Synthetic balloons (Re: artistic balloons)

[Daniel van Eijmeren]

TIMO RONKAINEN to NILS LID HJORT, 05-04-2005:

>> (2) Has this been "a thing to fight for" for many artists,
>> like van Eijmeren's tone of report indicates? I suppose
>> it depends quite on the individual artist's style.

> This is something I'd like to know, since I'm a cartoonist myself, 
> and at least in Finland, it's been more than customary that artist 
> make his/hers own speech balloons.

I've heard artist Mau Heymans about the subject some time ago, in a  
private conversation, and I understood he was quite unhappy and worried 
about the computer-balloons, as each balloon should be unique, with a 
feeling of its own.

This made me wonder how the situation could have come so far. I think 
that the artists should just have continued drawing balloons, so that 
the editor would have the impossible task of replacing them. Would they 
fire respected comic book artists who insist on drawing *balloons*? That
would be the news of the year, I say. Maybe a lot of artists don't know 
their value? Then, I hope they do now.

I'm sure the Dutch artists and writers have opened a bottle of champagne 
when they heard the news of the editor finally rejecting the situation. 
Who wouldn't? It's reason for a *party*, now the REAL balloons return. :-)

I find computer-balloons worser than the legendary square balloons of 
the early 1960s. By using computer-balloons, artists have to *guess* 
were the balloons will be placed, so in the end their panels look like 
badly taken pictures, labeled with balloon-stickers.

A comic book story has balloons. It's part of the job. If a comic book 
artist isn't allowed to draw balloons, he becomes an illustator drawing 
illustrations. And the balloon-pasting becomes an interference in the 
final result, no matter how. Furthermore, the software balloons look 
exactly the same in each story by every artist, over and over again.

And background jokes might get lost, which for example happened in a 
recent 6 page Mau Heymans story about taxes, in Dutch weekly 2005-07.
http://coa.inducks.org/story.php/0/H+24040

In panel 1.1 of that story, a bird on a fence with a tied-up beak got 
hidden under a balloon. This bird was part of a riddle elsewhere in the 
weekly. So, in the next weekly, number 2005-08, the solution of the 
riddle refered to a panel without any bird at all, except Donald and 
his nephews.

A scan of the bird is shown on the Dutch Donald Duck Weekblad site:
http://www.donaldduckweekblad.nl/brievenbus/_reacties3/
I think they should publish this scan in the weekly as well.

--- Daniël

"Hey! You're in TAR AND FEATHERS! That's not your USUAL costume, is it?"
(Which Barks story?) hint #1: "SOLD THE HOUSE! Oh, my socks and shoes!"