Character Design, part II: The Comics
What is it? What makes these two guys so bewitching? Is it their trenchcoats? Is it their grace and skill? Their evident cool in the face of extreme danger? Their animal-like nature?
Or is it the talent of the artists, the quality of the line, the starkness of the lighting, the mastery of the shading? Is it that both figures, although hefty with three-dimensional weight and mass, also paradoxically border upon complete abstraction, a collection of shapes and shadows?
In my daily life I have no interest in thugs or demons and my idea of a personal hero is someone like Thurston Moore, but these two big lugs consistently make me want to stop what I’m doing, take a load off and look at some comic books.
