Fate of Atlantis comic book

[Monsieur OUXX]

That story is not so interesting, but it was one of those rare moments when you feel like you're special, being a point-and-click lover. Don't be surprised if you already know all of what's below - for me it was a surprise.

I was in a library (Chapters, on Parnell street, in Dublin), wandering in the comic books section.
I was grumpy because there were litterally thousands of those American Super-heroes comic books, and just a handful of comic books from Japan or from the Belgian school.

Anyway, at some stage I come across an Indiana Jones comic book.
At first I didn't really want to open it, because Indiana Jones novels or comic books are usually not very good.
But I was so bored that I started browsing it very quickly. It was called "Indiana Jones Omnibus Vol. 1"

There were 4 or 5 independant short stories in it, and the graphic style was kind of 80's*. Not great art.

https://www.dynamicforces.com/images/C111170.jpg


http://www.hypergeek.ca/wp-content/gallery/ind/ijfuradvv2p2.jpg


On one of the pages, I'm surprised to see a drawing that looked a lot like Fate of Atlantis' god machine (the one in the background of this picture)


I read more carefully, and it turned out that the first story of the comic book was actually "Fate of Atlantis".
I checked the credits, and it said : "Story by Hal Barwood and XXXX, Lucasfilm games" (yeah, that's right, not "Lucasarts").
The other stories of the book were by random guys.
The characters didn't look much like in the game (especially Kerner, who is bald, dark-haired, and has a moustache :-))

Suddently I felt happy to have this very mediocre piece of comic book in my hands :-) :-)

Here is a picture that shows Sophia, if I'm not mistaken :
One of the posts below shows that it's actually not her.

http://images.darkhorse.com/common/salestools/previews/indyomv3/indyomv3p3.jpg

And here is a bonus picture :



* It turned out that the comic book was actualy from the 90's, but.. drawn by a guy who learnt in the 80's ;-)

[Snarky]

There were 4 or 5 independant short stories in it, and the graphic style was kind of 80's*. Not great art.

* It turned out that the comic book was actualy from the 90's, but.. drawn by a guy who learnt in the 80's ;-)

M' boy, that last picture of "Sophia" (actually someone called Jessie from a completely different story) is by Steve Ditko, revered by superhero fans as the co-creator of Spider-Man among others.

And the Fate of Atlantis comic book adaptation was drawn by Dan Barry, who drew Flash Gordon for nearly 40 years.

Obviously, neither of them "learned to draw" in the 80s.

Here are a few sample pages from the actual Fate of Atlantis comic (click to see them in full size):



In my personal opinion, Barry's art is all right, particularly in the fourth issue (which he inked himself, unlike the first three; compare the last sample to the first two). I agree that a lot of the other Indy comics do have pretty poor art, though.

[GarageGothic]

There was also a comic based on the canceled Indy game "Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix". If I'm not mixing it up with something else, the intro sequence had Indy exploring a spooky castle in Scotland and seemed ripped straight from that god-awful Chris Columbus monkey king screenplay (best part of the screenplay, but still more suitable for scooby doo). What makes it interesting though is that several scenes from that comic/game design reappear in the Indiana Jones and The Infernal Machine action-adventure game.

Edit: Wtf happened to mixnmojo.com? Where's all the content - do you need to register to access it now? Anyhow, some info related to the canceled games and their comics can be found here: http://www.indyjones.net/cancelled/

[Laukku]

Edit: Wtf happened to mixnmojo.com? Where's all the content - do you need to register to access it now? Anyhow, some info related to the canceled games and their comics can be found here: http://www.indyjones.net/cancelled/

They went through an update recently (as an April fools joke, it went down for a while and they pretended it was hacked,then the new site came "back from the dead"). Extras and stuff are still missing, but they will be back soon, too.

[GarageGothic]

Thanks for the info, Laukku! Weird that it (as far as I could tell) wasn't mentioned on the main page, or even in the FAQ. But I'm relieved to hear that the treasure trove of retro stuff wasn't lost in a server crash or similar.

[LimpingFish]

Ugh. Dan Barry. I had (probably still have) those little pocket-sized Flash Gordon collections they put out many years back. It was a sad day when the Alex Raymond stuff stopped coming and the Dan Barry run started.

Yay for Ditko, though! Well, yay for Ditko in the grander sense, since that Indy comic is hideous. Actually makes the Dan Barry one look a lot better - Karl Kesel is a fine inker, so that might have helped too.

Dark Horse's Indiana Jones comics are a mixed bag at best. I was a big Dan Spiegle fan, but Spear of Destiny turned out to be pretty awful. Shrine of the Sea Devil, by Gary Gianni, was decent; his style is an acquired taste, though. Sargasso Pirates (Kesel/Barreto) was also decent enough. The rest didn't interest me at the time, and I doubt they'd interest me now.

I was never a big fan of Dark Horse's licensed stuff (or any licensed stuff), and would only entertain it on the occasions when it featured artists whose work I was fond of.

