Because Gulacy is completely and totally incompetent. Basic perspective, proportion, and even just alignment completely elude him. Just look at the bottom panel there -- the guy's arm is barely longer than his head. His elbow is somewhere around his shoulder pad. From one panel to the next, his upper arm loses like five inches. And that's a GOOD page for Gulacy. The guy's been working in comics for decades and he still draws like a middle schooler who's never taken an art class. He still can't even draw people who aren't crosseyed. It's truly amazing how he still can't do even the basics.
Well said. Dark Empire would have been a completely different story with more realistic art. Last fall I was living in my basement because my house was undergoing renovation, and I watched this youtube video that synced up the audio play with panels from the comic, in a dark windowless room on a cold night, and I could almost feel Palpatine's dark force energies. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I personally love the fact that the big revelation at the end of Crimson Empire was supposed to be that Kir Kanos and Carnor Jax, and by extension all the Royal Guards, were supposed to be clones. But because of Gulacy's art, no one realized that Kanos and Jax were supposed to look identical, and so other authors completely overlooked what was supposed to be this big backstory element of the Guards. Because of Gulacy's bad art. I do think he improved a bit by the time Crimson Empire III rolled around, but emphasis on 'a bit.'
Yeah... "stylized" is often just code for "bad art." Just like "pulpy" is often code for "bad writing."
Seconded. I think people can be too harsh sometimes on legitimate stylistic differences they personally don't care for, but when something like that happens? That's pretty seriously bad. And off the note of different styles, on the more positive end I'd like to second the praise for Cam Kennedy. Say what you will about Dark Empire's story (and I'll admit I'm a defender), I think it looks great and very memorable.
This is the truth. The detail of his art amazing. I especially remember the market place Kai Hudorra visited at the beginning of Dark Times (well, end of Republic). Every single person/creature in the market was doing something and you could almost follow each background character through the panels and watch them going about their business. You could tell he really cared about his work.
I'll forever defend Cam Kennedy for all the greatness he did with When The Fat Lady Swings. Boba Fett is driving a railcar pulling a female Hutt squeezed into a cargo bin. This is Star Wars. Your arguments are invalid. (seriously though I wish I could find an image online of her swinging along in a goddamn sling, and I'm too lazy to scan the pages from my own copy)
Jordan D. White HeatherAntos Hey Marvel, almost everyone in this thread so far have mentioned Duursema and Wheatley. I hope that you will take our preferences in consideration
Well, you've got 2 writers for the arc and, so far, 3 different artists for 3 issues so you might need to be more specific!
Oh, Checchetto, well, of course, there were brilliant images posted from that, particularly the Cathedral one.
It totally eluded me that Cam Kennedy wouldn't be a popular artist, haha. I thought he did great, and gave dark Empire an epic feel, worthy of Star Wars. The Boba Fett one shots were just fantastic. Star Wars had so many great artists, and one of them is Carlos Ezquerra who did Boba Fett 1/2 and Mara Jade - By the Emperors Hand. And Hugh Fleming did some of the most beautiful covers.
I find the distinction between good art and bad art less about style preference and more about internal consistency. So while some artists might have an 'ugly style', as long as they can draw characters consistently in their style, from all the necessary angles and distances, and give those characters the appropriate expressions, it really doesn't matter if it's 'ugly'. Cam Kennedy is a great example of this. He has a distinctive, rough style but demonstrates great range and control under that style. He doesn't suddenly flip to a lazy alternative because he doesn't know how to draw Luke's face at an angle. Luke always looks like Kennedy's Luke. Unfortunately, other artists have failed at this. Characters' faces change panel to panel. Expressions are off. Anatomical proportions (within that artists own style) get cheated. In short, the consistency is wrong. I do think it's fair to label this as bad art, regardless of the style. So while I love Alex Manev's style on Lando, the fact that Lando's face changes almost every page really undermines the artwork. Anyhow, my 4 favourites would be the following. I would buy (and have bought) pretty much every issue they've done regardless of the writing or setting. Doug Wheatley - he drew everything (people, creatures, ships, locations) really well and his characters looked distinctive from each other (which is a surprisingly common issue in comic art). He drew stand out issues for Republic, Empire and Dark Times which to this day I would rank among my favourites (especially the Biggs story from Empire). Even his pencils look stunning. Davide Fabbri - really clean artwork, it's a 'cartoonish' style but everything within that style is executed really well. Most significantly perhaps, I'm rarely confused by what I'm seeing and Fabbri puts his panels together with care and purpose. They flow really well as this medium should. The combination of Fabbri's style and great stories have actually marked some of my favourite SW comics of all (To the Last Man, The Stark-Hyperspace War, Jedi Council Acts of War). Mark Brookes - the artist from the current Marvel era that I like the most. And to be honest, I'd argue that it's Brooks superb cover art that's helping to sell a lot of issues. And of course there's his great work on the Han Solo miniseries. I hope they get him back to do another miniseries. Phil Noto - love his soft, pencil like style. And add to that likeness fidelity and determined flow. He's an artist that can draw a gorgeous cover and do the interior art just as well. He's the reason why the Chewbacca miniseries is worth looking at, and his work on Poe Dameron is helping that series punch above its (writing) weight. Other very honourable mentions: Marco Checchetto (Marvel's Shattered Empire, Screaming Citadel #1, Obi-Wan & Anakin and Captain Phasma) - I like his style a lot but some time get lost in his panels. I found Obi-Wan difficult to follow at times. I'm really looking forward to his Phasma series though and hope he gets more work. Stuart Immonen (Marvel's Star Wars #8-12) - I was so glad he was brought on board to do that arc of Star Wars, he's the best artist they've had on that series so far. The adventurous style really fit the tone of the story they were telling as well, which I'm going to give full credit to Marvel for doing. Agustin Alessio (Dark Horse's Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison) - great art on this miniseries, which had the kind of interior art you'd usually see only on a cover, I'm not familiar with his other work.
