Monday, October 02, 2006

Alex Toth Rips into Steve Rude



In this series of scans, Alex Toth rips into Steve Rude as he critiques the artist’s work on an issue of Jonny Quest. Toth seems quite harsh in his criticism, but there are valuable lessons to be learned here regarding staging, storytelling, research, and layout. One of Toth’s last bits of criticism: “Think! Think! Think! — Before you draw, while you draw, and after! And redraw if it doesn’t work!”

(nicked from Drawn.ca)

  • The Schooling is HERE
  • 5 comments:

    Mr Goodson said...

    Wow. Can't wait to read this.

    rickart said...

    Wow! Pretty harsh! I think some of it was out of line (getting on his case that teeth weren't drawn in on something this sketchy is pretty nit-picky), but I can see some sensible stuff in there, too.

    TopCat said...

    All I could think of as I read was that some of it was justified (if you're going to work THAT hard to make sequential art, then it should read well and be consistent), but I couldn't get past the notion that I didn't know what the page rate was that Rude was laboring under and the time constraint. This is a Jonny Quest comic, not a AAA title like Superman, etc. ... The more I think about it, the more I'm sorry for him to only have one side of the conversation published for everyone to dissect.

    Tom Moon said...

    Did you see Rude's response here? One the comments had this link:

    http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2006/09/22/fight-toth-vs-rude-now-with-rude-response/

    I think this is years later and Toth was no longer alive when Rude wrote this.

    Mr Goodson said...

    Thanks Tom. I was already making the same "exciuses" that Rude was using. Then Reading Rude say the same things I have to definitely fall into his camp that Toth is being academic and lordly in his critiques.The advice to research, think and re-do is good advice for mediocre drawing and storytelling. And since the Rude storytelling is somewhat mediocre, Toth may have a couple of good points in there som,ewhere. I couldn't read more than 4 pages before I tired out.