I got the two volumes of Alec Sinner. I enjoyed his style better in the first volume. By the time you get deep into the second volume he gets super loose. Middle towards the end of the first volume is the sweet spot for me. I don't mind the pulpy paper because it suits the art and the stories, their basically pulp stories.
Saw you mention the Brazilian (I think) artist Roger Cruz near the end of this video. If you've never seen it, check out his work on his own series XAMPU. He is an amazing cartoonist who completely changed his own style to get work here in the US.
I'm a huge fan of Keith Giffen (RIP), especially his Munoz phase (I had no idea who Munoz was when I first read Ambush Bug), but yeah, the swiping is so blatant that I don't know how Giffen ever thought he wouldn't get called out for it. The worst swiping I can remember seeing was in one of Todd McFarlane's first Hulk issues. Around half of the panels in that issue were traced exactly from John Byrne's Hulk run which seemed so blatant considering the Byrne stuff was from less than a year before on the exact same title.
When an artist "studies" another person's art,they may do 'studies'...this may involve drawing what they drew 100 times to get it ' absorbed' in one's brain.
So you think these are not swipes, just the result of really absorbing Munoz's work? It could be,. The one with the lamp is the one that really makes me question that.
You can’t credit Munoz enough for styles like Frank Miller in Sin City and Eduardo Risso. I think Griffen definitely was looking right at these when drawing them, the lamp and some of the exactness of the shots is just nuts.
After watching more ….the 300+ swipes he’s referencing is probably many examples in each panel. Like the lamp, the lamp shade, the girl, some of the angles/items…many examples in one panel.
We'll have to do a video actually focused on Munoz and tracing the origins of that style all the way from Hollywood Noire to Caniff to Munoz and Pratt and on! What I've read of Alack Sinner so far is great. Do you have other Munoz recommendations?
If you'd like another strong example, check out Jim Steranko's Chandler (1976) and compare this to "How I Robbed a Bank" from Adventure (1953) (the artist is unidentified)
I think the slant of "The Trouble with Keith Giffen" isn't surprising based on the publication; for years TCJ had an ongoing 1/2 page feature called The Swipe File where they would show two "similar" panels from different artists. With swiping being so prevalent in comics, there was no reason to call out a Kirby swipe. But the types of comics TCJ thought were worthwhile makes the focus of the article unsurprising. Giffen did work with Wally Wood in the mid 70s, the artist who gave us both "22 Panels" but also the quote, "Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up." I'm sure lessons were learned during that time that he then leveraged throughout his career. Another avenue to look down is Charles Burns and his very honest admissions to swiping, going so far as to have printed a book called Swipe File, showing off the single panels and images he's collected and his recreations of them. And Hirst is the shithead, with a fairly cynical slant to most of his work; Prince seems a bit more genuine in what he's looking at, from Untitled (Cowboys) to the Instagram photos, in regards to ownership, first of identity and then artistic work as whole in a digital age. How successful is above my understanding. But you can draw fairly solid lines from each straight back to Warhol and his acceptance of art embracing capitalism, Hirst just does it much more aggressively and as a foundational direction for what he, or his assistants, produce.
The Burns books sounds awesome. Will definitely have to look for that! Hirst definitely seems more motivated by money and Prince more by the intellectual endeavor, to me at least.
Fantastic video. As far as the "straight to ink" legend of Trencher it's not entirely true. I've got an original and there's definitely some quick lead block in there (which makes total sense really). No doubt though that he was doing all the real "drawing" in ink.
I believe I own the very next page of Ambush Bug as the one where the infamous panel appears. I think he obviously copied contents of the panel, but I think all of this stuff was Giffen seeing how he could remix the art of Muñoz in a wildly different context. "Can I use this dark, stylish art in a comedy?" I do think he went too far, but I also think some people take the issue of "swiping" too seriously, as it is a tool that artists have used forever. That being said, I would like someone to go through 'The March Hare', a Giffen comic I mentioned on the last video. That's one that is tonally much more similar to Muñoz and I'd be interested if he swiped specific panels there.
I am definitely on the side of "who cares" with swiping, especially in comics. Did you get the story you wanted? Cool. Lichtenstein bugs me, but comic artists swiping comic artists? Whatever. Let us know if anyone find more swipes in The March Hare. I will keep an eye out for the book, especially since that is a Strange Death resonant title.
@@clubgrubbug I honestly don't care for Muñoz myself (I can see the skill, just don't care for the outcome) and back when I was ignorant of the whole behind-the-scenes stuff, I *hated* it when Giffen went in this direction. So, I don't have anything to compare with the stuff in March Hare. It *is* worth looking at, as it is about as dark as Giffen ever got back then, if I'm remembering correctly, and definitely different than what he was known for at the time (straight super-heroics on Legion and wacky comedy on Ambush Bug).
