The Dreamland Chronicles

[diegojourdan]

THE DREAMLAND CHRONICLES #2-3 by Scott Sava, 48 pg color comics (Alias;$4.50)


The "3D" computer painting style is clearly the star here, since the story of a college kid who suddenly rediscovers how to dream his way to a fairyland of his childhood imagination only to discover it's a real place is... kind of dull. Problem is: there are no interesting characters in it. The hero's an egotistical dullard, his brother's just snarky, and the main subplot involves an uninteresting psych student (my guess is she'll eventually become the love interest for the brother, who hates her) who wants the hero for a test subject. The "dreamlands" characters are cutesy "iconic," with all the expected personalities, and Sava's got a neat trick for dealing with cliffhangers: the hero wakes up. When he goes back to sleep, the same amount of time has passed Over There, crisis avoided. About the time they bring pirates into it, any semblance of story logic, even dream logic, flies away. The art style quickly grows wearing too, since everyone looks like plastic dolls, regardless of locale. I know this is supposed to be an "all ages" comic, but there's enough good fantasy out there that I can't imagine why any kid would decide to settle for this.

Dear Steve,

Altho "PD" is indeed your column,and you are perfectly entitled to an opinion,i do believe your comments on THE DREAMLAND CHRONICLES not only seem mean to me ,but also quite below the usual good level you have accustomed your readers to.

Sounds like you´re somehow against the use of 3D in comics,while Scott´s aim is clearly to bring comics into a FUTURE free from the industry´s prevalescent nearsightedness,and misconceptions which keeps US comics stuck in the photo-traced bodybuilder in long underwear type subgenre.

Make no mistake.If there´s any future for comics as an industry it lies within the 3D renderings,and imaginative sense of humour,both of which Dreamland has to spare!

How long will it take? Animation´s already a few steps ahead, so it´s only a matter of technical availability,and people willing to learn to apply the 3D tool to comics production.

Either way,don´t turn your back on the FUTURE.It´s too bright,and too 3D to ignore :cool:

Cheers,
Diego.

[Steven Grant]

Sorry if you felt I was being mean; I was just giving my reaction, as I do with anything.

3D rendering is just another cheap gimmick if there's no story or characters behind it. I'm not against it but anyone who thinks it's the future in itself if staring down the barrel of huge disappointment down the road, the same as all gimmicks eventually bring if they're not tied to something substantial. I've seen decent 3D rendering -- matter of fact, I positively review a 3D rendered project this coming Wednesday -- but I don't feel TDC was it, regardless of all the pretty colors.

And I thought the "sense of humor" in TDC was rather thin and plodding. But I like humor, too. I didn't find as much of it in the book as you apparently did.

[Inkthinker]

Digital tools are just tools, no more or less than a pencil. They're either used well, or poorly, and that's all there is to it.

The future lies in skills and their application, not in any particular set of tools.

[badMike]

I find it odd that the proponent of 3D rendering doesn't say that the artwork is any GOOD. He just likes it because it's "the future." If you told me "the future" of nutrition is eating horse turds, that doesn't mean they're going to taste like anything except horse turds.

Ahh, static 3D rendering just looks like someone couldn't make it as an animator...

Didn't First have a computer rendered comic book like 20 years ago? Was it called Static or something like that?

[ssava]

Hi guys...
Diego...thanks for the kind words.
Steven...thanks for taking the time to read my comic.
I appreciate you putting the time and effort to do so...I know there are alot of books to review and appreciate you picking mine.

While I appreciate Diego's thoughts on the future of comics...I am not personally trying to revolutionize the medium I love.
This is simply an artistic expression I'm seeing how far I can push.

As for other opinions of why someone would do it in comics (the answer being that that said person couldn't make it in comics) really it's because it could be fun. No more...no less.

To date...this is the first negative review I've had...and so I felt no need to speak up...but since there was a whole thread dedicated to it...I figured I should at least say HI.
:)

Sorry to intrude...just didn't want to walk by and not join in when my comic was the topic of discussion...ha ha.

Thanks again for your time...and thanks to all the fans out there for their support.

Scott

www.bluedreamstudios.com

[diegojourdan]

3D rendering is just another cheap gimmick.

He just likes it because it's "the future." If you told me "the future" of nutrition is eating horse turds, that doesn't mean they're going to taste like anything except horse turds.

LOL! :D How typical such reactions to a new paradigm.

Just wait and see...

...I am not personally trying to revolutionize the medium I love.
This is simply an artistic expression I'm seeing how far I can push.

Keep pushing the envelope man (and hopefully the World will tag along)!

Peace to all,
D.

