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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 22 May 2015, 12:24
by ISPYSHHHGUY
Oh dear-----a lot of these SUN strips never run very long, do they?

I don't think the editorial give the concepts proper room to 'breathe' and to take off with the public.......


There was another SUN cartoon strip called DREADNOUGHTS that never ran that long, either......

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 22 May 2015, 23:04
by Uncle Joshua
ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:Oh dear-----a lot of these SUN strips never run very long, do they?

I don't think the editorial give the concepts proper room to 'breathe' and to take off with the public.......


There was another SUN cartoon strip called DREADNOUGHTS that never ran that long, either......
I think the football strip (I shall not speak its name) and the vampire thing both got a good run. the football strip (I shall not speak its name) was an utter joke, it started after Striker moved to a stand alone and its first strip was claiming Warbury Warriors were no more. They claimed all the Warbury players had died in a plane crash...infact The Sun had taken payment for adverts off Nashy, they never bothered to run the ads. The vampire thing was drawn by the same people (former Striker staff) the quality of Shadows was just as poor as the football strip.

I remember reading Dreadnoughts! It is areal shame we can't have "funnies" like they do it in America, they seem to have pages full of strips. I run the Striker chat forum and have brought that point up on a few occasions.

I don't think any paper has a good selection of strips these days. Nashy bought the rights to War Of The Worlds back in 2004/5, he drew a fair bit of it, but it never went into print. there must have been somewhere for such a strip to go, be it as a stand alone pictorial book or in a daily/weekly strip?

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 22 May 2015, 23:28
by Uncle Joshua
Just found an old Striker strip online that also includes the Dreadnoughts...

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... 5423_o.jpg

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 07:12
by ISPYSHHHGUY
For some reason, the element I remember most in the Dreadnoughts was the goldfish in the bowl!

The main drawback with the 'funnies' nowadays---including the USA strips, and indeed this problem stems from there------is the shrinking down of the artwork over the decades, to almost postage-stamp proportions, which is really detrimental to 'artistic expression'.

Some strips like Hagar thrive under this simplified approach though---incidentally,, I thought Hagar was more imaginitive , and funnier. when produced by the originator, Dik Browne.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 14:12
by stevezodiac
Phoenix wrote:
stevezodiac wrote:I actually have some Sun Newspapers from the late 1700s but it was no relation to the present incarnation.
That's right, Steve. The Daily Herald, a socialist paper that my father started to buy instead of the communist organ The Daily Worker, gave up the ghost in 1964. The Sun emerged the following day. I've still got a copy of that first issue somewhere.
I recently picked up two copies of the very last Daily Herald and they advertise the new Sun inside.

I don't regard Striker as a comic strip as it is computer created. Where is the pen in hand creativity? I suppose one could argue that it is created in its own way but if you are cut and pasting images is that so? Maybe i'm wrong and it does require some talent?

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 16:02
by Lew Stringer
stevezodiac wrote: I don't regard Striker as a comic strip as it is computer created. Where is the pen in hand creativity? I suppose one could argue that it is created in its own way but if you are cut and pasting images is that so? Maybe i'm wrong and it does require some talent?
There's a great deal of creativity involved. It's not as simple as cut and paste. There's the creation of the characters and props and their environment, positioning them, altering their expressions and body language, choosing the right lighting, the angle of each shot, whether to use a close up or a long shot. And what about the scripts? The page layouts? It's still sequential art and has just the same right to be called a comic strip as a pencil and ink page.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 17:56
by philcom55
...Also a lot of computer art still uses 'pen in hand' activity - either via scanned-in artwork or tablets.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 18:41
by ISPYSHHHGUY
You can usually tell when cut and pasted photographs has been used in digital comic artworK;

the SUN have certainly been guilty of this on at least one occassion: [ I can't remember which strip this was, it was maybe ten years ago, there have been so many aborted SUN strips I can't differentiate most of them] : it was not only photos of real buildings and vehicles, but actual faces of real people were put into the strip, it was glaringly obvious. They tried to disguise it as a comic strip, but the results were really cheap and nasty.

