If you want to get madder, though, click here. Take a look to the right of Beetle’s knee.

Barbarian Hulk and JR Jr. That I can get behind.

http://sopranosonlocation.4t.com/season5/Sopranos-Season5F.jpg

Oh, and Paperghost,

Yeah, I would have included in my critique the “standing” feet on the obviously levitating characters, but, sadly almost EVERY levitating superhero is drawn with flat “standing” feet (or the other extreme – pointing straight down like a ballerina).

It’s something that has annoyed me forever.

~P~
P-TOR

I’ll be interested to see if this sells as well as Infinite Crisis or Civil War. There seems to be a lot of crossover fatigue evident in the comments I’ve read here and elsewhere, but I’m skeptical of this sentiment lasting through the summer. Also, I bet you’ll all be whistling a different tune if, by some bizarre turn of fate, it turns out Grant Morrison is writing this. (I’ll probably be joining you, truth be told.)

…tea / monitor interface moment.

as someone with a fine arts degree specialising in figure drawing, my two cents or pennies or whatever:

Kyle and whatshername: Yeah, they’re “levitating” through the ring. But that being the case, was it really such a stretch for the artist to NOT make them look like they’re actually supposed to be standing on the ground? Look at those feet – they’re basically identical to Barda / Scott. When was the last time you EVER saw someone levitating in an otherwise completely “on the ground” standing pose?

Superman: Aside from his thrusting knee..don’t know what they were thinking there….his other leg looks wrong somehow. Maybe the red trunks aren’t helping but his knee looks way too high up the leg.

red robin looks like a cardboard cutout, and again, something looks off with the right leg of the flash. I know its likely an accurate drawing, but maybe the pose he’s in is mangling the image in my brain. the only character that actually looks weighted in the image is batman – all the rest (even mary) look like they could just float out of the image at any time.

as for the dead bodies – oh man. are we really supposed to think all their lower extremities are simply buried by rock, even when Jades left arm just seems to….well…vanish weirdly? its like they couldn’t decide whether to go with rocks or some weird fadeout thing.

As for Maxwell Lord looking like an action man figure with his head twisted round….no. Just……..no.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/369552155_d9f3b16de3_o.jpg

It’s not “fine art” or anything, and, truthfully, I’m NOT a big fan of DC characters (or characterization), BUT with the exception of ION (Kyle Raynor) and WONDER GIRL (is she back in that costume again? Cool.)..everyone else is positioned fairly naturally within their respective places on the Planet of the Apes” backdrop.

And THOSE TWO have a little “glowing effect” around them, to indicate some power is keeping them “levitated”, and not actually touching any surface.

GREEN ARROW looks a little off, (his left foot should be tilted more towards the surface he’s standing on, or his entire leg should be bent away from it with the knee facing us and the sole of his boot resting firmly against the “ground”), but he IS holding on to a spire to counter-balance himself (even though he doesn’t appear to be using any strength to do so. Not correct, but I’ll give it a pass.

FLASH looks a little bit between “slipping” and “gradually letting himself down” from the point where he is holding the spire. For anyone else, it’d be fine.
But this is FLASH. He shouldn’t be in a position like that for long enough for this “picture” to be taken.

SUPERMAN is so OBVIOUSLY faking, because he’s holding his right leg up via conscious effort.
There’s nothing to support it.
It’s POSITIONING is physically accurate, IF he had it resting on something.
(But he gets to rest his head in the Wondrous Woman and stare into her “Paradise Valley”. Also, he’s trying to slide his hand up her thigh. But she’s having none of that.)

MARY MARVEL & WONDER WOMAN are beautifully drawn and are the ONLY soft and expressive bits to the piece.
Kudo’s on those two.

Yes, it’s “Colorforms”, but the positioning of most of the characters is fairly consistent with where they are standing/sitting.

Artistically, the main problem is that EVERYTHING is lit incorrectly (the light appears to be coming from upper right – look at Green Arrow’s arm-shadow and most of the spires, etc.. THEN, look at Mary Marvel.
She is lit from the left).
Everyone and everything else has “omni-lighting”. Light coming from all over.

ALSO, EVERYTHING in the pic is IN FOCUS.
Foreground, mid-ground, background, FAR-background are all sharp and clear.

That makes it look even more fake.

So, to summerize:

Overall picture = poor (mostly due to light and focus)

“Stage” = everything is drawn quite nicely. Just too in focus.

FIGURES = good (not great. Some seem off. ALL seem stiff, except MARY & WW).

The DEAD: hilarious. And that is the saddest part of it all.

~P~
P-TOR

I think the costumes and poses look great, though.

Really? What about Superman’s leg? That looks really awkward to me. And Flash definitely looks like he’s slipping. And Kyle looks like a doofus, as always.

As far as the online comics community is concerned, the sites I enjoy the most are the ones that celebrate what they enjoy about comics (past, present, Big Two, indie, spandex, non-spandex) and may turn me on to something I didn’t know about or revisit a series I enjoyed, as opposed to those that seem to revel in bitching about what’s wrong. Not saying there’s no room for criticism, but The Snark can get tired very quickly IMO.

I think the costumes and poses look great, though. They have that iconic “tell you a little about the character-drawn by Jose Louis Garcia-end up on a Slurpee Cup” look. But they are colorform for sure. Barda looks big and awesome like she should, but where is Ollie’s hat?

Is this from a comic? With a story? At first I thought it was meant to be a primer on Infinite Crisis in poster form, but then there’s Batman in pirate drag. Da fug?

Joe Quesada likes to tell the story of the aspiring artist who drew every panel like it was the biggest, most exciting, dramatic moment in comics. So Quesada engages in a thought experiment with the kid, where he gives the kid certain scenarios involving the Joker, and challenges the artist to tell how he would illustrate the scene. Quesada starts small and increasingly escalates the stakes. The artist bites, making everything new scene cooler and more bombastic than the last. Finally, Quesada says, “Then the Joker detonates a nuclear bomb.” The artist is stumped, because he’s painted himself into a creative corner. If every event is the most important, earth-shaking, most awesome thing ever, it kind of loses it’s impact, doesn’t it?

I wish Quesada would tell Dan Didio that story, and then take his own advice.

By the way, why can’t mainstream superhero comics just be fun anymore?

Artist: Hey guys, I got it! The best way to symbolically illustrate someone with a broken neck is to twist their head around backwards! That’s what people with broken necks ALWAYS look like!

I hate the word kewl, but only because I don’t think it’s been used besides a “I’m trying to be ironic or mocking by saying it” way in a long time. Hating things just to hate them is chic, but that has nothing to do with comics or this blog entry that I saw.

Yo go re also said, “Yes, I can. I, in fact, see no horribility or retardification at all.”

I think you’re just saying that to disagree with Joe. At least, I hope so because while I love comics, many of them from DC, that is not a good image. I explain why I think so in a thread Joe created about this on CBR’s Community board, but it’s too long to put here. The only thing I disagree with Joe about is the “dumb costumes” comment. Unless he meant Superman continuing to wear red briefs, but that’s something I’ve wanted to change probably since I first started reading comics. And very likely was in no way what Joe meant.

Superman does not cry. Superman may, occasionally, FAKE crying to get an extreme close-up look at Wonder Woman’s knockers. This is because of Kryptonian super-intelligence.

Pffh. Superman is no I-Ching.