Is John Romita Jr a good or a bad artist?

 We all have our opinions, we have our favourite artists as fans and inevitably ones we value as lesser talents. But none are more divisive as the son of Jazzy John Romita. Some will put him on their personal Comic book Mount Rushmore while others think he’s a stain on his fathers lineage. So let's actually explore if he’s objectively good or bad…

Let's get some things out of the way, because it’s not just his line work that's controversial. He has signed on to do many NFT projects, is a constant collaborator with Frank Miller, sites as one of his hobbies “pwning the libs” and has produced 2 “passion projects” where the hero shows his “manliness” by raping someone (Kick-ASS and Superman Year One). But I’ll also mention I’ve hated John Romita’s artwork before I knew any of those things, but I’m going to try to be objective unlike his supporters who will just say “He’s a good artist” and leave like they’re the great auritor of artistic quality.

So speaking of great authorities on comic book art, did you know he was removed from being the artist on X-men because Chris Claremont didn’t like his art. Even stated he preferred the other artists who collaborated on the book, which would include; Barry Windsor-Smith, Dave Cockrun, John Byrne and Rob Liefeld did a single issue around this time. Chris Claremont isn’t a good enough authority for you, how about Stan Lee? On the Home Video series Talks with the Comic book greats, both Romitas show up and everything said by Jazzy John and Smilin’ Stan about Juniors art is a backhanded compliment (my favourite being from Romita Sr “If I knew my son was going to be a comic book artist I would have discouraged him more”).

Also when Chris Claremont said his art was bad it was when his Dad inked him and it looked like this

Of course the classic counter argument is to say well he drew Daredevil the man without fear or Spider-man Homecoming or any one of his high profile comics, but that’s not actually saying what’s good about the art. That's Stockholm syndrome, that he’s been around so long, you’ve convinced yourself he must actually be good to still be around.

I found a single image that captures the best and worst of JRjr’s art.

Look at the detail on the brick work, the naturalness of the fire escape. Look at anything other than the two expressionless gargoyles that are supposed to be the focus of the story.

I often see John Romita jr compared to Jack Kirby. But Jack Kirby wasn’t great at anatomy or consistency but he was great at storytelling and facial expressions. Romita is also known for sometimes having wonky anatomy, but just because Jack Kirby did doesn’t mean it works for you. A cursory glance at a Jack Kirby comic book panel you know what’s going through the characters mind.

Jack Kirby’s images almost don’t need the words to be understood, Stan Lee was almost superfluous. Every example the face and body tell the story.

And John Romita Jr… 

Look at the end, an almost readable expression. And that’s from looking online, I could scan in from my Spider-man collection any time a blank lifeless expression is drawn. It’s a good thing he mostly draws Spidey, a fully masked character, because then he gives the reader a break from rectangles emoting vaguely annoyed or shit their pants. Ok seriously in that Mary Jane example is she high, nauseous not the actress we’ve been led to believe she is? 

But the thing that gets me about John Romita jr is that his art gets worse not better… is he just going through the motions is that why his DC work all characters were the same height. The more practice you get you should get better, but to say his art evolved is wrong, it devolved into a cubist monstrosity with little in the way of action or momentum. I don’t care how detailed the backgrounds are, putting that much emphasis on backgrounds is a modern luxury as printing has improved (or webcomics no chance of ink smudging at the printers there). His artwork is just bad and getting worse, the argument “just look at it” works both ways. And if you can find an argument I haven’t said as to why he’s good please tell me because I really want to know how he’s gotten to the top of the industry other than nepotism. 

Oh I should say something nice, good buildings. Maybe he missed his calling John become an architect instead.

Star Wars fans want to ruin Star Wars

Star wars fans are a strange breed, who else wants to actively sabotage something they love? Who would take cinematic gold in the form of The Last Jedi and instead say nope I want rancid fish heads with The Rise of Skywalker. Why would you do that? Well let's explore what it could be.

Perhaps it’s a punk rock defense or gatekeeping. Before Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm Star wars was 6 films, 1 animated movie that confusingly shared its name with 2 other cartoons (all called Clone wars), 2 more cartoons not available on DVD (Ewoks and Droids), 2 TV movies about Ewoks, a Christmas special and an assortment of comics and novels. Everything but the movies had an entrance fee, you had to buy the comics or know a guy who bought them. You also only had 3 good movies, the other 3 movies made that made David Lynch’s Dune look like Sesame Street’s follow that bird (for film screenings of Dune the audience was given notes on the film because test screening audiences had no idea what they watched). So is it a form of gatekeeping? These Star Wars fans are saying to the more casual audience “you didn’t wear a Star Wars shirt when the prequels came out”. Maybe for some, and if that's the case grow the fuck up. Seriously, who cares if somebody just found out what a bantha is or how dangerous the sarlak pit is. You now have a bigger community to discuss how much cooler the Mandalorians are than the Jedi. 

