Spider-man protection from new user

[AaronP]

Hi. These are from a sample script written by Ielle Palmer that you can read here--> http://www.penciljack.com/forum/show...ne-Script-4pgs on penciljack. Please check out that script as some of my wording is illegible. Im not sure I really made it look like the 'Spiderman love Mary Jane' title but would like comments on it.

I was out of 11x 17 bristol so did these as faster and smaller 'roughs' on 7x11 bristol (approx).
I would really appreciate any comments on what works and mostly what doesn't work about these so please, fire away. Thanks.

[autowagon]

awesome man, i like it a lot. The only critique i could offer is that the guy in the background in panels 3 and 4 on page 1 is questionable because he is framed in black in panel 3 making him an important element for the eye to go to. In panel four he is moving up the escalator which is a movement that suggests the eye back up towards panel 3. I agree that it looks better with a person in the bg, but his presence is too distracting. I think someone sitting on the ground next to the pillar in panel 3, and a couple of girls chatting coming down the escalator in 4 would be circumstantially dismissive and not be compositional distractions.
--but mostly i just wanted to say awesome work!!

[Repo Man]

I love these pages! Your composition within the panels is excellent and the overall pages read and flow nicely... especially for mere "roughs." I really like how you integrate the characters into the background elements.

As a suggestion, I think you need to flip Spidey in the first panel on page three. He is facing the opposite direction to where Mary Jane pulls him out. And did Mary Jane pull him out? You might want to make that clearer. Maybe pull the camera back?

Again, great stuff. Your ability to compose shots and tell the story are awesome! I don't know if you're doing pro work but you should be.

[stoat]

urrmm..these are just great Aaron, looking at each panel and your shot choices are great ,like repo man said love how the figures fit into their environment.
You've made MJ expressive and not just eye candy.
Impressive stuff,really looking forward to seeing more.Welcome to Penciljack by the way!

[Bruce Lee]

Looks pro to me. Good job! Welcome to PJ!

[MJames]

i have to respectfully disagree with autowagon's crit of page 1.
i think it flows beautifully and really creates atmosphere.
here is how my eye is reading it...



you have some great storytelling here.
excellent job.

[autowagon]

Mjames, your eye is wrong. Eye follows contrast. You aren't taking into account the word balloons or the heavy blacks on the inked page. You are just going from one detailed thing to the next with no concern for the storytelling or the finished page. (and by storytelling i mean simply that, "bum walks round corner, and goes up the escalator" aren't part of the actual story, and if they are they are sort of in the wrong reading order.)

aaronP if you want me to take this back down just say so.

[shannonh]

These are masterful pages. The only thing that i don't like is Spiderman leaping out of the way of the subway train. Train is too far back when he leaps up to look like he is in any danger of getting run over. Second, it took me a minute to figure out what he was doing because you cropped the panel and we barely see the train. Also, the pose is weak and makes it hard to tell what Spidey is doing.

That is one panel out of how many? Easy fix. Nice work man!

[AaronP]

HI! Thanks for the comments everybody. I really appreciate all of them. Autowagon, the reason there's only one other person in the subway is that the script emphasizes that MJ is alone, late at night in the subway and that there is only one other person acting strange near the tunnels mouth and then goes up the stairs, leaving her completely alone ( I think I didn't convey this successfully). My attempt (I think, again, unsuccessfully) was to make him look unbalanced near the edge hopefully to bolster the "suspense" involving the tunnel in the last panel. Should I have dropped this concept? Maybe. I wasn't really getting a lot from it.

Again autowagon and MJames. Thanks for your discussions. Whatever's going on in pg1, panel 3, I don't like it and it's awkward. Would it help if I just lowered the man on the stairs. Get a straight MJ,--> man, -->trashcan movement. The stairs are still really prominent to me in that panel, especially if it were inked I think. I'm going to try a redesign.

And for that embarrassing pg 3, panel 1 I tried this concept below. I tried to change as little as possible about the others, but maybe there is an overall flaw with that sequence that's still not right? Or it's just not interesting enough?


No one commented on the last panel of this page. MJ on the train with the reflection on the window? I was worried about that one.

[Mr. Nixon]

These look really good. There is only one panel that didn't seem to flow to me. The third panel on page 2 seemed like a drastic view point shift from the 2 panels before it. I assume that Green Goblin hurled Spidey of his back, but you don't actually show it so it looks like the viewer is above and behind spidey all of the sudden after being below him in the first panel. Other than that, I think the pages read pretty well and I could tell what was going on without a script. Nice job of putting in solid backgrounds too.