little green god of agony free online comic: photoshopped?

**jp field** · October 26th, 2012

little green god of agony looks great, but i can't believe somebody is drawing (penciling) all those faces: they are too perfect and similar frame to frame:
Does anybody know, are they photoshopping photos of actors (comic-izing them, the way people make a photo look like a painting)? They can trace photos with photoshop or AI and it looks like a handdrawn portrait.
it's still interesting art either way, but it seems like cheating
just saying

**Moderator** · October 26th, 2012

I'll forward your question to the artist for his response.

**GNTLGNT** · October 26th, 2012

...ever hear of photo-realism?....

**Dennis Calero** · October 26th, 2012

This would be my happy answer:

This is the current bagaboo in comics and indeed many artists use computer filters, readily available in photoshop. This work isn't one of those. I chose actors and models and friends, and carefully photographed them based on detailed layouts and based my drawings on those photographs, but they were drawn, not traced or run through a filter. That's not my commenting on that technique, but rather simply answering your question. I have and will continue to use photoshop on certain elements of work, as comic artists have used photostats, photocopiers and other tools, back to the prisms that Vermeer used to cast an image onto a piece of paper or canvas in preparation for a finished drawing.

The larger question, whether using reference is "cheating," I have two answers for: first, I really don't think the word "cheating" has any use in this context. The creation of two dimensional images that are intended to give the illusion of three dimensional images is just that, the creation of an illusion. Is a magician "cheating" because he's not actually using magic, but slight of hand? Looked at it in this way, is a movie "cheating" because the actors don't actually die in the climax?

Second, this question is usually brought up by a hopeful future artist who has been unfortunately loaded with the false notion that "real" artists draw totally out of their heads. It's a nice idea but rooted completely in fantasy. This is a falsity as very few artists, even those that draw in what you might call a more "cartoonish" or stylized approach, completely eschew referencing nature. You can't abstract (and that's what cartooning is, abstracting a complex form into a simpler one) without understanding what you're abstracting.

The reality is that professional artists throughout history have used reference and models as a basis for their work, from Michelangelo to Hopper to David Hockney to Alex Ross. There is a certain naturalistic style of artwork which is impossible to adequately achieve without the use of reference. Even Frazetta did, though he denied it much of his career because of fear of this silly prejudice. I have always chosen to be completely open to anyone who wants to peak "behind the curtain," but I have no patience for people who choose to do so and then complain that all is done with the "wrong" kind of wires and pulleys.

I am so open because I truly believe that it will free students to be better professional artists. A career in the arts has enough challenges without needlessly discarding a legitimate set of tools off your own table.

Whether you enjoy my, or anyone's work, is for you to say. What is NOT for anyone to say is how I get to that final destination. My job and the job of any commercial artist is to find the most expedient way to the most satisfying product. Your perception of that process should have nothing to do with your enjoyment (or non-enjoyment) of the end product.

As for not believing that anyone can draw a face that looks naturalistic, I don't know what to say. I'm not going to be snarky and say "thank you," but maybe we live in a world where so many take every shortcut available, instead of judiciously using them to concentrate on what's really important, you have a hard time believing people can actually draw anymore. And maybe you're right. I was giving a SKYPE talk at a college yesterday where a teacher bemoaned a serious decline in simple drawing ability in incoming freshman.

But in closing, yes, they are drawings. But regardless, if knowing that a spare ace is in the magician's sleeve ruins the trick for you, stop asking how the trick is done and just sit back and enjoy the show.

And if you want to be a professional artist some day, stop believing it's magic and start understanding it's work.

**Moderator** · October 26th, 2012

Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to answer here personally, Dennis--much appreciated!

**GNTLGNT** · October 28th, 2012

...excellent reply Dennis...and I, for one, think you have captured the atmosphere of the tale quite well...your "pictures" of the characters are different than mine(in my imagination)obviously, but are well thought out-whatever technique you've used...

**jp field** · October 29th, 2012

Wow.
First: excellent answer! Brilliant: he really crystallizes his whole philosophy of work and gives us a behind the scenes look at attitudes in the field today by an industry insider.

