I was thinking about comic art and illustrators last night. Actually I do this pretty much at various times all day as I am awake.
Anyway.
He came onto the scene with his own self published comic The Myth of 8-Opus.
I have not read too much of that but I soon will remedy that as I contacted him directly to order the Trades.
That garnered him some attention as a “Jack Kirby Clone”
At first that’s what I thought as well. I don’t deny that.
Then he blasted onto the scene with g0dland co-created with writer Joe Casey and published by Image Comics. I understand that Eric Larsen was the one who got Tom in contact with Joe to make this book.
This is where I discovered Tom’s amazing art.
At first you would dismiss it as very Kirby Copied.
Inspired for sure but not copied. I think he gets a bad rep for that but you have to know your Kirby to know your Scioli.
He is using a bold and dynamic style like Kirby. If you really look at it though he has his own thing going on. His character designs are amazing!
One of the critiques I had heard of Tom was “How does it feel to be the equivalent of a Kiss tribute band in comics”
Cover bands take a band and copy them exactly. They play that bands songs and they try as hard as they can to be identical in sound and performance. Tom is not trying to do that here. If he was he would be redrawing FF 1-101 or New Gods or The Demon each month with his name on it.
I will relate it to the genre of Rock Music which has sub-genre’s
Kirby was almost like that raw spirit of Rock and Roll. That spirit that was in Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Then Rock and Roll started to get watered down and technical. Rock music was dying. Then the spirit in the late 60’s and early 70’s came back with Punk. Bands like The Stooges,MC5 and the Ramones.
That’s Tom Scioli. He wants to rock and he wants it to get back to awesome storytelling that is a comic. He is out to make fun comics again. I really want to personally thank him for that. There are not enough people doing that in my opinion. The big companies are too busy trying to please the babymen to see it.
So if you want to read some fun comics that know they are comics and not trying to be a
It does not disappoint.
Tom's work is awesome and fun! Its great to see someone using a visual vocabulary based in the same colloquial semiotics as Kirby, especially one with such depth, detail and innovation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that his work is, though very much Kirby-based, in and of itself it's own creation. Scioli's work is a contemporary extension of what the King was doing. It makes me want to dive into some early 70's Kirby books though.
ReplyDeleteYeah he is a blast. Why aren't you following this blog yet Clay?
ReplyDelete