No Shortcuts! Why Frank Quitely is a Master Illustrator

oh hi you caught me getting pummeled by hail speaking of hail let's hail to the master frank quitely [Music] hello welcome to comic tropes i'm your host chris frank quitely is one of my personal favorite illustrators in comics no qualifications i believe he's a master illustrator and i don't throw that term around lightly i think in order to be a master illustrator you have to have a lot of tools in your belt we're talking things like composition pacing lighting um your own style an eye for action and for panel to panel storytelling things like getting the work done quickly having confidence these are all things you need to be a master and i would argue quickly does that that's at least the case i'm going to present to you today now i'm not really here to summarize the stories that he's illustrated so much as i will be giving them context and will be breaking down certain pages and panels of his work so i'd like to take a page from one of the last sequential stories that he illustrated packs americana and then from there we'll both jump backwards and forwards through his career let's do it pax americana is a 2014 comic with art by quitely that he did with his frequent collaborator writer grant morrison it's a one-issue story that uses the old charlton superheroes like question and peacemaker to tell an alternate reality version of the watchmen story which was originally designed to use those characters a part of its novelty is that it tells its story non-linearly with most scenes in reverse jumping back in time every several pages the book is an example of quitely at the height of his powers his character work is instantly recognizable but he's also fully in control of the pacing and we see his eye for unique angles on the action here's a page of exposition between two characters which can be one of the more challenging scenes for an artist to render in such a way that it still engages the reader quietly has broken the de facto rule of stacking panels atop one another to be read left to right and top to bottom in a z pattern instead each panel flows into the next one in a weaving s like pattern instead of the hard z angles much of the background is intact with panel borders serving to indicate a passage of time we don't look at this page and think that there are multiple duplicate people in a stairwell we can tell through their naturalistic body language that they are moving downstairs while talking even if we didn't have the dialogue we have indications of what's important the gentleman is in a hurry the young woman is trying to argue something in fact there are some panels that break up the consistent background by zooming in but only to emphasize the story beats that matter a brief confrontation and entering a special area as story thresholds are crossed the art emphasizes them similar to watchmen the cover of pax americana is revealed to be the first panel in the story as quietly pulls back and we see where the burning flag is we're at the assassination of the president of the united states and it shares some similarities to the kennedy assassination the flag was a peace sign but on the first page as it burns it warps and is reminiscent of the number eight an important motif in this story the president has created algorithm eight a plan to bring peace to the world that involves superheroes he also wears a ring that looks like an eight but is also a reference to his father who was a crime fighter that wore a domino mask turned sideways that becomes an eight quietly inserts three more references to the number eight first a streak of blood across the s in the presidential seal looks like an eight more subtle is the establishing shot of the presidential car which the hood ornament indicates is a cadillac from the arrow when they introduced their v8 engine and finally the default structure of the pax americana pages follows an eight panel structure that's a spin on artist dave gibbons using a recurring nine panel structure for watchmen unless quitely has a specific reason to break it that eight panel structure is the storytelling default the story then backs up and we see the president assassinated quietly doesn't shy away from the carnage and controls the pacing in what effectively looks like slow motion because of how many images we get in what would normally be a second's worth of time this is an advantage of comics over something like a book or a film the artist controls the pace after that we see the assassin the superhero peacemaker making a sniper shot while skydiving quietly displays easy to follow panel to panel storytelling with a dynamic shot that implies both depth and motion further pages in pax americana allow quietly to play with lighting techniques such as the brutal interrogation of peacemaker where his pummeled face is drawn in chiaroscoro styled inking there is an exciting action sequence showing peacemaker fighting his way through an army the body gesture is note perfect he captures the body at the most extreme moment of running jumping or punching and in general with his artwork and whenever possible quietly shows the moment right after impact instead of the moment of impact itself the result is always far more interesting than the action itself a later page gets into the meta narrative of pax americana where ideas for politics and science have been pulled from comics it features captain adam reading a comic book in the large hadron collider when the story aligns with his point of view quietly angles the camera so that we are nearly side by side with the superhero and the background fractures into panels this cosmic being is talking about how he perceives the world in more dimensions than people just like they perceive the world around them in more