Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow American Comic Book Style: Panels sized unevenly, figures breaking slightly past the borders
- Type
- Set in American Comic Book Style's manner (Effects held in outlined bursts, dialogue set tight in caps), and let Pulp Magazine Cover's lettering (The title screaming across the top, author and tagline on slanted bands) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in American Comic Book Style's material (Heavy black contours filled by four-color overprints and dot screens); bring in exactly one thing from Pulp Magazine Cover (Oil brushwork in primaries sinking into a yellowed, coarse ground).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
These two are already listed as related, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- American Comic Book Style Laying on dots and primaries while thinning the contours means the drawing stops reading the instant the inks shift on press.
- Pulp Magazine Cover Painting sloppily to look cheap removes the rendering skill that carried the sensation and leaves fake old printing.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from American Comic Book Style (Style, 1938–) and its accent from Pulp Magazine Cover (Style, 1920s–1950s). Structural cues: Bold outlines, primary color; Ben-Day dot screens; Bursting sound effects; Panels exaggerating motion. Accent cues, used sparingly: Melodramatic oil painting; The instant of peril; Screaming logotypes; Primary-color sensation. Composition: Panels sized unevenly, figures breaking slightly past the borders. Type and lettering: Effects held in outlined bursts, dialogue set tight in caps. Let one material quality come from the second style: Oil brushwork in primaries sinking into a yellowed, coarse ground. Mood: Exhilaration, Play, Nostalgia. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- American Comic Book Style 1938– / Style / Illustration Styles
The grammar of exaggeration born from four-color printing and Ben-Day dots: bold outlines, primary-color costumes, speed lines and bursting onomatopoeia printing American myth on cheap newsprint.
- Pulp Magazine Cover 1920s–1950s / Style / Publishing and Editing
Fiction magazines printed on cheap pulp paper competed on sensational covers. Melodramatic oil painting, the instant of peril and screaming logotypes cast the visual language of science fiction, horror and crime, which flowed on into paperbacks and comics.
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