[Monsieur OUXX]

It definitely sounds like the opinions about those graphical styles vary from one person to another.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't like this whole school of black-and-white drawings colored with very bright, mostly primary colors (look at the floor on the right-most page... yellow, blue and red stones).

According to Scott McCloud's famous "The invisible art", this historically comes from the fact that American comics were first printed using cheap printing techniques - for economical reasons, because they appeared in daily newspapers - whereas in Europe, quadrichromy appeared quite early. So American comic use primary colors a lot. I must confess I'm not used to that style and it's really, really not my cup of tea.

As for the "he obviously learnt to draw in the 80's", well, the expression was not well chosen, but, eh, you know what I mean. Good drawer, but old-fashion, very comic-strip style.

[Snarky]

Ugh. Dan Barry. I had (probably still have) those little pocket-sized Flash Gordon collections they put out many years back. It was a sad day when the Alex Raymond stuff stopped coming and the Dan Barry run started.

Yay for Ditko, though! Well, yay for Ditko in the grander sense, since that Indy comic is hideous. Actually makes the Dan Barry one look a lot better - Karl Kesel is a fine inker, so that might have helped too.

I was never a fan of Steve Ditko. His work looks flat and crudely drawn to me (see this for example). I much prefer Dan Barry's quite smooth, elegant line, which is somewhat close to his brother Sy's work on The Phantom. And like I said, I think in this series it comes out best in the fourth issue, which Barry inked himself. It's probably a matter of what you grew up with, in part, but I would argue that Dan Barry was a talented artist. (He also did most of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles comic adaptations.)

It definitely sounds like the opinions about those graphical styles vary from one person to another.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't like this whole school of black-and-white drawings colored with very bright, mostly primary colors (look at the floor on the right-most page... yellow, blue and red stones).

According to Scott McCloud's famous "The invisible art", this historically comes from the fact that American comics were first printed using cheap printing techniques - for economical reasons, because they appeared in daily newspapers - whereas in Europe, quadrichromy appeared quite early. So American comic use primary colors a lot. I must confess I'm not used to that style and it's really, really not my cup of tea.

Well, but the coloring is a whole different matter from the art itself. It's done after the art is complete by a completely different person, and often varies between editions, some of which may be printed in black and white (like the Marvel omnibuses, or newspaper strips, or the old-school The Phantom magazine). I mean, even here you can tell that the scans you posted have much worse coloring than the ones I posted. I can see how it affects your reading enjoyment, but you shouldn't let it determine your judgment of the fundamental quality of the art.

A couple of years back they put out a new printing of Jodorowsky and Moebius's Incal in ghastly computer-gradient coloring. It looks terrible, and I would never ever buy it in that edition, but it doesn't change the fact that Moebius is a great artist.


Old vs. New coloring of The Incal

As for the "he obviously learnt to draw in the 80's", well, the expression was not well chosen, but, eh, you know what I mean. Good drawer, but old-fashion, very comic-strip style.

Well, there have been fashions in comic book illustration in every decade, but as far as I'm concerned Barry's style is more timeless than most: classic -- maybe rooted in the 50s, but accomplished enough (good grasp of anatomy, detailed backgrounds, pretty consistent), realistic enough (without the distortions that tend to date styles very quickly, whether it's the "Frank Miller look", the "Image look", or the "manga look") and dynamic enough (check out his panel composition) to work in any decade.

Now, I'm not saying he's a genius or my favorite comic artist ever or anything. And sure, Fate of Atlantis is a work-for-hire adaptation job by an artist who was probably well past his peak (he died only a few years later); many parts aren't that great. I just think that overall, and particularly under those circumstances, he did a solid, professional job; IMO well above the average comic book adaptation standard.

[LimpingFish]

Barry was solid, sure, as were a lot of his contemporaries. But, again like some of his contemporaries, he was a little sterile. His was a somewhat "shop-taught" style, and, to my mind anyway, his work lacked a strong identity and was fairly interchangeable.

Ditko's work on Spiderman and Doctor Strange for Marvel is work by an artist who is using the medium to it's fullest potential. He also possessed a pretty unique style - he put a lot of emphasis on his character's acting through how he rendered their eyes - and a flair for weird designs.

Of course, it's not all great. His Charlton work, and some of his later stuff isn't that hot. A lot like Jack Kirby's body of work, actually. Both started out with fairly juvenile work, peaked in the 60-70 era, and kind of burned out afterward.

But there's a lot of great artists of that era, and earlier: Jack Cole, George Evans, Russ Heath, Bob Powell, Doug Wildey, Carmine Infantino, pretty much everybody who worked at EC in it's heyday, most of those who worked on the original run of T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents, and more. One of my favourite artists of that era is Alex Toth, a master of both visual storytelling and design.

It's just personal taste really, but I would rank Barry below most of those.

And since we're talking comics: Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) R.I.P.