dimensions than the two they would see on a comic book page in just a small handful of pages i've now outlined some of the things that quietly does well interesting storytelling decisions uh innovative character design compelling emotion shown within those characters now let's go ahead and jump back in time so that we can see how quietly earned these skills frank whiteley was born and raised in scotland and attended the glasgow school of art for two years before becoming a freelance artist in 1990 quitely began illustrating the comic strip the greens in the underground comic electric soup it was an homage to the comic strip the bruins by dudley d watkins and you can see how accurately quietly mimicked the design and style of the strip he also illustrated a parody of batman returns and from the beginning you can see how quietly emphasizes the humanity of the characters with clever caricature it's now worth pointing out that the artist's real name is vincent deegan frank whiteley is a pen name he explained back in 2008 that he came up with that because he was nervous about how his parents might react to his career choice uh frank quitely is also what's called a spoonerism in other words a slight rearranging of a phrase in this case the phrase quite frankly came up with frank quitely so when we look at that fun pen name and his early comics our humor comics it's just easy to understand that there's always an infectious sense of humor imbued within all of his artwork quitely's early work caught the attention of editor david bishop who gave him work at 2000 a.d including working on the inspector shimura strip for judge dredd magazine it was 1993 and his style is instantly recognizable even though these comics come from the beginning of a lengthy career from the start we can see that quitely's storytelling skills are rock solid with a clear structure and he's only breaking panel borders for specific reasons such as introducing the main character or an especially key moment in the action i always appreciated how well the lettering was integrated into the artwork of these pages the lettering was done by ellie deville and it indicates a strong collaboration between artist and letter quitely would go on to become a regular collaborator with two writers in particular grant morrison and mark miller in the two years following his work on inspector shimura quitely got his first work in u.s comics illustrating some pages for dc's paradox press imprint of big book titles such as the big book of urban legends and a story in dark horse presents beginning in issue 91 with his writer from shimura robbie morrison these comics are a relatively rare look at quitely's work in black and white and it's enjoyable to watch him practice on different types of textures the action in the dark horse story blackheart is notably clear and clean we can look at his character work close up in the urban legends page and see quitely's style most frequently he uses thin delicate line work to give his subjects character none of them look the same even though his style is recognizable he often gives well-defined cheeks lips and smaller eyes compared to a lot of other western artists and i'd argue that where quietly truly excels at drawing people is with his figure work the gesture and posing is impeccable and has real weight to it that brings us to 1996 which was an important year because it was the first time that frank whiteley would team up with his future regular collaborator grant morrison they did a book called flex mentallo which was a spin-off from morrison's doom patrol run and what's interesting about it is it actually features a lot of the hallmarks that the duo would become recognized for flex mentallo is a surreal meta story where flex is investigating a bomber who may be operating on a higher level of existence he might be a writer of flex's stories or maybe a junkie hallucinating flex's strange adventure or any number of other possibilities in practice it allowed quietly to be creative with his storytelling choices referencing the tropes of comic book storytelling and subverting them it also shows his aptitude for drawing well-muscled heroes hairy guys the elderly and more and again when it comes to establishing a shot or establishing an action quietly makes decisions that are clever unique and engaging perhaps most importantly i'd argue quietly makes storytelling choices that put us beside a character he doesn't hold them at arm's length he pulls in tight for emotional or humorous beats and pulls wide to show body language for the big fight and action scenes but he gives just as much detail to someone that's sick or older to me the characters are represented honestly but with care the camera doesn't distance us from them but allows them to have intimate portraits i'd now like to leap ahead in time to the year 2000 where quietly stepped in to illustrate the authority by mark miller beginning with issue 13. brian hitch had established a so-called widescreen approach to the action with long panels dominating the pages mimicking the aspect ratio of a big budget film quietly has a comparatively open line art style compared to hitch's hyper realistic rendering but quickly did keep the widescreen approach the authority is a larger than life super team pulling no punches in their moves to eliminate terrorist threats and the action is bombastic and over the top quitely can pull in for detailed portrayals of character faces from time to time to ground the narrative but a lot of the book is wild action that you wouldn't see anywhere else like apollo flying through a giant villain's head issue 14 is a highlight of the run as it pits the authority against a super team known as the americans it's a scathing satirization of american jingoism and the americans are