Planescape: Torment Topic

[RPGmasterBoo]

Or they could end up like comic books: a unique art form that becomes massively popular among a wide range of demographics but later deteriorates into almost nothing but adolescent male power fantasies as the bulk of 'culture' continues to spurn it.

 

 

'Tis all true.

 

Gone are the days of Moebius, Bilal, Pratt, Goscinny and Uderzo, Herge, Loisel, Serpieri...

Edited September 16, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Pidesco]

Moebius and Bilal are still alive and kicking. And good stuff is still being done in Europe.

[RPGmasterBoo]

They've stopped working seriously a long time ago. Not really, France is the only country that's doing something and 90% of it is manga trash.

[Oner]

Say it with me: "I'm not an idiot, just because I don't like something doesn't make it trash." Now repeat.

[RPGmasterBoo]

As someone who grew up on the work of the previously mentioned authors, I can't agree. Any fool can draw manga with a meager amount of practice. Manga and US superhero comics are the hamburgers of the comic world, intended for mass comsuption.

Edited September 16, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Oner]

So now it's trash because it's "junk drawing". Kentaro Miura would disagree.

[Pidesco]

Isn't Bilal still working on the Hatzfeld books?

 

Good stuff is still being done. Massimiliano Frezzato would be a good example of an excellent comic book artist. Also, Val

[RPGmasterBoo]

So now it's trash because it's "junk drawing". Kentaro Miura would disagree.

 

Berserk? Come on, man - the shading is on the level of an art college drop out. If you want the perfection of black and white technique you've got Milton Caniff and Hugo Prat's Corto Maltese, or Alex Thoth or a hundred other US/EU artists. Both of them could draw better than berserk with all the fingers on their hands broken. I don't know where this attitude of Berserk being a good comic among manga lovers comes from, probably because its different from the usual extremely white and empty look of most manga.

 

If you want medieval perfection Foster's Prince Valiant has never been surpassed.

 

Frezzato? Is that Keepers of the Maser?

Of course not all of it was good, but there was an explosion of outstanding talent, not just one genius but a dozen of incredible artists.

Edited September 16, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Oner]

I don't know where this attitude of Berserk being a good comic among manga lovers comes from,

We, you know, read it? Anyway, I find it hilarious that someone who loves crap-combat PST complains about comic graphics.

[RPGmasterBoo]

So did I. About 13 volumes of it, so I could hold this conversation.

Comics are about graphics and storyline, with the visual side being the dominant. Berserk is average visually at best and the story is an overlong exercise in emo wankery, with copious amounts of blood, killing, rape, pseudo suffering, pain and all of it made to appeal to a 16 year old, testosterone filled teenager who could substitute an absurdly evil and digusting world for something deep & mature. Its selling point is its morbidity and nothing else.

The same gripe I have with Dragon Age.

Edited September 16, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Oner]

Or not. Except the rape overdose.

 

Continuing the parallel, some would say RPGs are about leveling up, or crawling through dungeons, combat, killing, looting, shiny spell effects, armies clashing, or being (relatively) realistic.

[RPGmasterBoo]

They are, with the occasional one being something more. But the fact of the matter is that Berserk relies on cheapness and shock value to be "unique". In the world of manga it might be top dog, but that says more about manga then about Berserk.

 

Your avatar is tiny but if that is indeed a character from Akira superimposed on a Deus Ex cover, you have (in Akira) the moment where manga said all it had to say. Graphically that is. From then onwards its been rinse, lather, repeat.

[Zoma]

I love Berserk.

 

Sure it started slow, but watching the anti-hero struggles against all odds against mystical creatures with his hared and exceptional will as his only weapon makes the struggle so . . . disturbingly enticing.

[Oner]

They are, with the occasional one being something more. But the fact of the matter is that Berserk relies on cheapness and shock value to be "unique". In the world of manga it might be top dog, but that says more about manga then about Berserk.

 

Your avatar is tiny but if that is indeed a character from Akira superimposed on a Deus Ex cover, you have (in Akira) the moment where manga said all it had to say. Graphically that is. From then onwards its been rinse, lather, repeat.

The character is King Bradley from Fullmetal Alchemist. As for Berserk, the fact of the matter is that Berserk relies on a story about a guy who discovers Life after a hard childhood, attains friends and dreams, only to loose everything and vow revenge. All the while focusing on inter-character relationships, no character derailment or idiot plots, and a proper dark setting. Edited September 16, 2009 by Oner

[RPGmasterBoo]

Thought he was familiar from somewhere.

