but instead you're giving it to a collector and not the artist. I guess that's where I scratch my head. 

But, yes, perhaps this your point and I'm missing it, some art misses the mark and it's best to be educated as not to spend huge wads of money on something poorly drawn. That I get, but to call it out publicly? I don't know if that's in good taste. If CAF was a place where that happened at its conception, I never would have joined. 

My hope would be to have a more nuanced discussion than "your art is awful = hope you didn't spend more than lunch money on it". But more importantly, is there any self-examination happening out there -in the sense of why the collector's ego is so closely tied to the pieces in their collection. If I say you have a piece of art with (let's say) "problems", how does that come into your ears as "he's saying I have problems"? I don't get that, I mean among adults that can hold down jobs and sit through an annual review that isn't completely full of praise.

[comix4fun]

2 hours ago, vodou said:

bout

I've struggled with this. I think it's unfortunate that we can't have a critical discussion* about this stuff without folks getting emotional and personalizing the critique. It also bothers me that so many of us (all of us?) suspend our critical evaluation of the artform and specific pieces in question by allowing nostalgia, it's COOOL!!!, or whatever to whitewash what would otherwise be a bit painful to the eye. Hypocrisy came up in another thread and I'll bring it up here now too...that one guy's nostalgia is garbage because it's not yours, but yours is okay because it's yours. Yes that's hypocrisy when bad art (and maybe can develop some criteria other than "is the hero in costume or not", "facing front or -shot", "fighting a major villain or a one-and-done?" hmmm??) is bad art irrespective of who's nostalgic sweet spot it is or isn't but we don't call it that. Just because it's your personal "everything" and you spent 3x more than you could afford, trading away half of your collection to get 'er done, shouldn't mean we can't still use rational criteria to talk about the high and low points of it. And you (the owner and spender) shouldn't get all bent out of shape...because your bad taste is couched in what you read when you were twelve and could only have (by definition) relatively un-refined taste? I think that's all a shame. But I don't want to be the guy that forces this issue by my actions or annoys a lot of people by being myself (which means commenting honestly on any piece that catches my eye to the extent that I'd take the time to comment, positively or negatively, but not only one or the other in exclusion)...so I don't comment much at all. (I haven't pulled my stats on CAF, but it couldn't be more than a handful over the last many years.) It doesn't seem intellectually honest (to me) to only leave the positive comments and self-censor the negatives out; I'd prefer to abstain altogether.

Just my two cents. And my CAF is currently blank too, which I agree isn't cool if you're laying junker comments all about on other's pieces.

 

*Assumption being that the critical is not just bully/bashing and worse!

Even respectful criticism is a minefield for a site like CAF and a hobby like comic art. 

First of all, it's comic art, if you pull back the critical focus far enough to pull in fine art  and other more evolved or established forms of art, almost ALL comic art is going to be "bash-able". So, getting into a discussion of merits or flaws of any individual piece of art is a bit of a navel-gazing enterprise that requires turning a blind eye to how much in its infancy and basic evolutionary stages most comic art is, even the great stuff. 

Second, if this were an art appreciation or education site, where there was some detachment between ownership, the choice that went into the owner acquiring it, and (usually the most emotional part) what sort of personal or nostalgic connection led to him choosing that piece, would allow for dispassionate discussion of merits and demerits of each piece in a way that's more analytical and calm. 

CAF isn't an art education site, it's a brag site. It's a "look at my collection and what I love" site. And it's not even a discussion site, it's a site that allows people to find each other based on like interests in like comics or artists or nostalgic flash points in time. That's why anyone who wants to use it as a means to have a hard hitting, or soft hitting, pros and cons talk about Kirby hands or Liefeld feet is going to come out of it chafed because you aren't talking about pieces in a museum or in a school or in a book....it's closer to standing in a guy's living room and pointing out all the flaws on what he's chosen to hang on his walls (that probably also carry personal history for the owner). 

If people want to have in depth discussions about the merits (or lack of merit) of a particular piece of art they should probably do what people have done for centuries....speak privately with one or more collectors, outside the earshot of the owner, where they can speak freely without fear of insult or indelicacy. 

I don't view respecting a CAF gallery owner's space, and choices in his collection, as hypocrisy as much as I view it as discretion. I can put myself in that guy's shoes and nothing about my personal opinion of his collection should take precedence or detract from his personal enjoyment of it, especially not in his personal space. 

[vodou]

29 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

I don't view respecting a CAF gallery owner's space, and choices in his collection, as hypocrisy as much as I view it as discretion. I can put myself in that guy's shoes and nothing about my personal opinion of his collection should take precedence or detract from his personal enjoyment of it, especially not in his personal space. 

Fair enough (to all of it, not just what I pulled out) but this does create the odd situation where an owner with few or no comments feels like people (The Group) may dislike their piece(s) because the silence (if you don't have something nice to say...) is deafening. There's a master's thesis in pysch for somebody in here somewhere!

[comix4fun]

5 minutes ago, Reader said:

I wouldn’t mind negative comments or critiques on any of the art I’ve posted to CAF, why would I take it personally, I didn’t draw it. A friend told me after meeting my wife that she was beautiful and I said thanks and strangely felt like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person after, like I created her.

Positive or negative comments are fine for me.  I just don’t care.  I wouldn’t even delete a negative comment.  Cause Murika! 

My favorite pieces (The Maxx) have one to five comments and I post something by Frank Miller and they start pouring in.  Sam Kieth needs love too!

