Panel of the Day - Aug 6, 2009
Richard Corben panels from the adaptation of "House on the Borderland"
Corben has a pseudo-realism to his color work, but in his ink drawing for comics there is always an edge of goofy fun down in the inking, just a hint that keeps the usually grim gothic attitudes that Corben traffics in under control.
But, at the same time, Corben marshals together elements that are beyond the reach of many of the super-embellishers of contemporary comic books. In this simple three panel sequence Corben enunciates the gentle point of view of the narrator towards his dead sister, all the while presenting the vision on a cosmic environment that is still somehow earthbound.
The reader already knows the character from the preceding pages of the House on the Borderland; but Corben is still able to inform the reader with new feeling and information from this simple triad of panels.
This web site is about presenting a panel a day from the efforts of comic book artist from around the world and from any time in the history of the medium. The site is under construction! Still working on what system will be best for presenting a few panels from a comic book page and then discussing it.
About Comic Book Artwork
The peculiar position of comic book art is that is exists to serve a story. Unlike a typical static illustration in a book or magazine article, a comic book panel must also tell a story, not just freeze a specific episode from a tale for inspection.
In fact, many comic book stories have no text whatsoever, and the entire story is told in panels (the individual frames) with the artwork communicating everything that there is (or isn't) to be known.
While the embellishment style of a particular artist may garner the most praise from fans of the medium, the story-telling ability of the comic book artist is where the actual measure of quality comes in.
As pretty as the pictures can be, if you cannot fathom what is occurring in the tale, the reader is lost; and here is maybe where the division of the comic book artists task divides him or her from that of (say) a painter: the people viewing a comic book story are always called "readers."