1 - Posted on 10/11/2021

A real beauty! Congrats! I've been wondering about these pages and where to pick them up.

1 - Posted on 10/11/2021

It would take a bit more deduction to figure this was Leonardo's modern style as it shows evolution and confidence.  Great show.  Great show homey.

1 - Posted on 10/11/2021

I like those pencils a lot more than the finished product. It lost some oomph from his visual storytelling, imo. The pencils are tight, but loose with action, and sparser for some backgrounds to bring the characters and action into focus. like this one, too, it's a neat rooftop fight page. Congrats!

1 - Posted on 10/11/2021

The storytelling is as excellent as it always is with Leonardi, there's no doubt about that. But I'm with JH, in an effort for whoever the publisher was to publish the story and minimize costs in doing so, they made the decision to not hire an inker and to color straight from the pencils, no doubt using a terrible colorist willing to work at a cheap page rate. Because the finished product is absolutely hideous. The colors are pure amateur hour, and using darkening the line art with software always intensifies some lines much more than others, making a mess of it all.

But regardless, the nice thing about original art is that we can enjoy the pure art for its own sake and don't have to stare at the digitally "enhanced" version if we don't want to. Having said that, I'm glad you were still able to get good writing out of it!

1 - Posted on 10/11/2021

Agreed that publishing it from pencils was obviously a way to minimize costs, which is clearly the case considering the "quality" of the coloring. That being said, even manhandled, Leonardi's art remain a must buy and enjoyable in itself for me :)

2 - Posted on 10/11/2021

Yes, I understand that small time publishing can sometimes only work from a financial standpoint by cutting out the inker. That's okay, but these publishers need to figure out that it would be better if they colored directly from the pencils but found a printer and the best possible paper stock to publish the pencils WITHOUT first darkening them in Photoshop or Illustrator. It looks very unnatural and obvious that either the "levels" or "contrast" was jacked up on the pencils in an effort to darken the line art and also hope the buyers think it's been inked, rather than digitally darkened. DC Comics proved 37 years ago with the publication of Nathaniel Dusk and especially with Nathaniel Dusk II that pencils can be published "as is", with the right paper, coloring and no need to artificially darken the line art.

1 - Posted on 10/12/2021

I agree on all counts with what you wrote, F M; this is a lovely page filled with excellent storytelling elements at play.  It has a bit of everything - beautiful rooftop establishing shot, solid flow, a few great shots of our heroes, and an overall excellent construction (I really like the backgrounds on this page; present where they need to be, and giving the impression of the environment, but not overwhelming the moment or bogging down the action).  I love the wide pencil shading which denotes the folds of their coats, and the raked angle on the last panel is awesome - that shot only works because of it, but it doesn't feel forced at all.  Looking at these pencils, I would think that the scene was a night scene, and I'm going to have to agree with you and Ruben about the quality of the final presentation, via-a-vie the coloring choices.  Very cool to see the original pencils here!  Great find, F M!

1 - Posted on 10/13/2021

I gotta look into this book!  And dig your description - Leonardi one of those guys that can do no wrong.  Congrats!

1 - Posted on 10/17/2021

Obviously, none of us are privy to whatever digital process was used to produce the printed image.  It almost seems as if a decision was made to place emphasis on the character figures and treat the background as, well, background.  Or, at the end of the day, it could just be a really, really, bad coloring job by someone who wasn't very good or didn't know what they were doing.  As is always the case, thank goodness for the original.  Nice page and nice write up.