Probably because most of the choices, in comic art collecting and for collectors, are emotional choices. They are choices that say something about you, your childhood, what you enjoy, what you treasure, what you remember fondly, and what moved the needle enough for you to pull our your wallet and bring it home.  A shot across the bow of something you really like, enjoy, or value is a shot across the bow at the person's taste or preferences. Even if that's not the case, that's how people can feel about it. I can understand and respect that. 

Unless they aren't pieces that reflect all those things. People buy art for other reasons too. If it's not a nostalgia, personal love, point of pride for the owner, I can totally understand them not caring if someone makes a respectful critique. Of course, I probably still wouldn't make that critique in that person's personal space. 

[comix4fun]

7 minutes ago, vodou said:

Fair enough (to all of it, not just what I pulled out) but this does create the odd situation where an owner with few or no comments feels like people (The Group) may dislike their piece(s) because the silence (if you don't have something nice to say...) is deafening. There's a master's thesis in pysch for somebody in here somewhere!

I can see that. I think they'd prefer silence over "Yuck" though.  

There's a lot of psych issues at play in these types of nostalgia-based hobbies. 

I've had pieces that I liked enough to buy, but could see all the little flaws, that wound up getting massive positive responses. I've also had pieces I thought were perfect in every way and that I was tickled to have, that got crickets as a response. Head scratchers both ways. 

For me personally, I am going on year 25 of comic art....and I am going to keep on buying until that hole in my soul is filled....it's gotta be any time now, right? 

 

[▫️]

9 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

Probably because most of the choices, in comic art collecting and for collectors, are emotional choices. They are choices that say something about you, your childhood, what you enjoy, what you treasure, what you remember fondly, and what moved the needle enough for you to pull our your wallet and bring it home.  A shot across the bow of something you really like, enjoy, or value is a shot across the bow at the person's taste or preferences. Even if that's not the case, that's how people can feel about it. I can understand and respect that. 

Unless they aren't pieces that reflect all those things. People buy art for other reasons too. If it's not a nostalgia, personal love, point of pride for the owner, I can totally understand them not caring if someone makes a respectful critique. Of course, I probably still wouldn't make that critique in that person's personal space. 

I absolutely agree with you Chris and I would never leave anything but a respectful comment on others collections.  I just don’t mind taking any hits personally, very thick skin here.  By the way I just saw that tools comment on your latest piece and invited him to hit me next.

Edited November 10, 2017 by Reader

[comix4fun]

Check out the rest of the comments he's left. He's got issues. 

[John E.]

1 hour ago, Bird said:

I agree that there is not much "value" in going over a Liefeld page at this point. I wouldn't enjoy trashing art. But art is not photography and artists have to utilize their skill in conveying a story; therefore sometimes the finished work reflects such a distortion of reality that complaining about anatomy is silly. But that is where it gets interesting to me. Why do people respond the way that they do? I remember reading Excalibur (I think it was) and Mark Badger did a fill in issue that made me angry when I opened it because I thought that it was so poorly drawn. But then by the end of the issue I was groovin' on it pretty strongly. And some artists (I mentioned Gene Colan) have styles that tread a fine line between styles and I wonder sometimes why people overlook things that bug me (did I say anything about Colan's torsos?). Some people even groove on the very thing that bugs someone else. A discussion between those two people would be fun and fascinating.

Earlier this year I stated my belief that Will Eisner might be overrated, mostly due to my belief that his writing was inferior to his art. I felt the rage through my computer! I was hoping more for examples of what I was missing but it didn't happen.

It's funny you mention Mark Badger because I admire his work very much. It's different and bold and a middle finger to the house style. He's an acquired taste and I don't fault anyone who doesn't dig him. Yes, he did an issue or two of Excalibur. I have several of his pieces on my CAF gallery. My most recent piece of his is a convention sketch of Wonder Woman. As I explain in my description, Mark forgot his brushes at home and drew me an all-pencil piece. I love the way it turned out, but the eyes are wonky--I'm not blind to that (no pun intended). It's not that Mark can't draw eyes, but it's likely because he uses thick pencils and filling in perfect placement of the eye balls is tough. It's also a con sketch so I'm willing to overlook it. I don't know where I'm going with this other the "love him or hate him" aspect of Badger. 

[mister_not_so_nice]

1 hour ago, Bird said:

Cross hatching is the process (my words here) of applying straight lines tightly spaced and then going over the same area again with more tight lines but at a different angle to the first set. Repeat, lather and repeat as necessary. (Wow, cross-hatching is hard to explain!) I guess it creates depth. You vary the lines and how often you cross them for effect.

 

Some beautiful examples of cross hatching in THIS GALLERY  

[John E.]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

My hope would be to have a more nuanced discussion than "your art is awful = hope you didn't spend more than lunch money on it". But more importantly, is there any self-examination happening out there -in the sense of why the collector's ego is so closely tied to the pieces in their collection. If I say you have a piece of art with (let's say) "problems", how does that come into your ears as "he's saying I have problems"? I don't get that, I mean among adults that can hold down jobs and sit through an annual review that isn't completely full of praise.

I get what you're saying. There was that thread a while back called "overrated art" and a couple of people named Skottie Young, whose art I like and own. That stuff doesn't hurt me. I like a lot of stuff that people don't like so my ego isn't attached to the art. You're the type of writer whose critique can be written with tact and (perhaps) sensitivity, but I don't trust the rest of the world to do that. 

I guess also that this hobby is a diversion for me, to escape from the stress of everyday life. If every comment I received was about how "poorly" the art is drawn, it wouldn't stop me from collecting but I would quit my public participation in the hobby. As such, the Boards have been pretty acerbic lately which has been off-putting and has been defeating the purpose of why I log in.