stand-ins for the avengers placing the authority as representatives of the justice league of america it's a bloody battle but an exciting one and quietly knows what the audience is here for the sex and violence sometimes that's just fun i'm honestly not sure how intentional it is that frank whiteley has so frequently collaborated with fellow scottish writers because they are all working on american comics nevertheless that means that there's a unique level of commentary now the authority plays very differently now than it does back then because it came out just before 9 11 and a lot of the authority stories have america as a bit of a villain but that really wasn't uncommon for its time even homegrown fiction like x-files dealt with paranoia uh regarding america's power as a global player what is interesting is seeing an outsider's perspective because obviously they like working on american comics they're all working in that field so it's just interesting to see an outsider's perspective on a lot of these books in 2001 quietly re-teamed with morrison on new x-men for a critically acclaimed run on the popular marvel mutants while the story is great i'm here to look at the artwork this episode it clearly has influences from its time the x-men wear black leather like in the new movies that had just come out although quitely gives the character designs his all cyclops is tall and lean wolverine is in full biker mode emma frost has an x themed barely there suit there's also a storyline where new threat cassandra nova engineers a new sentinel that decimates the mutant island of genocia it's clearly a sci-fi take on the devastation new york had just gone through in real life but quietly also does some unique things mutants are given secondary mutations which turns some of the characters into an outward image of their interior personalities beast becomes a regal lion emma frost gains diamond-like skin as a barrier to the outside world content mirrors context of course x-men was also the largest audience quietly had had at this point so he also doesn't skimp on the epic action shots weird mutant abilities and interesting interpretations of their strange abilities like this page that shows characters using telepathy and thus we see two images layered within one another perhaps following x-men quietly was looking for a change of pace maybe a smaller project or at least a pallet cleanser because he next did something very different he again teamed up with grant morrison but they did a three issue series at dc comics with no superheroes it was called we three and it follows three pets a dog a cat and a rabbit they have been captured by the military and turned into cyborgs to be used as potential weapons the story involves the pets breaking free they escape and they're trying to get home it's unique it's gorgeous it's heartbreaking and i think it shows that no matter what the project no matter how many eyeballs are on it quietly always gives everything 100 percent effort we three contrasts the innocence of animals with the fact that they are now war machines this early page shows a shower of bullets tear through a target it's dynamic it's violent it's in your face but it's also kind of beautiful look at the decisions made in these two panels where a political leader meets the dog bandit for the first time we rarely see full faces of people in these issues because our point of view is aligned with the animals but quitely uses the body specifically the hands to convey the shock and apprehension at the frankenstein-like monstrosity in front of him meanwhile despite what's been done to bandit he still retains the personality of a dog cocking his head because he's questioning the situation there are no shortcuts for the artwork the animals running away from their hunters lays out everything we need to know from environment to speed to the stakes involved as we see bullets tear apart forest creatures nearby the low angle allows for the hunters in helicopters above to oppress the characters from the top of the page this page features the cat tinker decimating soldiers and quietly has angled the panels into panes that help imply the speed with which tinker is moving morrison as a writer can get into esoteric ideas and be verbose with his ideas regarding science but some of his best work is when he allows his artists to work without dialogue for instance when the pets originally escape we get several pages worth of rotating security camera footage it's a masterful way to build suspense and establish the environment there was a bbc documentary at the time which showed quietly spent a lot of time planning those pages creating small squares of footage that he could lay out and arrange until he got the pacing exactly how he wanted it but at its core a comic needs the reader to relate to and care about the characters we three is ultimately about someone wanting to get home along the journey our heart breaks for bandit as he feels like a bad dog when his fellow pet the rabbit named pirate is shot and is dying and our heart breaks again when we see bandit thinking he's being a good boy by pulling a soldier out of a river only for quietly to slowly pull back on the scene as bandit walks away and we realize this soldier has already died a while ago i'm closing in on what i have to say about frank whitley's art but before i end anything i have to take a look at all star superman a 12 issue series again grant morrison frank quitely it is a masterpiece it is arguably the best superman story it deserves its own episode to analyze how that works for today i'm really going to be focusing just on the artwork itself first of all it's clear just from quitely's preliminary sketches that he gave a lot of consideration on how to portray clark kent and superman differently