What's your Herbie Hancock?

Yesterday, class, we talked about artistic styles.  Anyone can see right off that artists draw differently, that's not groundbreaking.  With some time and an eye, you can learn to spot the pieces of an artists style that makes it theirs.  This is what allows you to recognize a specific style and put a name to it. 

This is a Walter Simonson fist.

See that raised middle knuckle?  He does that on most all of his clenched fists, it's one of his "things".

This is a Byrne midsection.

Look at the thickness of the ribcage.  He gives his figures a barrel chest, reminiscent of old time body builders.

A good artist is aware of these things and controls them.  A great artist can emulate other styles at will, changing theirs to match existing one.  A bad artist simply steals specific things without adding anything new to it, swiping is the term.  The 90's comics boom was built on them.  Let's not bring up bad times.

So, how do you apply this to other areas of life.  What are your ticks?  What are your habits?  What things do you do, better than anyone else, or distinctively from everyone else, that you call your own?


MotD: Beer League

Artie Lange's semibiographical comedic take on softball leagues in Jersey has enough moments to make you chuckle, but feels stilted as an actual story.  It's not really plot driven, slovenly Artie and his drunk team need to get better at softball and life.  It's more about making fun of Italians, drunks, athletes, and people in general.  In that, it succeeds.  There's the kind of funny lines in this that made Artie a perfect fit for the Howard Stern show.  Much of the movie feels like just setups to work the one liners in.  Since they get it to work as well as they do is a testament to them.  None of it feels forced, it just doesn't feel like real conversation between actual people.  Oh, and the Karate Kid is in this and he might be the worst actor in the whole movie.  Good for a laugh.