Friday, April 10, 2015

Pretty As A Picture

Thursday Story Strip Day.

There is a seller on Ebay who photographs his items so well, that it almost eliminates my need to buy them.

Here is a long run of Friday Foster I would normally not have bought anyway. There is something about this late sixties and seventies development in the photorealistic strip that does not sit well with me. All over the world artists were drawing prettier and prettier until in my view the once lively school of photo realism turned into a style that has more in common with costume design than storytelling. Still, the basic skills are there despite the glammy look.


7 comments:

fred.de.heij said...

Thank you for this post, I love it. These drawings remind me of another comic by a spanish illustrator about a photographer, Frank Cappa by Manfred Sommer. Some sort of a Barcelona style? I think the name is spelled with an 'a', Longaron.

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I had the name form the internet, but I think you are right, Fred.

rnigma said...

Didn't Gray Morrow take over the art sometime later?
There was a Friday Foster movie, starring Pam Grier.

George Freeman said...

A lot of this doesn't feel like Longaron to me. I'm tempted to say Creig Flessel because there's such a lightheartedness to some of the characters.

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I see where you are coming from, George. Part of my problem with this early seventies style is that it all looks the same to me. The combination of photorealism morphing into glamour art and seventies fashion puts me off. Many instances of this style can be found with the Spanish artists working for British publishers and those coming up through the Tutain agency. And there are similar trends in the Philipine and Puerto Rican artists coming in the market place. But for some reason many of the older photo realist artist saw it as a way to make their style more contemporary. People such as Alex Kotzky and neal Adams and indeed Creig Flessel lost their appeal to me as well.

Ger Apeldoorn said...

Oh and Gray Morrow took over the strip in 1964.

Ger Apeldoorn said...

And according to a Jake Foster commenting here: http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.nl/2014/02/unlikely-romance-dells-friday-foster.html it was the Gray Morrow version that was ghosted by Flessel. Which seems sort of logical, because I read an interview recently from which I got the impression Langaron worked from Europe. But, if you go up a couple of days and look at the first of my three tier extras, the older guy in the second tier of the first post does have that ambling Flessel look.