in a way that made it plausible that clark's oldest friends and co-workers may not suspect him of being superman using the same mass quietly masterfully utilizes body posture to differentiate the two clark hunches over while superman stands tall a lot of the book is just fun adventure like going up against the prince of the dino czar it also gives us wonderfully melodramatic romance like this scene where superman kisses lois lane on the moon but we can even learn from subtle decisions this page features superman giving lois lane her birthday present a costume and super powers for 24 hours first there's the composition drawing our eye from left to right with the reveal of the costume there's the attention to detail in the folds of the cloth the body posture telling us how the characters feel without reading the dialogue the background environment and texture to establish the scene again no shortcuts nothing is obscured this scene features an establishing shot of the bottle city of candor we can see a bustling city suburbs and the farmland forests and rivers the story itself involves lex luthor luring superman too close to the sun and superman then learning that it has given him a sickness that will kill him within months superman resolves to do everything he can to set humanity up to be better after him than before him sometimes that's fighting super villains and sometimes it's quiet moments like rescuing a suicidal girl it's not always a good idea to set up a full horizontal panel with stacked panels beside it because it doesn't easily fit the traditional z pattern we're used to reading but this scene establishes the height and therefore the stakes involved it's very empty and lonely another scene at the end of the story features superman flying away and again the tall panel helps indicate distance between him and lois some other things in this comic that i noticed the faces and kryptonian designs are reminiscent of the late french cartoonist mobius with the thin line work some of the action with its impeccable detail reminds me of jeff darrow's hyper-complex detail superman's origin arguably one of the most interesting aspects but one we've seen many times before is encapsulated in a single page with minimal text and this page featuring clark and lex luthor in an interview taking place in prison is an early precursor to the stairway page quietly illustrated for pax americana that i began this video with and these are just highlights of a lengthy career i especially was impressed with this page of a junkie overdosing his eyes begin to roll to his side and make us the reader follow his line of sight which guides us directly into the next panel that's some attention to layout that not every artist considers other standout stories include jla earth 2 and jupiter's legacy i'm fond of the page quietly did for the madman 20th anniversary book where protagonist frank einstein speaks with a therapist and quietly analyzes comic structure while frank analyzes his life in preparation for this episode i decided to look at what criticisms were being leveled against frank whiteley's artwork because i love it but let's take a look at another argument another point of view and the only thing that i saw consistently leveled were that some people didn't like how he illustrates faces you know fair enough uh beauty's in the eye of the beholder i do like it i think that his delicate approach to faces imbues characters with a lot of humanity a lot of realistic emotion but let's play devil's advocate and grant that single critique even if we do it overlooks all the other things that you could say quietly absolutely does well um composition storytelling environment and landscapes it sincerely isn't common for an artist to do so many things and make it look easy because they do it with a consistent style since 2018 quitely has done covers but no interior pages he's moved on to working on other art that interests him like murals i'm grateful for the covers and curious about what he does next but even if frank whiteley were to never illustrate any more interior pages and i think that there is an excellent chance that he still will but even if he didn't he has already gifted us with a very large library that we can learn a lot from if you haven't looked into frank whiteley's artwork before i would strongly recommend starting with books like we three and all star superman i think that those are great entry points into his work from there you've got a lot of interesting stuff just just so much to list you can look that stuff up yourself these days with something called the internet thank you so much for watching uh it means a lot to me i'm gonna be back with another episode next week until then i have marching orders for you i want you to keep reading comics bye [Music] thanks for watching this video if you liked it please consider hitting like and subscribe if you'd like to support the show there are merchandise links beneath the youtube video and you can always hit join on youtube or visit comic tropes on patreon to get access to special perks i think to be a master you have to have a lot of different tools in your belt for instance composition um what else that's it just composition and finally the default structure of the pax americana pages follows in eight almost said it right okay let's do that again the result is always four more four more far more um after that uh i don't know what to say uh but i'll say it confidently the action in the dark dark hearts dark hearts quickly can pull in for for what where am i i lost my place in the script and it's sincerely uh i don't know what i'm saying [Music] [Music] you

Channel: ComicTropes

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Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 18 2022