I'm not an artist, but... a longtime pet peeve of mine is the matter of large sections of EMPTY SPACE on a comic book's cover!
I've posted on this before - on THIS particularly egregious example (below)...
...All the more so because it was created in the far more "graphically conscious" 1990s!
DC's REAL SCREEN COMICS # 105, with a Cover Date of December, 1956, is easier to excuse because of it's time...
...And because the empty space at its lower right, while definitely noticeable, is not nearly as poorly executed as the WDCS cover!
But why are Crawford Crow and the picnic basket BOTH on the left side, leaving such a wide-open space on the right?
The BASKET could remain at left, but be slightly "moved-up" a bit, making it more centered between the hammock and the bottom of the cover!
Then, Crawford could remain at the same "latitude" (for lack of a better term), but with his image REVERSED - and moved to the right, looking left at the fire and basket!
I'm not an artist, but... I feel it would be much better balanced that way! ...Don't you?
Serendipitous Side-Effect Time: Below is the cover image of MY OWN COPY, of REAL SCREEN COMICS # 105, with an unintended cover enhancement!
Check out what's in the "empty space" at the cover's lower right...
Someone, perhaps as far back as the later 1950s (in those Pre-Price-Guide Days when we were MUCH more careless with our comics), must have spilled some liquid on that portion of the cover...
...But, in keeping with the "campfire motif", it looks like campfire smoke is rising, not only from Crawford's actual cooking fire, but from the "FOX AND CROW" LOGO as well!
In fact, there's actually MORE SMOKE rising from the LOGO, than from the cooking fire! Very nicely breaking-up the gaping amount of blank space!
I'm not an artist, but... I'd say MY copy of this comic, appears better-composed than the actual published version!
Check 'em "side by side", and you de... "side"!
Hot stuff... eh, Foxie?
2 comments:
The resulting scene wouldn’t make sense, but you could almost put those two covers together and they’d fill up the empty space in each drawing. Maybe the empty spaces were left for some sort of text boxes that were dropped at the last minute perhaps?
Deb:
I agree that “missing promotional text” would be the best explanation but, while far more understandable for the ‘50s, it’s a near-unforgivable design blunder for the ‘90s! …And it’s not as if that WDC&S cover doesn’t already have its share of needlessly distracting clutter!
I get why the “needlessly distracting clutter” wasn’t placed in a more acceptable space or position… the need for uniformity with other covers of the time similarly burdened with the same (all together now) “needlessly distracting clutter” but, in a period where individual panels of Don Rosa’s work were “flipped” for no discernable reason at all by the SAME publisher, correcting the gap here should have been an easy matter… Unlike correcting the credibility gap (to pluck a still-useful phrase from its place-of-origin in the ‘60s) generated by the actions of those behind the comics of “The Disney Interregnum”! (…Thank you, Elaine!)
And I can definitely see a case of “missing promotional text” or other cover copy hyperbole on that REAL SCREEN Fox and Crow cover!
Oh, and thanks specifically to you, Deb, the first comment on this “I’m Not an Artist, But…” post is made BY an artist! Something nice and symmetrical about that!
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