Monday 20 October 2008

Black Bob by Jack Prout



What a great artist Jack was.....lets have a closer look at this Black Bob strip from a 1961 Dandy comic.

The first frame shows a good white space....its very easy to fill up a picture with lots of hatching and detail..very hard to leave space...making it easier on the eye. The wording Black Bob stands out despite a dark black background and black letters...great face on Black Bob being cheeky and sticking his tongue out.

Frame two a nice mirror image of the man and Black Bob running out of view. The angle has changed in the picture. Also looking down on the image.

Frame three has wonderful brick work...no short cuts every brick is different. Lighter hatching and darker hatching by pen to different degrees. Nice wooden door effect.

Frame four has good distance with smaller bricks on the stable. This is very tricky to do. Also a good sky downward at an angle strokes. Darker bricks to show shadows.

Frame five nice use of action white lines to show the barrel rolling.

Frame six great wavy line wool effect on the ram.

Frame seven A different sky...Jack always making everything unique.

Frame eight shows lovely pen work on the corn...he really knew what each of these objects looked like...really has studyed it...not second guess..

Overall an amazing piece of work...very carefully done...no rushing...


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

you sure are taking an interest in COMPOSITION within comics, PETER! Although comics often appear anarchic and chaotic [part of their charm] traditional art rules of clarity and avoidance of clutter definately improve comics technique: JACK PROUT was an undisputed master in this field, with an almost illustrative-quality approach...



cheers, SPY.

Peter Gray said...

Thanks Spy for your comments..it always lifts my spirit to recieve them. Glad we are on the same wave length.

When you look at each panel carefully its amazing the skill and thought that went into it.