Bad Drawing in Comics
It seems one of the peculiar traits comics has maintatined is its love/hate relationship with bad drawing. Sure, there have been stellar illustrators in the comics world, but for every Windsor McCay and Harold Foster there are hundreds of artists of the Scott Adams, Kim Casali, Cathy Guisewite ilk, whose work defies any category of aesthetic appreciation and yet have hordes of devoted fans. I must admit my initial aversion to bad drawing in comics is often overcome by the power of the narrative. I become affected by the action and words to such an extent that the bad drawing becomes something that tugs at my perception and I laugh and are amazed by the truth of the comic and the terrible tension it maintains with its awkward existence. Chris Onstad’s Achewood is a classic example of the sort of bad drawing that defies belief. The characters only vaguely resemble some real thing, in this case clumsy stuffed animals, but they carry within their absurd condition something deeply human. I do not identify with their actions or sympathize with their conflicts, rather it is the smallness and trivial nature of the drawing that sums up a pathetic situation that I can only wonder at.
