Terry Dodson

Terry Dodson has been taking a lot of hits on this website. What's up? His art creates an intense feeling of motion paired with busy visuals. He has an impressive talent for broadcasting emotions through his art, especially in facial expressions. Better yet, he remembers to keep characters in the same relative space from panel to panel.

I'm not really an "art" guy. As long as I get the general idea of whats going on, and the pictures are pretty, I'm happy.  But  Dodson's work takes me out of the experience on Uncanny.  It's sooo happy go lucky that it just ruins the tone of the more serious storylines that are going on.

 His style itself is pretty neat.  It looks like a Disney Coloring Book with its hard outlines, cheery characters, simple poses, and light coloring.  But I just don't like it in superhero comics where there is alot of action happening.

Another gripe I have with Dodson is that most of his females look too much alike to me.  I know this is a common complaint with artists but I feel like it is REALLY noticeable with his work.  Everytime I see his Emma I think that Wonder Woman put on a wig....then I realize that it was Dazzler all along.



 

I don't like Dodson... everything is a bit too round and playful to me... I prefer sharp, angular, harsher artists like Finch, Tan, McNiven, Lee best.

Although, if you're gonna do playful, go to the extreme like Ramos or Bachalo... because I love them too.

Edited by chrissstopher - 09-Feb-2010 at 6:42pm

I enjoy Terry, but I do agree that he's a bit cheerful for the current book's storyline tones.  I remember his run on Gen X actually being better, but I love his Psylocke (which, by the way, does look different than Emma/Dazzler/Pixie).  At least his cheesecakey pictures of her, anyway. 

Haha, isn't that all of them? 

His art does seem a bit cartoony and happy.  I didn't mind the panel's with Iron Patriot you cited ajandrew, because I saw it as Norman panning to the media with a politican's smile. When I looked over the issue today, the background characters bothered me more. Sentry is definately panning for the camera and Bullseye is too much smiles and grins.  However, I do like alot of the emotions conveyed by certain expressions, and I love his cover with the Dark X-Men, particulary Namor and Xavier.

Terry Dodson is so great on STRANGERS IN PARADISE but on UNCANNY he leaves me totally flat. He's all wrong for the angst of the X-Books, which would include GENERATION X. Following the horrible Larry Hama run, anything was welcome on that book. Dodson just feels off with mutants. On UNCANNY, I'm actually starting to prefer Land to Dodson. Land improved a little with the last issue but Dodson - while better at action - is just too sunny a presence on the book. And if they're going to use someone a little more cartoony, why not German Garcia?

I absolutely love Dodson - he's really one of my favourite artists.
I think the clarity of his art is perfectly suited to comic-book storytelling (especially at making Fraction's confusing writing look polished)

I agree with Dandoruinn that the fuller figures are good (even if the women's breasts are sometimes too big), and I also think that Dodson is better than most artists at portraying races (ie. Psylocke actually looks asian and not just like Jean Grey in a purple wig).

Yeah, his art is brash and fun, but I don't think it at all detracts from serious stories. In fact, I think Dodson and his colorists have done a great job recently at contrasting fun moments with darker, more serious discussions.

While we've established that Terry and Rachel's art is good, but the style is inappropriate, let me show you some of his other work.

Originally posted by ajandrew1212 While we've established that Terry and Rachel's art is good, but the style is inappropriate, let me show you some of his other work. http://jhalaldrut.blogspot.com/2009/03/coraline-songes-terry-dodson.html This is art from a French comic he did called Songes: Coraline, and he did the pencils AND inks himself, and the coloring with assistence from Rebecca Rendon. The result is much less bright and shiny, and somewhat darker. I think this might solve some of his problems on Uncanny.

Those panels aren't inked. That cover/poster image might be, but the rest of them are colors over pencils. If you click the Coraline and Pirates image, you can see sketch lines still present in the pencils.

That said, those look GREAT. I think part of the "shiney"ness of his art comes from the fact that everyone is wearing skin-tight super-hero clothes, which tend to look like latex. Part two is that his American work has been inked, giving the costumes' solid blacks a darker feel, making the colors that much brighter. The washed out tone of Coraline looks great IMO.

I've really been enjoying the titles from Soliel that Marvel has been releasing and these images make me wish we they brought that book over. Wow.

I like it. I think while it may not be the best fit, his art is certainly leaps and bounds better than Land's. I was glad Dodson was on art duties for Utopia, because otherwise it would have been unreadable.

And I personally find it easier to tell characters apart in Dodson art than in Land art...

Dodson's art is extremely bland. It is way too generic. His work reminds me of early valiant-comics or the guys that used to draw the Defenders back in the seventies. It's hard to actively dislike his work (except for his HORRIBLE portrayal of the X-Women on a cover last year, featuring a mutilated Kitty, drag-queen Ororo and broken back Betsy), but there's really nothing to like here either....