[NatGertler]

Didn't First have a computer rendered comic book like 20 years ago? Was it called Static or something like that?You're thinking of Shatter, which was merely drawn on a computer (and apparently at times, merely drawn on paper which was scanned into a computer for effect and editing), not 3-D modeled. (Static was the name of a Milestone comics series, quite a good one when written by Bob Washington and drawn by John Paul Leon.)

For significant 3-D modeling in US comics, you'd have to look at Batman: Digital Justice, a graphic novel that came a bit after Shatter. And while there are various examples of wholly- or partially-rendered comics along the way, and while it may well have a larger place in the future, it seems quite unlikely to be the future. Even with the tendency toward deader lines in comics, the benefits that modeling has for animation aren't there for comics, which gets its energy not from the motion (which having exact repetition of the visual structure can help present) but from the energy of the line, from the quirk of the moment. So yeah, we'll see individual works using 3-D rendering, but it ain't gonna replace the wonderful subtleties and happy accidents that you get from a flick of the wrist of well-trained art monkeys.

[Inkthinker]

Another comic that has used 3D to excellent effect is the Japanese series GANTZ. The team that constructs that comic builds almost everything in 3D first, including placing mannequins into positions for the characters, and then hand-draws (probably using a WACOM or Cintique) the character art into the scenes. They've been doing this since the book began, and they're now up to 211 chapters (each chapter being anywhere from 12-16 pages in length, I think). The fact that they only render line art from the modeller is, I think, one of the reasons it works so well. They describe the entire process they use in the back of their first trade collection, and I have those "how-to" pages on file somewhere if people really want to see them.

Use of 3D has allowed them to produce a book with extremely impressive visuals in very rapid time, and while it has had it's disadvantages, it's certainly been a successful book (having spun off into licensed products like anime, video games, toys, etc.) and is still going strong with no end in sight.

I've known more than a few currrently successful American comics artists who use limited 3D modeling to establish a basis for their illustration... for instance, Ryan Ottley of Invincible recently did a cover in which he used a basic series of 3D-rendered blocks to determine the shape and perspective of buildings in the background of the shot. He laid in his character forms loosely, by hand, onto the digital file, printed it out and used that and a lightbox to produce a final piece that no-one would have know used a CG basis if he hadn't shown us over at Penciljack.

Conversely, when Madureira was making fantasy pop at the end of the 90's, a company and creative team who's names completely elude me built a book called something like Gear Station, which used CG-rendered backgrounds against traditionally drawn characters, and it looked quite awful. The visual dichotomy between the CG environments and the illustrated characters was painfully obvious and very distracting, and the book dropped into obscurity and finally failed before it reached a full year, I think.

Rod Espinosa has used CG in his book Neotopia from Antarctic Press, with mixed results. While it's often obvious where CG takes over from pen, in his case the blend is more smooth and less distracting, but in the end I believe his art would have looked finer had it not been so obvious.

Computers are tools. Just like pens, just like paper. Many Japanese comics are being produced entirely in software programs like Comic Studio (soon to reach our shores as well) that mimic brush and tone tools in the same way Painter or Photoshop does, but in ways geared directly towards comics production. If an image is drawn with a tablet in software, is it any less hand-drawn?

[Steven Grant]

You're thinking of Shatter, which was merely drawn on a computer (and apparently at times, merely drawn on paper which was scanned into a computer for effect and editing), not 3-D modeled.

I was going to say...

I worked briefly on SHATTER, which was marketed as the first comic done on computer, and did look as though it had been printed out on a dot matrix printer. In fact, as you say, the bulk of it was drawn on paper, which was then scanned into a Macintosh and digitized for that dot matrix look, then printed out. The last few issues by Charlie someone or other (I forget the name) were actually done on computer. When I was called in, it was to wrap up a storyline that was going on forever without apparent end. Which I did, leading me to quip "they went to a Mac for form but they had to come to a Kaypro for content."

[badMike]

You're thinking of Shatter, which was merely drawn on a computer (and apparently at times, merely drawn on paper which was scanned into a computer for effect and editing), not 3-D modeled.Thanks, Nat.

Unfortunately, Comics.org doesn't list this book at all. I did find some more info from one of the later artists here: http://burningcity.com/bci_html/athanas_comics.html, which is Charlie ATHANAS, Steven. He shows the process of how he made the art, which is interesting even if the final product is pretty ugly. And what's really funny is that the line art was computer-made, but the coloring was hand done. Isn't most comic book coloring done on computer these days? I only bought the first issue, which I think was a one-off special before it became a series. I didn't know Steven worked on it.

As for this:

How typical such reactions to a new paradigm.Give me a friggin' break.