You have your impression, I have mine. If we're both biased the truth is somewhere in the middle, and that still doesn't show anything incredibly impressive about Berserk. Lets even presume for the sake of argument that I completely misjudged the plot - that still leaves the average drawings.

What I have against manga is that it has grown beyond an artisitc diversion to a cheap style that destroys everything. There is no way around the fact that manga is absurdly easy to draw, and circumvents one of the hardest things about drawing - human characters and faces by making them a combination of easily made stock parts. Its mass produced in tons, and artistic value has to suffer. That is unacceptable for me, when I read a comic I expect a certain level of artistic talent and a reasonably good scenario. manga never has the first part.

[Oner]

I was impressed by one of my first mangas (among other things) precisely because the artist conveyed the personalities of the characters through such details as eye shape. If that isn't art, then nothing is.

[RPGmasterBoo]

I was impressed by one of my first mangas (among other things) precisely because the artist conveyed the personalities of the characters through such details as eye shape. If that isn't art, then nothing is.

 

Then you read another and find out the second aritst has done the same. And another. And another. Why? Because there is a database of stock characters with accompanying appearance traits. By the way the eyes look and the shape of the eyebrows you can tell if its a good guy or a bad guy or an innocent person etc. That isn't art - its standardization of the telenovela sort where every character's role and traits are obvious from their physical appearance, with the exception of a purposely deceptive character.

 

Manga is stylish, and has great ideas about motion and implied movement. It can even be a good, fun read like Great Teacher Onizuka. But manga is also quick. One of the best european masters Hugo Pratt, could in a good day draw two full boards. That was his artistic limit, to create something he would accept and publish. This is why his comics were world known, and have their chapter in the history of modern art.

Now a 50 page manga can be drawn in a weekend of work. If the very best can manage 7-10 boards per week then there's something very wrong with every japanese being able to draw 10 times as much. They have their approach and that's fine, but you can hardly expect it to garner any sort of respect amongst the old US/EU crowd.

 

Pratt - Corto Maltese in Siberia

Edited September 16, 2009 by RPGmasterBoo

[Amentep]

Thought he was familiar from somewhere.

You have your impression, I have mine. If we're both biased the truth is somewhere in the middle, and that still doesn't show anything incredibly impressive about Berserk. Lets even presume for the sake of argument that I completely misjudged the plot - that still leaves the average drawings.

What I have against manga is that it has grown beyond an artisitc diversion to a cheap style that destroys everything. There is no way around the fact that manga is absurdly easy to draw, and circumvents one of the hardest things about drawing - human characters and faces by making them a combination of easily made stock parts. Its mass produced in tons, and artistic value has to suffer. That is unacceptable for me, when I read a comic I expect a certain level of artistic talent and a reasonably good scenario. manga never has the first part.

 

I'm not necessarily sure that just because something can be done by rote (as it were) it devalues the efforts not done by rote. And that's true of comics, movies, television, novels or video games.

 

Hiroaki Samura, Junji Ito, and Yukito Kishiro for example have all struck me as good artists and good sequential art storytellers doing current work.

[Amentep]

One of the best european masters Hugo Pratt, could in a good day draw two full boards. That was his artistic limit, to create something he would accept and publish. This is why his comics were world known, and have their chapter in the history of modern art.

Now a 50 page manga can be drawn in a weekend of work. If the very best can manage 7-10 boards per week then there's something very wrong with every japanese being able to draw 10 times as much. They have their approach and that's fine, but you can hardly expect it to garner any sort of respect amongst the old US/EU crowd.

 

Jack Kirby - often considered to be one of the founders of US comic book style (having not only been influential in superhero comics, but created the American Romance comic as well as doing work in the earliest horror comics) - could do 8-12 pages a day. Does that make him worse than Pratt?

 

There are current comic artists in the US who can't even make a complete page in a day, are they better than Pratt?

Edited September 16, 2009 by Amentep

[RPGmasterBoo]

Nothing guarantees the superiority of things not done by rote, but the likelyhood of them being better is greater and artistic responsibility is more pronounced. If you pump out things at the rate the japanese do, no one can keep track of what you do and its old news by next week. Most EU albums take approx 1-2 years to make and thats a lot of time and effort to devote to 60 pages of a comic. Plus you can expect very serious criticism from a lot of respected people in the art world, and if you don't want to make a fool of yourself you better do it right, whereas a typical manga artist, really answers to no one, and can recitfy a possible screw up in a week of work. Not that its easy to screw up since most of the time the demand is for more of the same. Like in Love Hina or Ruoruni Kenshin, which after the 4th volume are basically all the same all the way to the end.

