7 ms·

1982 DC Comics Style Guide

77 points by Moeancurly 11y ago

binarymax 11y ago
I have touched and thumbed through one of these - when I was six or seven years old. My father was employed in a family printing business as the art director and an illustrator drawing jigsaw puzzles for various companies. The company was sold in mid-80s and went out of business mid-90s. I have no idea what happened to this copy. He had so many amazing things in his office (like an original Voltron). He wasn't able to keep much of it when he was laid off when the company ran into trouble. I had completely forgotten about this and had no idea how rare it was. Thank you for posting this.
scrollaway 11y ago
Really cool. The images don't look like they were scanned - how were they digitized?
- stronglikedan 11y ago
  I would guess that they are scanned on a high-end scanner (drum scanner maybe), and then possibly (probably) retouched.
chadgeidel 11y ago
And it's gone. Did anyone grab it?
- lobo_tuerto 11y ago
  It's still there.
  - chadgeidel 11y ago
    So it is. For some reason when I clicked it it said "removed".
tacos 11y ago
I realize that HN leans far to the edge on this issue, but this really is over-the-top copyright infringement. The whole thing, in its entirety, with not even an attempt at commentary? I'm reminded of the time a Spike Lee documentary was on HBO. The Boing Boing lunatics were outraged that it wasn't available online, so they published 18 links to YouTube (videos were then limited to ten minutes in length). I doubt anyone even made it to part #6 of 18 before the whole thing got taken down. Likewise I'm sure they think they invited HBO GO and Hulu as a result of their radical, innovative behavior. It was not. And they did not. The post is cool, the art is super cool... and Facebook couldn't be a dumber place to put it.
- kbenson 11y ago
  I understand you have a point you want to make but... do you actually know anything one way or the other whether it's actually copyright infringement? It's posted in a José Luis García-López fan club, and he's an artist that has had a long running relationship with DC Comics. It's entirely plausible that it was posted with permission. Why are you jumping to the assumption that it's copyright infringement?
  - sp332 11y ago
    He also has the #3 comment on the page and doesn't seem to see anything wrong with it.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
      Morally, what is wrong with this? It's not costing anyone any money, not even in the theoretical sense. It's not exposing any trade secrets.
  - tacos 11y ago
    If you think the artist has rights to a book with a Warner Bros logo on the side -- well, as an artist myself I sure wish I lived in your reality. OF COURSE he doesn't have a problem with it. It benefits him. That's not the issue here at all. Once this hits Reddit I'm pretty sure it won't be on Facebook for much longer.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Maybe its the old man in me talking, but I really miss this style. Marvel also had a similar style at the time. Clean lines, bright colors, minimal detail, etc. The post Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld era slowly became a Western version of Anime/Manga today that looks a cheap imitation of what Japan has been doing for a long time. Comics out this week for reference: https://pulllist.comixology.com/thisweek/ https://pulllist.comixology.com/thisweek/
- DannoHung 11y ago
  There's a lot of stuff like that around. The covers are usually much different compared to interior art. Like, Headlopper which came out last week. Clean lines, bright color, minimal detail. Here's an example from an interior spread: http://andrew-ross-maclean.deviantart.com/art/Head-Lopper-2-Spread-495745695 http://andrew-ross-maclean.deviantart.com/art/Head-Lopper-2-...
- bitwize 11y ago
  I like the attention to detail in the anatomy and how a realistic human form can be suggested with a few clean lines. The men look like men and the women look like women. Idealized versions of such, but the realism is striking. Maybe I've spent too much time looking (and laughing) at comic "art" by the likes of Liefeld...
alexc05 11y ago
What's interesting to me is that in terms of style guidance, there doesn't appear to be a lot of exposition. Save for the colour palette It's just pictures, part of me expected to see some sort of exposition about what given characters could and couldn't do.

77 points by Moeancurly 11y ago

I have touched and thumbed through one of these - when I was six or seven years old. My father was employed in a family printing business as the art director and an illustrator drawing jigsaw puzzles for various companies. The company was sold in mid-80s and went out of business mid-90s. I have no idea what happened to this copy. He had so many amazing things in his office (like an original Voltron). He wasn't able to keep much of it when he was laid off when the company ran into trouble. I had completely forgotten about this and had no idea how rare it was. Thank you for posting this.

scrollaway 11y ago

Really cool. The images don't look like they were scanned - how were they digitized?

stronglikedan 11y ago
I would guess that they are scanned on a high-end scanner (drum scanner maybe), and then possibly (probably) retouched.

chadgeidel 11y ago

And it's gone. Did anyone grab it?

lobo_tuerto 11y ago
It's still there.
- chadgeidel 11y ago
  So it is. For some reason when I clicked it it said "removed".

tacos 11y ago

I realize that HN leans far to the edge on this issue, but this really is over-the-top copyright infringement. The whole thing, in its entirety, with not even an attempt at commentary? I'm reminded of the time a Spike Lee documentary was on HBO. The Boing Boing lunatics were outraged that it wasn't available online, so they published 18 links to YouTube (videos were then limited to ten minutes in length). I doubt anyone even made it to part #6 of 18 before the whole thing got taken down. Likewise I'm sure they think they invited HBO GO and Hulu as a result of their radical, innovative behavior. It was not. And they did not. The post is cool, the art is super cool... and Facebook couldn't be a dumber place to put it.

kbenson 11y ago
I understand you have a point you want to make but... do you actually know anything one way or the other whether it's actually copyright infringement? It's posted in a José Luis García-López fan club, and he's an artist that has had a long running relationship with DC Comics. It's entirely plausible that it was posted with permission. Why are you jumping to the assumption that it's copyright infringement?
- sp332 11y ago
  He also has the #3 comment on the page and doesn't seem to see anything wrong with it.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
    Morally, what is wrong with this? It's not costing anyone any money, not even in the theoretical sense. It's not exposing any trade secrets.
- tacos 11y ago
  If you think the artist has rights to a book with a Warner Bros logo on the side -- well, as an artist myself I sure wish I lived in your reality. OF COURSE he doesn't have a problem with it. It benefits him. That's not the issue here at all. Once this hits Reddit I'm pretty sure it won't be on Facebook for much longer.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Maybe its the old man in me talking, but I really miss this style. Marvel also had a similar style at the time. Clean lines, bright colors, minimal detail, etc. The post Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld era slowly became a Western version of Anime/Manga today that looks a cheap imitation of what Japan has been doing for a long time. Comics out this week for reference: https://pulllist.comixology.com/thisweek/ https://pulllist.comixology.com/thisweek/

DannoHung 11y ago
There's a lot of stuff like that around. The covers are usually much different compared to interior art. Like, Headlopper which came out last week. Clean lines, bright color, minimal detail. Here's an example from an interior spread: http://andrew-ross-maclean.deviantart.com/art/Head-Lopper-2-Spread-495745695 http://andrew-ross-maclean.deviantart.com/art/Head-Lopper-2-...
bitwize 11y ago
I like the attention to detail in the anatomy and how a realistic human form can be suggested with a few clean lines. The men look like men and the women look like women. Idealized versions of such, but the realism is striking. Maybe I've spent too much time looking (and laughing) at comic "art" by the likes of Liefeld...

alexc05 11y ago

What's interesting to me is that in terms of style guidance, there doesn't appear to be a lot of exposition. Save for the colour palette It's just pictures, part of me expected to see some sort of exposition about what given characters could and couldn't do.