[badMike]

Which I did, leading me to quip "they went to a Mac for form but they had to come to a Kaypro for content."People actually wrote on these hideous contraptions:

http://oldcomputers.net/kayproii.html

[ssava]

Well...since it seems that maybe Steven and Diego were the only ones in this thread to see my book...here's some pics.

Of course NOTHING is going to please "purists".
As a lifelong comics fan...and also an accomplished painter/illustrator even I don't want to see all comics done in CGI.

Again...this is just a tool I'm trying to push in a medium I love.

I don't expect everyone to like it...and again...I'm thrilled that to date...Steven's was the ONLY reviewer to have a negative view on Dreamland.

Take a look and see for yourselves. If you don't like it...fine. But at least you can say you've seen some art from the books now.

:)


http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/Dreamland01/Dreamland_Issue_01_Cover.jpg

http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/teasers/alexkiwi03.jpg

http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/teasers/kiwi_01.jpg

[ssava]

http://www.newsarama.com/Alias/Dreamland/Dreamland_Issue_02_Cover_01.jpg

http://www.newsarama.com/Alias/Dreamland/Dreamland_Issue_02_Page_02.jpg

http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/images/Dreamland3.jpg

[ssava]

http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/images/DLC2_PS_001.jpg

http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/images/Nastajia05.jpg

[ssava]

http://www.bluedreamstudios.com/Dreamland03/Dreamland_Issue_03_Page_05.jpg

Last one.
:P

[NatGertler]

Charlie ATHANAS, Steven. He shows the process of how he made the art, which is interesting even if the final product is pretty ugly.The original artist on the book was Mike Saenz, and his art had a better texture to it than what came after. It looks to me like much of it was drawn on the computer; the style changed a lot when Saenz left.

Saenz later did a computer-drawn Iron Man graphic novel and the 3-D modeled Donna Matrix (http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer/_SPEED_/1.2/images_gif/Donna_Matrix1.gif).

And yes, Scott, others of us have read some of Dreamland Chronicles. It was clear that a lot of good effort went into it, but forme it still had the basic problem of a static reality, and writing that didn't capture me. But then, I'm probably not your target audience.

And if I may make a suggestion: instead of throwing 700K of pictures into a mostly-text bulletin board discussion, consider just one or two smaller pics with links to your site to find more. That way, folks in the dial-up world won't find themselves swamped.

[fumetti]

3-D comics won't get much money from me. My passion for comic book art is all about the drawing (pencils and inks). 3-D rendering has no inks at all, and are very vulnerable to weaknesses in the basic drawing. There's not much of an upside for me.

That said, the DLC images posted above look good (I have dial-up and it didn't take very long to load them; it was good to see them in high res). But I want to see this treatment given to a penciler like John Buscema or David Finch. It's easy to make Disney-esque cartooning look good in 3-D, but what about more serious styles?

NOTE ABOUT DREAMLAND COVER: It looks terrible to have 3-D art for the cover but then ruin it by slapping a flat, very low-rent looking company logo on it. Redo that logo in 3-D!

[bartl]

3-D comics won't get much money from me.
OK, at the risk of sounding like a flaming radical, can somebody explain to me what the significance of, with apologies to Shakespeare, "3-D or not 3-D"? If the story grabs you, the writing is good, and the art is recognizable and flows, what else matters?

[ssava]

Thanks for the replies and kind words on the art.
Crits are always welcome too.

I did not want to turn this into a "why don't you like my book thread" so I'm going to step back a bit.

As stated in the first post, I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to look at it and thanks to all the other people who really like it.

The second post with the pics was for those of you who I thought may not have seen the book.

Again...I'm not here to convince anyone of liking my books, liking 3D, or liking me for that matter...ha ha.

I can see where you're all coming from and I would be very dissapointed if EVERYONE liked my books and NO one had something bad to say about them. It's always good for creators to hear negative feedback and that's why I'm here.

Anyways. I'll keep making these books as long as the majority of the people like it...and I hope to take some of everyone's advice into consideration to make the books as good as possible.

Thanks
Scott

[NatGertler]

Anyways. I'll keep making these books as long as the majority of the people like it...Oh, don't even set your sights that high! One of the joys of comics is that it is a minority medium. If one out of every thousand people out there buys your book, you have the biggest hit in comics. If one fifth of the people who bought the Miller/Lee Batman book buy your book, you have a strong hit. So don't worry about the majority of anything -- as long as there are a sufficient number of people who are buying and liking your comic, make it for them, and let other folks worry about making comics for the people who don't like yours.

[Inkthinker]

Wow... I didn't realize the ENTIRE thing was done this way...

The ony problem I have with it is that it really just looks to me like several stills grabbed from an animated film.