Great episode and discussion! Giffen is clearly in the wrong here but to here him own up to it in that interview you reference is pretty impressive. I've loved his work for a long time but never heard this story. Those particular panels are strange because the majority of his work now that I see the comparison was definitely influenced by Muñoz's work but making it his own, but those panels are swipes. Check out his run on Justice League (co-written with DeMatteis) especially the issues with Adam Hughes doing the art! Truly brilliant stuff. This conversation reminds me of Jim Lee doing Deathblow as an inspired response to Frank Miller's Sin City which I really enjoyed seeing Lee trying a different style out. Sad we only got see a small number of pages of this from him. I remember there being a panel in a Sin City comic where Marv is beating up Deathblow in the background of a bar scene (which i thought was a much more subtle a response than breaking hands) I think the same obsessiveness came over Jim Lee seeing Sin City as Giffen described.
I own a page of Hughes art from that run (bought directly from Hughes - for $10 if memory serves - at the same show I bought my first page of original art - a Giffen). I think Giffen got carried away with the Muñoz stuff. He had no reason to intentionally steal and it hardly made him wealthy. What I found most interesting from that interview (I'd read it before) was his acknowledgement that his layouts are his strength. He was basically self-taught, which I think is one of the reasons his art style(s) have always been influenced by those he admires and/or works with (pointing again to his "Kevin Maguire" style of his second Legion run) and why he's such a spot-on mimic when he's doing it intentionally. But his layouts are his real signature and I can generally tell if an issue he's written is following his layouts. DC must know it's his strength as well, as I have a layout page by Giffen for 'Countdown No. 31' and Giffen isn't even listed as working on that book. But the artist (Manuel Garcia) followed the layout.
I love me some Deathblow and wish Lee would have stuck with it for a while. Liefeld did some Sin City on Shadowhawk 0 too. The beaten up Deathblow is kind of like the Hulk with the fin hat. Haha. Amazing how it is an honor to be copied until the copier makes a shitload of money.
@@rhindlethered $10?! What a deal! Besides Trencher I have always just thought of Giffen as a layout guy. But, my comics knowledge started with Jim Lee X-Men #1, so what the hell do I know?
Having not read any of K.K. Kit- I mean Giffen's work (so only going off the article) it does seem that Giffen isn't really "copying" these images for any artistic effect, just using them because they are strong images. I do that sometimes too (though usually just with just a pose or expression, I try to change everything else) but doing it so often, with only one artist AND doing a similar style of illustration? It just feels wrong, like Martinez says it's like you are taking their soul somehow. At the bare minimum it's pretty lazy (steal better!). Maybe as a whole his work is more original and I'm being too harsh (this is most certainly the truth) but I'm not going to and read a bunch of superhero comics I'm not interested in to check if my hasty judgement about some comics I don't care about is correct. I'll just stick Munoz and Sampaya. I like what I've read so far of Alack sinner - obviously the art is incredible (it's the reason I bought the book) but the writing is pretty good too. I had problems with the story Nicaragua however, it felt like it was constantly jumping around with only a loose hints of how it all fit together. Probably something to sit on and think about to re-read later. The only problem with paper I have is that it's grey - I actually like how rough it feels, adds to the grimy dirty vibe. Or maybe that is a cope because I don't think it will get another printing any time soon.
Trencher is definitely as original as it gets and worth looking at (not reading), but these do look like pretty damning swipes. Hoping to have more time to read the rest of the book now that I am on summer break!
@@clubgrubbug Yeah trencher is really wild from the few pages I've seen. It has some hilarious contrast with the crazy expressive art and the most sterile and dead amateur hour digital lettering - how people thought that looked good back then I don't know.
The panels *are* being copied pretty closely, but I'd be willing to bet (not having the Muñoz pages available) that they are being used in a very different way within the structure of the overall page, not to mention to *very* different story-telling effect.
@@rhindlethered That is where the whole thing get interesting to me. It is a conpelling experiment in that regard. He jusy needed to make the experiment part of the meaning, somehow.
I got the two volumes of Alec Sinner. I enjoyed his style better in the first volume. By the time you get deep into the second volume he gets super loose. Middle towards the end of the first volume is the sweet spot for me. I don't mind the pulpy paper because it suits the art and the stories, their basically pulp stories.
Sean and I aaaaareee paper snobs. Haha.
This is a great convo. I really loved the Charest bit at the end. Brother had the comic art world at his finger tips but couldn’t get work done
He really did. And now his work seems so souless and devoid of the flare that made him great. -Carson
Saw you mention the Brazilian (I think) artist Roger Cruz near the end of this video. If you've never seen it, check out his work on his own series XAMPU. He is an amazing cartoonist who completely changed his own style to get work here in the US.
That is too bad, because the Xampu stuff looks great.
