Like a few other celebrated Egmont artists, it's just generally not my cup of tea. Feels like trying to do Barks, but no-one can do Barks as well as Barks, so feels like it falls short. Dunno.
His non-Disney stuff looks great to me though, so it's a Paul Murry situation.
Back in the days of Gladstone I, when credits were not provided for artists from "the Gutenberus Group", I distinguished their two most commonly published artists in my mind as the "dull one" (who I learned in the Disney Comics Inc. years was Vicar) and the "lively one" (who I learned in the Disney Comics Inc. years was Branca). Gladstone I tended to favor Branca, but the early Disney Comics Inc. issues gave us an overdose of Vicar, which I found disappointing. I honestly don't see any Barks in Vicar's work; Branca, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to mimic the late '60s Barks with an added bit of vitality. Vicar's art is superior than the stuff Western Publishing was putting out towards the end of their run (the Manning/Kay Wright/ Lockman type of material), but I would be at a loss to name a single story he drew where the art was "attractive" rather than just "competent". Haven't really seen any of his non-Disney stuff, so can't comment.
I like Vicar stories too! Hs Donald/Scrooge/Daisy stories were very common in the magazines I've read as a kid, so he was for me the true "classic" Duck artist. (as in, the "main" one) Of course, it's not like I love his stuff, his work tends to be "serviceable but unexciting" as Baar said. But I have strong attachment to what he does and there are some gems here.
Glad to hear from other Vicar fans. I have to disagree though with Baar and Orora -- I find his art to be *far* more than "servicable" and *very* exciting! His drawings of the Disney Duck character seem full of energy and movement. Also, I find his art to be crisp, clear, and clean.
I agree with your sentiments. I find his ducks well-rendered, round and 'nice' looking. Something about Branca's art that leaves me cold, can't exactly place my finger on it.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Feb 25, 2017 9:43:04 GMT
I don't really like Vicar's inking style. It's hard to put my finger on it, but there's an attractive quality to the inking of Scarpa or, say, Astérix, that seems missing in Vicar and Tintin.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Feb 25, 2017 11:11:19 GMT
Well Uderzo was one of the greatest inkers of the history of comics, maybe it is a bit unfair to compare him with any Disney artist
(Barks in the years 1947-1949 was the hell of an inker, Taliaferro was impressive too, and from time to time some people from Branca's school, like Gattino for instance, can do great things with the ink. But still, I would not compare them with Asterix...)
I agree with your sentiments. I find his ducks well-rendered, round and 'nice' looking. Something about Branca's art that leaves me cold, can't exactly place my finger on it.
Wow. It's almost funny how this opinion is exactly the opposite of the one I hold. Personally, I can't imagine someone preferring Vicar to Branca, but I guess it just goes to show the wide variety of tastes among Duck fans. The dynamism of Branca's art is what appeals to me; there have been quite a few "Branca imitators" (Carlos Mota being prime among them, his art is almost indistinguishable from Branca's) but I can't really think of a single "Vicar imitator".
I agree with your sentiments. I find his ducks well-rendered, round and 'nice' looking. Something about Branca's art that leaves me cold, can't exactly place my finger on it.
Wow. It's almost funny how this opinion is exactly the opposite of the one I hold. Personally, I can't imagine someone preferring Vicar to Branca, but I guess it just goes to show the wide variety of tastes among Duck fans. The dynamism of Branca's art is what appeals to me; there have been quite a few "Branca imitators" (Carlos Mota being prime among them, his art is almost indistinguishable from Branca's) but I can't really think of a single "Vicar imitator".
Vicar had a whole studio full of "Vicar immitators"! I don't like their work, and didn't like most of Vicar's. But, Vicar's first several years (1970s), of copying Barks' 1953-54 style were his best. I like reading those stories. But early Branca, 1974-1999, I like much, MUCH better.
Wow. It's almost funny how this opinion is exactly the opposite of the one I hold. Personally, I can't imagine someone preferring Vicar to Branca, but I guess it just goes to show the wide variety of tastes among Duck fans. The dynamism of Branca's art is what appeals to me; there have been quite a few "Branca imitators" (Carlos Mota being prime among them, his art is almost indistinguishable from Branca's) but I can't really think of a single "Vicar imitator".