Second: never doubt in the power of Ms. Mod. Holy crap, I never in a million years expected the artist himself to answer, but she got his response within hours of my post: I was just hoping for thoughts from other comic book/Stephen King fans!

I showed my 11 year old the question I wrote, and the first thing he said was “Dad, you shouldn’t have said cheating!” But I didn’t mean using models was cheating, I just wondered if the creative team behind Little Green God of Agony was photoshopping portraits to make so much striking art work. Well, come to find out, the creative team is just one man, but he’s a big-time name: Dennis Calero, a highly respected artist, a major talent, with such titles as X-Factor, X-Men Noir, and Legion of Super Heroes: so that’s how LGGOA got so much great artwork! I didn’t mean that using models was “cheating”, I just wondered if running peoples’ photos through a filter was OK. Obviously, my thoughts on this whole issue are very much in evolution now.

But if you look at his artwork at the bottom of this page, you can see why I would be confused: comic books never used to look like this! I last bought comics over 35 years ago, but now my son got into drawing (all on his own), so I dug out my old Silver Surfers from the 70’s, and he developed the same giant appreciation for the artists the way I did. Now a lot of people would agree that Jack “King” Kirby was the greatest comic super-hero artist of all time. But as great as Mr. Kirby indisputably was, most of his characters had interchangeable faces. Usually, the only way you could tell one character from the next was by their costumes, or their hair color, skin color, freckles etc. You could not even tell Johnny Storm from his sister Sue by their faces.

Let me show you two examples: here is what X-Factor comics used to look like B.C. (before Calero) in 1991:
Attachment 16371

And here are two X-factor pages drawn by Dennis Calero in 2006:

Attachment 16372

Attachment 16373

Is there any comparison? Calero’s characters have real human faces, and they are consistent from panel to panel, even with subtly different points of view. You can easily see why Mr. Calero was nominated for a Harvey Award for his work on this particular X-Men. And I think you can understand how I would be confused by this quantum leap in art: the new stuff (by artists like Calero and Steve Epting from the new Fantastic Four (Future Foundation)) is like watching a movie: it’s lightyears ahead of most comics from the 70’s.

Norman Rockwell used photos of his models and locations for his paintings, and I think Rockwell is one of our greatest artists (although some people dismissively refer to him as just an illustrator.) so it makes sense that today’s artists would use models for their ongoing characters in series.

I also truly admire the artist’s use of photoshop when it serves what I consider the comic book experience: to create new, unimagined worlds that never existed, using fantastical coloring, composite backgrounds, landscapes and fantasy dimensions. They can make awesome textured backgrounds (see the glass buildings and chain link fence in the examples above) tilting complex city skylines, or detailed closeups of the moon and stars.

It seems to my old-school brain that we are indebted to our comic artists for piloting us to these strange new worlds. But while I could well be crazy, it also feels like there is an informal contract clause regarding the “human” element in comics: we identify with the characters, and somehow it feels like they should be drawn, “created anew”, like the fantasy worlds they inhabit, rather than just photographed (photoshopped). I want to see those random imperfections, to se the human touch in the finished work. Again, thoughts in evolution… brain slowed by age…

I want to thank Dennis Calero, not just for taking the time to introduce a whole new topic I never knew about, but also for helping me understand the evolution of art for my son’s sake: I want him to learn to use all the new tools, just the way he taught himself to use India Ink and paint brushes by watching Stan Lee and John Buscema’s videos.
But especially, I’d like to thank Dennis Calero for this great new serial LGGOA: having to wait for each new installment reminds me of being a kid again, checking the drug store every day to see if the latest issue of Hulk was in.

drawing by my son, age 11:
Attachment 16374

**mstay** · October 29th, 2012

Tell your son that that is a great drawing JP!

**Dennis Calero** · October 29th, 2012

Thank you. Your son has a lot of talent!

But let me clear up a few things. There are PLENTY, I would even say the MAJORITY, of popular comics that look what I'm going to call, completely because of a lack of better terms, cartoony. That is not in any way mean to imply a quantitative judgment. But Mouse Guard, Marvel All Ages, there are plenty.

As for the computer, it's one tool and I agree that at least for now, it is a tool I would NOT recommend learning on.