[RPGmasterBoo]

One of the best european masters Hugo Pratt, could in a good day draw two full boards. That was his artistic limit, to create something he would accept and publish. This is why his comics were world known, and have their chapter in the history of modern art.

Now a 50 page manga can be drawn in a weekend of work. If the very best can manage 7-10 boards per week then there's something very wrong with every japanese being able to draw 10 times as much. They have their approach and that's fine, but you can hardly expect it to garner any sort of respect amongst the old US/EU crowd.

 

Jack Kirby - often considered to be one of the founders of US comic book style (having not only been influential in superhero comics, but created the American Romance comic as well as doing work in the earliest horror comics) - could do 8-12 pages a day. Does that make him worse than Pratt?

 

There are current comic artists in the US who can't even make a complete page in a day, are they better than Pratt?

 

He drew superhero comics which are more or less at the same level as manga in terms of quantity/quality. Things have gone farther from the superhero genre you know.

 

The point of that however was to illustrate that serious work takes great time and effort as a general rule. There are exceptions obviously.

[kirottu]

Not all manga is done week by week basis and weekly mangas are usually done by multiple artist, where the main artist does the basics then finishers and background artist do the rest. Also, it is like every other job, where you do x amount of hours per day.

 

And repeating oneself isn

[Amentep]

He drew superhero comics which are more or less at the same level as manga in terms of quantity/quality. Things have gone farther from the superhero genre you know.

 

Kirby drew everything which was my point in choosing him. He did romance stories, he did science fiction, he did crime drama, he did westerns and he did superheroes over his 50-something years drawing comics work. And many people consider him to be one of the better creators (if not the best) who came out of the US System. And he was fast.

 

The point of that however was to illustrate that serious work takes great time and effort as a general rule. There are exceptions obviously.

 

There aren't execeptions - art takes as long as it takes and each artist will take longer or shorter dependent on their own abilities and expectations of themselves.

 

Saying that manga art is all bad because they produce large amounts of work is just silly. Anyhow most commercial comic work is going to be crap; the good stuff is always the exception and that's true of all the markets, US, EU and Japan.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Manga art is bad because of its made with purely commercial intent and based on simplified template drawings, that are for the most part unoriginal and require little effort. Everyone can learn to draw manga even if they have zero talent, while no one can draw like Moebius even though a slew of good artists have tried to copy his style. That doesn't mean that there aren't genius Japanese artists, hell there are plenty of them. They just aren't in manga, and if they are its a sad waste of their talent to be constrained in such a weak style (or collection of styles) IMO.

[Gromnir]

seriously, why everyone thinks that commercial failure = failure of the product... Van Gogh died poor because of commercial failure during his life, but nowadays his paintings are considered as part of the best creations which were ever made by mankind...

 

same will happen with few games aswell, when they start to be taken more seriously like books and movies in the past... And Torment will be one of them...

 

1) you is dreaming if you believe that ps:t will ever be considered an artistic masterpiece = starry night.

 

...

 

really. am not even gonna argue this. ps:t is our fave game, but if you thinks ps:t ever gets cred as genuine art from some significant portion o' public and academia, then you is deluded.

 

2) van gogh were a single artist

 

a single artist can live and die for his work. james joyce had many offers to publish Dubliners, but every publisher wished to fix. joyce refused. 10 years joyce refused til he finally met a publisher who would print and distribute Dubliners without revision or alterations. can you imagine an indie developer doing same? black isle is a particularly bad example 'cause they were the crpg development arm of interplay, a for-profit company with stock... public traded stock. the goal o' interplay, first and foremost, were to be making money/profit for stockholders.

 

maybe some years down the line you can get 'nuff money into game industry such that a developer or publisher is willing to release one or two art films each year... prestige pieces. or maybe some developer manages to slip an art game past publisher and such release complete alters the industry as a whole. dunno. what we does know is that ps:t did not make interplay stock more valuable... on contrary, it helped push interplay closer to brink o' collapse. again, ps:t is our favorite crpg, but as a commercial product it were a miserable failure. interplay weren't trying to sell ps:t to posterity... were trying to sell to customers in winter of 99.

 

HA! Good Fun!