Neil the Horse issue #3
Location: 1980s Indies
Artist:
Katherine Collins
(All)
410 Views - 9 Comments - 3 Likes
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Wonderful cartooning in all 4 verticals! It has multi images of Neil in the first two panels to see the velocity in constant progression, but picks up the acceleration in the third and fourth as momentum increases! The cakes and the rising dough in the cake factory makes that image one to savor.
What a fun page. This is a really good one. I've been itching to get one myself. Congrats.
There's some great ones still out there!
Superior page. Absolutely brilliant cartooning, story telling and draftsmanship. I have never read this series but will give it a shot. Thanks for sharing!
Grim and Gritty DKR is clearly a homage to this. Frank, you thief. A falling figure. What looks like a cape in certain panels and lots of dough. Is Neil Bruce Wayne, Batman or a blend? That explains the dough. Horse Dough. Yum, yum.
This might be the best comment I've ever read.
OMG ! Can't believe I forgot about this book. Loved it so much when it first came out. Need to find a copy right away. Beautiful page.
Oh, my good lord, Mark - this is HILARIOUS! There is so much about this that I absolutely -love-...
It has always been deliciously ironic to me that Katherine's super clean, super "classic", black and white renderings always felt like a beautifully-restored silent movie reel to me... and yet, it was a musical. :) To that end, the soundtrack that plays behind Neil in my head is a jangly old movie house piano, trotting jauntily along until something overly dramatic happens and the player in my head starts an arpegiated rumble to denote trouble, etc.
And there's plenty of rumbling going on here! A good, ol' vertical layout always does my heart good, and Katherine's exquisitely clean line and beautiful sense of design really make this page one to fall for (sorry). All the tiny details she provides as Neil descends down each panel cause the viewer to linger on each one, which, incredibly, simultaneously elongates the time of the fall... and also slows the velocity of it, acting as a visual parachute of sorts.
(I don't know if this "counts", but in the first split-second I saw this just now, my eye initially only followed Neil on the top half of the page... so as I moved from panel to panel, Neil inched down incrementally, then exponentially by panel 3. By the time I hit panel 4, my eye had already placed Neil smack-dab in the middle of the pile of dough... even though on the page, Neil still hovered above it... which literally made me laugh out loud. It was this sweet little telegraphed moment that made me complicit in Neil's "dough dunking" and it has been a good, long while since a piece of comic art has tickled me like that. SO cool. :) )
Oh, man - do I ever need to grab a Neil page of my own! Fantastic trip down memory lane! Sensational page! Omnibus ordered! Thanks, Mark! :)
(...And the dude at the bottom of panel 3? Just standing there smiling, enjoying his day, without a care in the world...? Just -happening- to be holding open the skylight directly over the rising pile of dough...?!? Oh, my God - I just can't stop giggling at this gorgeous page, Mark...! :) )