I'm a huge fan of Keith Giffen (RIP), especially his Munoz phase (I had no idea who Munoz was when I first read Ambush Bug), but yeah, the swiping is so blatant that I don't know how Giffen ever thought he wouldn't get called out for it.
The worst swiping I can remember seeing was in one of Todd McFarlane's first Hulk issues. Around half of the panels in that issue were traced exactly from John Byrne's Hulk run which seemed so blatant considering the Byrne stuff was from less than a year before on the exact same title.
I think it is all forgivable for an artist who goes on to be so unique, like Giffen or McFarlane.
@@clubgrubbug I agree.
I got both volumes from my comic book store last year. Diamond has them in stock
Good to know!
Is there any translated edition of that Belgian cartoonist, Picha?
All I am finding are some untranslated animations?
When an artist "studies" another person's art,they may do 'studies'...this may involve drawing what they drew 100 times to get it ' absorbed' in one's brain.
So you think these are not swipes, just the result of really absorbing Munoz's work?
It could be,. The one with the lamp is the one that really makes me question that.
this is a swipe.
I see Jose Munoz in the title and I instantly watch!
You can’t credit Munoz enough for styles like Frank Miller in Sin City and Eduardo Risso. I think Griffen definitely was looking right at these when drawing them, the lamp and some of the exactness of the shots is just nuts.
After watching more ….the 300+ swipes he’s referencing is probably many examples in each panel. Like the lamp, the lamp shade, the girl, some of the angles/items…many examples in one panel.
@@KAROSHIcomics It is pretty damning. But, you go on from that to do trencher and I start to forgive a man. Haha.
@@KAROSHIcomics Could be. 300+ full panels would be...that is almost an experiment in remixing.
We'll have to do a video actually focused on Munoz and tracing the origins of that style all the way from Hollywood Noire to Caniff to Munoz and Pratt and on!
What I've read of Alack Sinner so far is great. Do you have other Munoz recommendations?
If you'd like another strong example, check out Jim Steranko's Chandler (1976) and compare this to "How I Robbed a Bank" from Adventure (1953) (the artist is unidentified)
Oooo, naughty Steranko.
I dunno how we would get out hands on those books.
I think the slant of "The Trouble with Keith Giffen" isn't surprising based on the publication; for years TCJ had an ongoing 1/2 page feature called The Swipe File where they would show two "similar" panels from different artists. With swiping being so prevalent in comics, there was no reason to call out a Kirby swipe. But the types of comics TCJ thought were worthwhile makes the focus of the article unsurprising. Giffen did work with Wally Wood in the mid 70s, the artist who gave us both "22 Panels" but also the quote, "Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up." I'm sure lessons were learned during that time that he then leveraged throughout his career.
Another avenue to look down is Charles Burns and his very honest admissions to swiping, going so far as to have printed a book called Swipe File, showing off the single panels and images he's collected and his recreations of them.
And Hirst is the shithead, with a fairly cynical slant to most of his work; Prince seems a bit more genuine in what he's looking at, from Untitled (Cowboys) to the Instagram photos, in regards to ownership, first of identity and then artistic work as whole in a digital age. How successful is above my understanding. But you can draw fairly solid lines from each straight back to Warhol and his acceptance of art embracing capitalism, Hirst just does it much more aggressively and as a foundational direction for what he, or his assistants, produce.
The Burns books sounds awesome. Will definitely have to look for that!
Hirst definitely seems more motivated by money and Prince more by the intellectual endeavor, to me at least.
Fantastic video. As far as the "straight to ink" legend of Trencher it's not entirely true. I've got an original and there's definitely some quick lead block in there (which makes total sense really). No doubt though that he was doing all the real "drawing" in ink.
That makes way more sense to me. The abstraction of form is way too consistent throughout.
I believe I own the very next page of Ambush Bug as the one where the infamous panel appears. I think he obviously copied contents of the panel, but I think all of this stuff was Giffen seeing how he could remix the art of Muñoz in a wildly different context. "Can I use this dark, stylish art in a comedy?" I do think he went too far, but I also think some people take the issue of "swiping" too seriously, as it is a tool that artists have used forever.
That being said, I would like someone to go through 'The March Hare', a Giffen comic I mentioned on the last video. That's one that is tonally much more similar to Muñoz and I'd be interested if he swiped specific panels there.
I am definitely on the side of "who cares" with swiping, especially in comics. Did you get the story you wanted? Cool. Lichtenstein bugs me, but comic artists swiping comic artists? Whatever.
Let us know if anyone find more swipes in The March Hare. I will keep an eye out for the book, especially since that is a Strange Death resonant title.
