Introduction

Sometimes things don't go as you planned. I intended for this column to tackle one subject, but in doing the research for that subject and reading this week's comics, it went in a different direction. First I'd like to address something that may be old news to many of you, but came as a bit of a surprise to me when I read up on it. Apparently Marvel comic artist Greg Land is a bit of a tracer. I wouldn't say that I'm a big Greg Land fan, but I do like the look of his art. I read comic books fairly quickly and, to be honest, I don't look at the art for very long. I give it a quick look, take in the general layout and idea of the panel, read the dialogue, and move on. Sometimes I have to consciously remind myself to look at the art a bit harder, but unless it really stands out to me as being very bad or very good, I don't give it much of a second thought. It's just there to support the story. There are many comic readers who can pick out the subtle errors in anatomy or proportions that artists make, but I don't have these kinds of discerning eyes. I pretty much just say, "Yep, that looks like Spider-Man swinging from a web and saying something clever," and turn the page.

Greg Land is an artist who employs a commonly used artistic technique known as photo-referencing, wherein he sometimes draws faces or bodies from photographs in order to get the proportions correct. It's a technique also used by Alex Ross, although Ross goes the extra step to actually dress models in costumes and light them to get an image he wants to draw. Due to the use of this technique, both artists can turn out drawings that have a certain photographic realism to them. The problem (and controversy) stems from the fact that many people have found the photos Greg Land used for reference in the past, and the similarities between his work and the photographs go beyond reference into the realm of tracing or copying. A couple of the most grievous examples can be seen here and here where Magneto appears to have been traced off of Brad Pitt from Troy and Ultimate Reed Richards from Topher Grace. The evidence continues to mount the more you look. Below are a couple of Greg Land covers with the pictures (or sometimes other comic art) that are believed to have been used for tracing. I have to admit, that the similarities are striking and numerous. In the case of the Sports Illustrated cover, some of it matches line for line.

So yeah, these are pretty similar.

Starting to see some patterns now.

Clearly he doesn't trace everything, and he does have some artistic talent, so why would he risk doing this at all? I'm sure time is a factor. Comic art is on a pretty tight deadline in order to get books out on the shipping schedule. However, there are many artists out there who are not doing it this way and are hitting their deadlines every month. Land's critics call him lazy, unethical, and lacking in the fundamentals. I have noticed a lack of consistency in his work, and I'm talking characters looking different from page to page in the same issue. What I have not noticed (and this may stem from my level of attention to the art) is what has come to be known as "pornface". Greg Land has been accused of using pornography as his photo reference for many of his female characters' faces and poses, and not making much of an attempt to hide it. Certainly, there is some evidence to support this as well, and if you keep your mind firmly rooted in the gutter while looking through some of his art, it starts to look pretty silly. Frankly, I'm not really bothered by all of this, but then again, I'm not a struggling artist trying to get a job drawing in comics. I recognize that what Greg may be doing could be considered cheating, but I'd also like to think that other renowned artists would publicly crucify Greg Land if they thought this was happening. Many of those guys are very outspoken, and Marvel using a tracing hack artist to draw feature covers would certainly piss them off. I can't condemn Greg Land, and I'm certainly not going to actively boycott his work, but I will definitely try to guess which celebrity he's drawing from now on. He's obviously doing it, and while it seems to greatly offend a great many comic fans, I don't count myself among them.

Speaking of cover art, Marvel cheated me on a couple of things this week, and I wanted to mention them before going through the weekly picks. Misleading comic covers are nothing new, but sometimes it gets out of hand. An old cover that got me as a kid was this one for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #324 showing Spider-Man's hands clearly fending off Sabretooth. The problem is that the two never meet through the entire issue, let alone fight. The most recent cover I found troubling was for X-23: TARGET X #5 where it clearly shows Kimura holding X-23's claws in her hand after, apparently, having torn them out. She's actually looking right at you and holding them up as if saying, "Check it, I just tore these out of her hand!" Does this happen in the comic? No, it does not. X-23 does not get her claws torn out. It's still a great issue, but the cover poses lots of questions to a prospective buyer that are not going to get answered. I know that truth in advertising (and these covers are ads) is a quest for the young and the naïve, but can't we avoid outright lying?

Why not have Kimura fighting Batman? It would be as accurate.

MOON KNIGHT #9 also fibbed a tad, although not as heinous as the X-23 cover. The MOON KNIGHT cover pictures Moon Knight and Punisher battling off-screen enemies side-by-side. Does this happen in the issue? No. Actually Punisher doesn't show up until the very last page when Moon Knight spots him from his crazy moon-shaped hover plane thing. Come on, guys. It's bad enough that you get Michael Turner and Adi Granov to do awesome covers but not the internal art, do the images themselves have to be lies?

Here are this week's picks.

• DC
• • Justice League of America #8 - The new Justice League trains in the beginning of this JLA and JSA crossover.
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• Dynamite Entertainment
• • Battlestar Galactica #8 - Unfortunately this series is losing me since it's set before the events of the last season finale, but here I am still buying it.
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• Image
• • Girls #24 - This is a double-sized issue that ends the whole story with kind of a "meh" feeling.
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• Marvel
• • The Mighty Avengers #2 - Bendis is still trying to bring back thought balloons while Frank Cho's naked female Ultron faces off against some Avengers.
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  • Moon Knight #9 - No David Finch interior art, and a serious lack of Punisher considering he's on the cover.
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  • Ultimate Spider-Man #108 - Ultimate Ronin already? I like how Ultimate Moon Knight's mental problems are handled in this.
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  • Ultimate X-Men #81 - Beast is back, and it isn't a spoiler since he's on the cover. Thanks, Marvel!
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  • X-23: Target X #5 - All gripes with the lying cover aside, this is still my favorite book right now, and I think I want to read more stories with Kimura.
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