Ssava, have you given some consideration to trying a vector-line renderer that produces more of an ink-line look? You might then turn it over to a more traditional colourist (with Painter and Photoshop, there's quite a lot of hungry kids out there with mad painting skills) who can add a greater level of texture and depth to the work.

I'm with Fumetti... one of the appeals of the comics medium, to me, is the artwork. And while I enjoy good modeling in 3D, I don't think it makes for good comics when handled in this way. It's not your modeling in particular that makes me feel this way... That's not to say that SOMEONE out there doesn't like this though, it's just that I for one do not. If they put out a comic with renders from Advent Children I still wouldn't be interested... it's just not appealing to me any more than comics made from animation stills (the so-called "cinemanga" that CMX or Tokyopop have released) would be.

[ssava]

True...
I'm actually really doing it for my kids...who really like the pretty pictures (they're 2).
Hopefully they'll have the complete 24 issue run before they go to college...ha ha.

Still...it does help get you through the tough times when you get emails from fans or positive reviews. I'd be lying to say that it didn't help.

You don't do it for that...but...ha....when you get a nice email from a parent who says their kids dress up as Kiwi the fairy...that does make you smile.

:)

[Inkthinker]

OK, at the risk of sounding like a flaming radical, can somebody explain to me what the significance of, with apologies to Shakespeare, "3-D or not 3-D"? If the story grabs you, the writing is good, and the art is recognizable and flows, what else matters?


I think you have a perfectly valid point there, you flaming radical!! :D

If you like this look, then by all means this is the book for you. The construction of the art has nothing to do with it's "validity" as a comic... this is actually one of the forms of comics that McCloud descibed in either Understanding or Reinventing.

I'd say another, earlier equivalent to this sort of thing was the photographic comics I saw attempted during the 70's and 80's. And there's been several artists that use digitally processed photographs as their backgrounds, even today.

[Inkthinker]

True...
I'm actually really doing it for my kids...who really like the pretty pictures (they're 2).

Hey, that's a better reason than I've ever had. I just draw for the money, and for myself. :D

[ssava]

Wow... I didn't realize the ENTIRE thing was done this way...

The ony problem I have with it is that it really just looks to me like several stills grabbed from an animated film.

Ssava, have you given some consideration to trying a vector-line renderer that produces more of an ink-line look? You might then turn it over to a more traditional colourist (with Painter and Photoshop, there's quite a lot of hungry kids out there with mad painting skills) who can add a greater level of texture and depth to the work.

I'm with Fumetti... one of the appeals of the comics medium, to me, is the artwork. And while I enjoy good modeling in 3D, I don't think it makes for good comics when handled in this way. It's not your modeling in particular that makes me feel this way... That's not to say that SOMEONE out there doesn't like this though, it's just that I for one do not. If they put out a comic with renders from Advent Children I still wouldn't be interested... it's just not appealing to me any more than comics made from animation stills (the so-called "cinemanga" that CMX or Tokyopop have released) would be.

Yeah..I've thought about it.
Honestly ...this is what my animation studio produces though. CGI tv and film animation. So this is the look I'm already establishing in Hollywood.
I'm like the poor man's Pixar...haha.

As for people's tastes...of course.
When I did SPider-Man Quality of Life....MAN...that was harsh.
It's one thing to do a CGI book with your own characters. But try taking Spidey into CGI...and people have POLARIZING opinions.

I'm used to it.

Again...I come from a painting background...so I love drawn and painted art. I love Ditko's Spidey, Buscema's Conan, and so much more.
It was Marv Wolfman who recommended I take my CGI animation and try this...and I have to give him credit for pushing me.

It's allowed me to have some fun...and that's what it's all about.
:)

[fumetti]

OK, at the risk of sounding like a flaming radical, can somebody explain to me what the significance of, with apologies to Shakespeare, "3-D or not 3-D"? If the story grabs you, the writing is good, and the art is recognizable and flows, what else matters?

To me, art and story are too intricately linked to overlook styles I think are of poor quality or don't serve the story. 3-D art tends to be too "Disney" and not enough "Buscema" for my taste. As I said, if someone can use 3-D rendering to accentuate rather than flatten the tone of a John Buscema or Neal Adams, then I'd buy it. (But not without lamenting the loss of lush inking, such as that by Tom Palmer.)

But it's more than just 3-D. I have trouble reading straight adventure stories with Timm-style art because, to me, the light style undermines the serious story. If you look back at Batman around 1970, you might notice that the stories weren't substantively very different for Neal Adams than other artists (like Infantino's later issues). But it was the art that made them seem darker. So I need the art to be more than be "recognizable and flows." I need it to be an integral part of the whole story presentation.

That's just my opinion.

[Inkthinker]

It's allowed me to have some fun...and that's what it's all about.
:)


Good philosophy.