4CP Friday
By:
May 13, 2011
To celebrate the one-year anniversary of 4CP, HiLobrow invited guest curators to assemble themed comic-book-detail galleries from 4CP’s collection. Click here to see all galleries.
CURATOR: MATTHEW BATTLES
I’m drawn to those panels where the matrix of Benday dots gives way to swathes of solid black. The comics artists, like Caravaggio, know the indispensible luxuries of shadow: how it frames the light, points up drama, lends volume to a scene. But to a greater degree than the chiarascuro of old, maybe, these planes of process black mount a curious existential query: an insistence that there is something at work in all that nothingness.
SIMILAR HILOBROW SERIES: CHESS MATCH — a gallery | FILE X — a gallery | KIRB YOUR ENTHUSIASM — 25 Jack Kirby panels | SECRET PANEL —Silver Age comics’ double entendres | SKRULLICISM | CURATED: 4CP FTW by John Hilgart | ANNOTATED GIF by Kerry Callen | FANCHILD by Adam McGovern
The void is fecund, fertile — which is uncanny.
Thanks, HiLobrow! Here’s a new shadow image for you: http://4cp.posterous.com/shadows-4cp-friday-hilobrow
Nice one John!
Yes, splendid—shadow of a spaceship, void on void!
In the full frame, the colors are distant clouds. In the zoom, they become a mist between the viewer and the figures, thanks to casual color separation. It’s weird the way the interaction of CMY with solid black creates the optical illusion of detail and three dimensions in the black. There’s definitely “something at work in all that nothingness.”
Ah, Mr. Battles! Nice one…