A common complaint from these Star Wars fans against the new content is that Disney made it too political. This has come from Trump supporters trying to start a boycott on Rogue One or strange ramblings on how “it’s SJW” and Solo lost money. But have you seen the Star Wars movies? The original trilogy was about a bunch of scrappy rebels who take down fascism with the help of a space wizard. The prequels were about the rise of fascism, it being embodiment of the Benjamin Franklin quote “the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance”. I don’t think the problem is that the movies were political, it’s that they woke up one day and realised their favourite media doesn’t support their ideology, and instead of being introspective about this they lashed out. Got mad that Princess Leia became a figurehead of “Occupy Wall Street” instead of the correct response of “that's awesome”. Not realising that Leia Organa was always a badass, not just something to drool over when she’s in a gold bikini. They remember the gold bikini but not her choking out the disgusting slug who put her in the costume. Ignoring the context that set up that she was the only one who could defeat Jabba the Hutt (he was immune to Luke’s force powers and they were there to save Han Solo). I don’t see how that’s different to Leia in Last Jedi now using Force powers or Laura Dern now being a purple haired rebel leader.   

A more specific complaint I’ve seen is that they ruined Boba Fett. Umm before the Book of Boba Fett he was just a cool action figure or a guy who was exactly as strong as a clone trooper. I think you want to say Episode 2 ruined Boba Fett or the fact he lasts about 20 seconds in his only on screen fight. The expanded canon didn’t really do him any favours, the expanded canon was a mess of constant contradictions. One source claimed that Mandalorians were bird-like people who were complete pacifists that Jango Fett mercilessly slaughtered and now wears the armour of. Another obsession of these stories is to have Boba Fett fall back into the Sarlak pit, sometimes acknowledging that he’d escaped once before (I think one version claimed he escaped 4 times, I guess he left his keys behind or something).

But a more specific version is that they made him look weak, but his earlier movie appearances didn’t make him look like Hulk Hogan. For those who don’t know, Book of Boba Fett is about the Fett-man having escaped from the Sarlak pit, now being at the bottom of society with no home or money and making his way to the top of the underworld. It takes strength to pick yourself up from the bottom, and a lot more strength than to have everything handed to you. Also the more ethical way, to be unethical is easy. Trust is one of the hardest things you can do, it’s also one of the hardest things to get, to put yourself out there rather than submitting to total cynicism is much harder. And it’s harder to trust when surrounded by thieves, murders and other assorted scoundrels. Book of Boba Fett made Boba Fett more than a cool design, but what they wanted is a boring TV show were he just murders people.

An even stranger argument I’ve seen is “Subverting expectations is always bad”. This is just wrong, there would be no point paying attention to any story if it always did what you expected. You wouldn’t need to read anything new if you can predict all the stories. Also Star Wars did this sort of thing in the original trilogy, look at Yoda, he’s introduced as a silly comic relief muppet. It takes him about 10 minutes to reveal that he is in fact the Jedi master.

But “George Lucas had a vision and Disney is ruining it”, have you seen George Lucas’ plans for Episode 7? It was Fantastic voyage in Luke Skywalker's  bloodstream to learn what the midichlorians are (those things that retconned the force to not be mystical at all). 

If George had a great plan for Star Wars he wouldn’t have to go back to re-edit the original trilogy to try and make his prequels fit better. Also he only has a story credit on Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, 20th Century Fox had so little faith in him as a director that they hoped somebody else would direct the movies (their top choice was Ron Howard). 

So was The Last Jedi that good? Yes, it was. Thematically it was about how our heroes are people, flawed, imperfect and grumpy. About how growing up part of that is realising that. Becoming your own hero and making a better future means learning from the mistakes of the past. It was about how you don’t need to be part of a legacy to honour it or to continue it. That we are who we chose to be, not what destiny made us. But Rise of Skywalker undid all of that, and critics rightly lambasted it, not to mention that Emperor Palpatine exists purely to smooth over awful writing. 

Star Wars should be for everyone, not the weirdos that pretend to be the Sith or look up to them. Those people are weirdos, and Zack Snyder’s making for Netflix A New Hope from the Empires point of view so they should clamour to that, have that underperform like all of Zack Snyder's movies.