Forum - View topic

Shonen or Shôjo?

I can't stand art like one piece. It looks sloppy and rushed.

I tend to like shonen art more. I think the characters look less cookie-cutter most of the time, and while shoujo art may be pretty, shonen tends to come across as more dynamic and interesting. But then again, I tend to prefer shonen manga to shoujo, so it's probably my bias.

I guess men and women have difference sense of aesthetics. For example, most womens fashion magazines the girls are extremely thin and their figure is long, while mens magazines the men (if there are any. I don't read men's magazines but they mostly have women on the cover) tend to be muscular. Same with shôjo and shonen, women in shôjo are long and lean, while in shonen, people tend to be more meaty. I guess it's because women want to be thin and beautiful, while men want to be big and strong.

Same with comics art for me, too. I vastly prefer artists who draw their women with some curves, like Oh!great. I like the art style of a shojo book like, say, Sailor Moon or Utena, but I'd never call the girls in those books "hot" like I would, say, anyone Adam Hughes draws.

Greg Land has also become a favorite.. maybe it's that slight brush stroke look he gives the comics? I dunno... I'm sure the person who adds color is much to give credit as well for his works, unless he does it himself?

I'll admit, the work he did on Sojourn looked great, but everything he's done since while at Marvel is 90% traces from magazines. LAME.

The reason why Greg Land's stuff looks so good is because he traces almost all of it from photographs and doesn't really do ANY drawing of his own. Check out this link I just found that's got an example of him constantly changing who he's photoreferencing for Sue Richards, where he's so blatant that her hairstyle doesn't even stay the same from page to page. Here's just a few examples of Land tracing other people's work. I'll admit, the work he did on Sojourn looked great, but everything he's done since while at Marvel is 90% traces from magazines. LAME.

Now that's something I didn't know. Thanks for showing me that Man.. that is LAME! So Sojourn wasn't copied? Or was it..

Edit: Hmm, I agree about that guy's rant on one of the links about how referencing art is on different level from tracing, and also it does seem worse that the continuity is not there (actually I haven't seen his FF work so it was interesting how Sue's hair changed). So he uses porn stars? I guess I didn't notice as some people did... then again I don't buy porn or keep track of any of the people in porn

I have no preference. There is no doubt that most Shojo manga make most Shonen manga look ugly (X/1999 Vs One Piece--X/1999 wins). But there are exceptions (don't know any).

mistress_reebi wrote:

I guess men and women have difference sense of aesthetics. For example, most womens fashion magazines the girls are extremely thin and their figure is long, while mens magazines the men (if there are any. I don't read men's magazines but they mostly have women on the cover) tend to be muscular. Same with shôjo and shonen, women in shôjo are long and lean, while in shonen, people tend to be more meaty. I guess it's because women want to be thin and beautiful, while men want to be big and strong.

Which further proves how crazy women who starve themselves to be thin really are. I just watched the gymnastics movie Stick It! last weekend (not by choice, incidentally ) and the lead actress in that has a normal physique with plenty of muscle tone, which I think makes her about a billion times more attractive than an anorexic waif like Paris Hilton.

Same with comics art for me, too. I vastly prefer artists who draw their women with some curves, like Oh!great. I like the art style of a shojo book like, say, Sailor Moon or Utena, but I'd never call the girls in those books "hot" like I would, say, anyone Adam Hughes draws.