The past is never dead (for artists)
Despite being medium that often gets an undeservedly bad rap for being too "juvenile", comics have a lot to offer as works of art. Just like any other artist, comic creators also grapple with the curating influences, putting in the reps, and pushing their artistic horizons. It is also refreshing to be able to spot pearls of insights diving into the literature about comics.
Here's a snippet that stood out for me from an Off Panel interview that host David Harper had with artist Russel Dauterman. (You probably can tell I've been listening to a lot of comics podcasts recently. I guess it's a phase that I'm leaning into for as long as I find stuff that interests me!)
David Harper: Modern artists have a hard time looking at the present [but] they can look to the past and not have that critical eye and still take [inspiration], because it's different. It was like the aesthetic and the approach and the layouts and everything were just a different thing and you can get something different from it because you're disconnected from that moment.
Russel Dauterman: I think that's exactly right. And I think also you don't want your stuff necessarily to look just like what another modern artist is doing, because that person is already getting work. So they already hired that person, why would they hire you?
Russel Dauterman: And so I think it's kind of just a smarter thing to draw from older stuff. But I think Leyendecker, if you look at the crispness of the clothes and stuff especially, that's something that you might not associate with comic book art. [...] But also I think Leyendecker, you can see a lot in there, just like the crispness of everything. And at face value, it might not look like comic book art, because it's so painterly, […] but little elements of it you can take. And I think that is a good thing to draw from when you're influencing your own style, so that you're taking a little thing and not aping the whole shebang.
What I found insightful was in their discussion of where to seek inspiration. Surrounded as we are by so much content today, it can be easy to just look at what's current and present. But Dauterman suggests that this will just result in a bland sameness. Instead, he says we should look at the past, especially at stuff that at first glance doesn't seem relevant to your work.
It's in the seemingly dusty past where the scattered pearls lie for the creators of today to string into their own unique works of art. For me personally, I want to take action on this by intentionally adding older works of art to my reading/watching/listening lists.