Comics UK

I think a lot of modern comics are great just to look at, Lew: I often just freeze the image at a whole-page striking image, and 'savor' the impact around the old glazzies. But often I will abandon a story as they are not strong enough to sustain the interest. [and endless pages consisting of striking imagery, but more usually accompanied by a wafer-thin plot.]

For effective storytelling. though, I'm with you 100 % on the 60s Marvel stuff. A lot of the frames were the same size, forcing the artist to be more inventive.

Here's a good example of the 'excellent-value-for-the-readers'-money' outlook, more prevalent in the 20th Century publications. Just check out the pure, 'packed-to-the-hilt' storytelling in pages such as this FANTASTIC 4 page: this was years ahead of it's time, and the sort of thing we are finally seeing in flashback sequences today, in big-budget fantasy flicks.

Material like this encourages the reader to use their imaginations and 'fill in the blanks' [other details of how Society got into the state depicted, which is all part of the fun].

Something like the events covered within this single page would likely be spun out over a Mini Series these days.

It's worth remembering that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons deliberately adopted a comparatively old-fashioned grid system for their ground-breaking Watchmen. The sad thing is that many subsequent comic-book creators enthusiastically copied the anti-heroic cynicism of that series but completely ignored its disciplined technique.

Looking at that old Fantastic Four page I can't help being reminded of Kirby's 'Sky Masters' series. I wonder how many people realize that for a time this gorgeous strip featured on the full-colour centrespread of our very own Express Weekly during 1959, where it ran alongside Mike Noble's Lone Ranger...!



- Phil Rushton