@@clubgrubbug I honestly don't care for Muñoz myself (I can see the skill, just don't care for the outcome) and back when I was ignorant of the whole behind-the-scenes stuff, I *hated* it when Giffen went in this direction. So, I don't have anything to compare with the stuff in March Hare. It *is* worth looking at, as it is about as dark as Giffen ever got back then, if I'm remembering correctly, and definitely different than what he was known for at the time (straight super-heroics on Legion and wacky comedy on Ambush Bug).
@@rhindlethered Sounds cool!
Great episode and discussion!
Giffen is clearly in the wrong here but to here him own up to it in that interview you reference is pretty impressive. I've loved his work for a long time but never heard this story. Those particular panels are strange because the majority of his work now that I see the comparison was definitely influenced by Muñoz's work but making it his own, but those panels are swipes.
Check out his run on Justice League (co-written with DeMatteis) especially the issues with Adam Hughes doing the art! Truly brilliant stuff.
This conversation reminds me of Jim Lee doing Deathblow as an inspired response to Frank Miller's Sin City which I really enjoyed seeing Lee trying a different style out. Sad we only got see a small number of pages of this from him. I remember there being a panel in a Sin City comic where Marv is beating up Deathblow in the background of a bar scene (which i thought was a much more subtle a response than breaking hands) I think the same obsessiveness came over Jim Lee seeing Sin City as Giffen described.
I own a page of Hughes art from that run (bought directly from Hughes - for $10 if memory serves - at the same show I bought my first page of original art - a Giffen). I think Giffen got carried away with the Muñoz stuff. He had no reason to intentionally steal and it hardly made him wealthy.
What I found most interesting from that interview (I'd read it before) was his acknowledgement that his layouts are his strength. He was basically self-taught, which I think is one of the reasons his art style(s) have always been influenced by those he admires and/or works with (pointing again to his "Kevin Maguire" style of his second Legion run) and why he's such a spot-on mimic when he's doing it intentionally. But his layouts are his real signature and I can generally tell if an issue he's written is following his layouts. DC must know it's his strength as well, as I have a layout page by Giffen for 'Countdown No. 31' and Giffen isn't even listed as working on that book. But the artist (Manuel Garcia) followed the layout.
I love me some Deathblow and wish Lee would have stuck with it for a while. Liefeld did some Sin City on Shadowhawk 0 too.
The beaten up Deathblow is kind of like the Hulk with the fin hat. Haha. Amazing how it is an honor to be copied until the copier makes a shitload of money.
@@rhindlethered $10?! What a deal!
Besides Trencher I have always just thought of Giffen as a layout guy. But, my comics knowledge started with Jim Lee X-Men #1, so what the hell do I know?
Now It gets Interessting! Looks like Sin City!
Given that these started coming out in 1975 I think it is more fair to say Sin City looks like this.
Having not read any of K.K. Kit- I mean Giffen's work (so only going off the article) it does seem that Giffen isn't really "copying" these images for any artistic effect, just using them because they are strong images. I do that sometimes too (though usually just with just a pose or expression, I try to change everything else) but doing it so often, with only one artist AND doing a similar style of illustration? It just feels wrong, like Martinez says it's like you are taking their soul somehow. At the bare minimum it's pretty lazy (steal better!). Maybe as a whole his work is more original and I'm being too harsh (this is most certainly the truth) but I'm not going to and read a bunch of superhero comics I'm not interested in to check if my hasty judgement about some comics I don't care about is correct. I'll just stick Munoz and Sampaya.
I like what I've read so far of Alack sinner - obviously the art is incredible (it's the reason I bought the book) but the writing is pretty good too. I had problems with the story Nicaragua however, it felt like it was constantly jumping around with only a loose hints of how it all fit together. Probably something to sit on and think about to re-read later.
The only problem with paper I have is that it's grey - I actually like how rough it feels, adds to the grimy dirty vibe. Or maybe that is a cope because I don't think it will get another printing any time soon.
Trencher is definitely as original as it gets and worth looking at (not reading), but these do look like pretty damning swipes.
Hoping to have more time to read the rest of the book now that I am on summer break!
@@clubgrubbug Yeah trencher is really wild from the few pages I've seen. It has some hilarious contrast with the crazy expressive art and the most sterile and dead amateur hour digital lettering - how people thought that looked good back then I don't know.
@@Wrolffe The 90's were a time for optimism🤣😂
The panels *are* being copied pretty closely, but I'd be willing to bet (not having the Muñoz pages available) that they are being used in a very different way within the structure of the overall page, not to mention to *very* different story-telling effect.
@@rhindlethered That is where the whole thing get interesting to me. It is a conpelling experiment in that regard. He jusy needed to make the experiment part of the meaning, somehow.
Here,s the difference I Don,t care for Jose Munoz , I care for Keith Giffen !
I would highly recommend doing yourself the favor of checking out Munoz in depth. He is sooooo good. There is a reason Giffen was obsessed.