Happily this cost-cutting approach fooled no-one, and was quickly dropped.


But I accept the characters in STRIKER and some others are wholly computer-generated, which must be time-consuming and expensive to produce.

I am not absolutely sure exactly how totally computer-generated characters are achieved in either strips or in film; sadly, the process bores me to death and I have no real interest in finding out how it is done. [never played a computer game in my life either, for the same reason]

I don't mind traditional stylized characters [drawn freehand] embellished by computer colour, if done well, the results can be extremely impressive.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 20:44
by Digifiend
You must be referring to The Premier. The only CGI strips The Sun has run are Striker, The Premier, and Shadows, but the latter is too recent.

Striker is guilty of the real faces thing though, it and The Premier both used them on opposition players when showing football matches.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 20:59
by ISPYSHHHGUY
for supporting characters in the SUN digital strips, , it must have been quicker and cheaper to just drop in existing photos, Digi-------most readers just notice the 'star' characters, and do not care about minor details, and that is where all the artistic creativity went------ but we cynical old-school comics buffs know better , eh-------Watkins/ Baxendale\ Reid drew all their secondary characters with the same measured patience, that is the professional approach!

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 23 May 2015, 21:51
by Uncle Joshua
stevezodiac wrote: I don't regard Striker as a comic strip as it is computer created. Where is the pen in hand creativity? I suppose one could argue that it is created in its own way but if you are cut and pasting images is that so? Maybe i'm wrong and it does require some talent?
Is that a bit harsh? Sure some of it is C&P but most of it is not. I think a lot work goes into producing Striker.

Striker is 30 this year and is about to go through huge changes. I think it will be a massive year for Striker fans as well as a turning point for the strip.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 27 May 2015, 11:58
by Uncle Joshua
stevezodiac wrote:
.

I don't regard Striker as a comic strip as it is computer created. Where is the pen in hand creativity? I suppose one could argue that it is created in its own way but if you are cut and pasting images is that so? Maybe i'm wrong and it does require some talent?
A response to this from Striker creator Pete Nash..

http://strikerworld.co.uk/topic/9181925/25/#new

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 27 May 2015, 13:29
by stevezodiac
I shouldn't have got involved really. I have many thousands of comics going back over a century and they are what i am interested in. Striker has its own fanbase which will never include me. I couldn't even stick with the Spider-Man film after seeing a cartoon spidey flying through the air and don't start me on the Tom and Jerry Tigers in Gladiator. My objection to non line drawing seems to have kicked up a pen and ink (stink) - little pun there. Maybe the Sun could reprint the Football Picture Libraries from DC Thomson?

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 27 May 2015, 14:22
by tony ingram
stevezodiac wrote: I don't regard Striker as a comic strip as it is computer created. Where is the pen in hand creativity? I suppose one could argue that it is created in its own way but if you are cut and pasting images is that so? Maybe i'm wrong and it does require some talent?
I would say it takes considerable talent. And anyway, Striker began life as an old fashioned comic strip.

Re: Newspaper comic strips

Posted: 27 May 2015, 16:15
by Lew Stringer
stevezodiac wrote:I shouldn't have got involved really. I have many thousands of comics going back over a century and they are what i am interested in. Striker has its own fanbase which will never include me. I couldn't even stick with the Spider-Man film after seeing a cartoon spidey flying through the air and don't start me on the Tom and Jerry Tigers in Gladiator. My objection to non line drawing seems to have kicked up a pen and ink (stink) - little pun there. Maybe the Sun could reprint the Football Picture Libraries from DC Thomson?
Everyone has their personal preferences but you did ask what talent it took to create CGI strips. Now you know. :lol:

Personally I enjoyed the Striker comic and bought every issue.