Vicar had a whole studio full of "Vicar immitators"! I don't like their work, and didn't like most of Vicar's. But, Vicar's first several years (1970s), of copying Barks' 1953-54 style were his best. I like reading those stories. But early Branca, 1974-1999, I like much, MUCH better.
Could you provide some examples of Vicar imitators? I'd be curious to see how closely they approximate his style. Also, as I mentioned before, I honestly do not see how Vicar's art imitates Barks at all. But perhaps my exposure has been to the wrong period of his work. Could you provide the name of a good sample story of Vicar's from the 1970s that you believe imitates Barks' early-50s style, that I could look up on INDUCKs?
Vicar had a whole studio full of "Vicar immitators"! I don't like their work, and didn't like most of Vicar's. But, Vicar's first several years (1970s), of copying Barks' 1953-54 style were his best. I like reading those stories. But early Branca, 1974-1999, I like much, MUCH better.
Could you provide some examples of Vicar imitators? I'd be curious to see how closely they approximate his style. Also, as I mentioned before, I honestly do not see how Vicar's art imitates Barks at all. But perhaps my exposure has been to the wrong period of his work. Could you provide the name of a good sample story of Vicar's from the 1970s that you believe imitates Barks' early-50s style, that I could look up on INDUCKs?
RobbK1 can answer for himself, but my understanding is that Vicar had a studio of artists working under his name. What's not clear to me is whether there is any way to tell what was drawn by Vicar himself and what was drawn by folks in his studio. Maybe before a certain date it's all Vicar himself, before he started the studio? Other than that, I don't know.
We can recognise Vicar's own style best when he drew the pencils AND the inks. Also, some of his crew stayed closer to his own style moreso than others. I don't have a lot of time now, but I'll try to find some examples. One of his pencilers had a style much more different from the others, and gave Donald a long curvy beak.
Here are 5 pages of late 1970s Vicar stories from my Dutch Weeklies from the very end of 1980 and the first half of 1981. They are very typical of Vicar's work of that time. The panels are a lot less "cluttered" than his work from the mid 1980s on into the 2000s. I think it is much more Barkslike than his later work. And, I believe he drew all the pencils at this time and used only one inker (perhaps himself?) Later, in the mid eighties through the end of his career, he had several pencilers and inkers, sometimes only drawing storyboards himself, other times only pencils:
That's the Vicar of my childhood and the one I like best! Less detailed perhaps, but MUCH more dynamic. Plus, it does look like the "real Vicar", judging from several of his strips with Bang Bang Sam I've seen.
In my mind, Vicar was still quite dynamic into the early 1990s; see attached panels from "Red Rogue's Treasure." There's some wonderful animation in the action and transformations here. Reading Vicar's current stories in imported Egmont weeklies at the time, I felt he was moving into quite a golden age—and noticed a marked difference from his early 1980s output, then being reprinted in the USA comics.
I'd say Vicar was still a good artist—if not at his best—right up to the end, though he did run into a certain stiffness in the mid-1990s that he never quite got past (most noticeable on the nephews, who began looking a little more Strobl-ish).
I had a hard time finding the big differences in Vicar's inkers and assistant pencilers. But I think I found a few examples. The first is from 1989, 2nd and 3rd from 1991, and 4th from 1993. It appears that the 1989 page looks most like Vicar. So, perhaps he did everything on that page, from storyboard sketches through inking. The Ducks' beaks are all squarish, like his earlier style. On the two 1991 pages, the beaks are a bit more rounded. Perhaps they were inked by one of Vicar's assistants. On the 4th page, from 1993, Donald's beaks are longer, and less squarish, and more different from Vicar's early style. That is the most likely to be a different inker. But, the drawing style still looks too much like Vicar, to have been a different penciler. But, I believe that Vicar drew the storyboards for a number of stories during the late 1990s and 2000s that were penciled by his assistants.
Now that I see these pages I realize that my comment on Vicar above only refers to his style from the 90's and 2000's.
Never seen this older stuff, thanks for posting them.
Good to read that from you. Vicar's early work, mid '70s through early '80s was not bad at all. His work looked like Barks in some poses, and the dynamics weren't bad, and the panels had more "breathing room", - not all cluttered like most of his later work. Those first 5 pages from the early '80s Dutch weeklies were stories Vicar drew for Danish Gutenberghus in the late 1970s (we got them quite a bit later than The Egmont countries). Hundreds of those early good stories have not been printed in USA, France or Italy.