Chris Bachalo - What's The Deal?
I come here not to bury Chris Bachalo, but rather, just to ask about the change in his art style.
Two things we know for sure.
1. Chris Bachalo's art today looks a good deal differently than it did when he was drawing Shade The Changing the Man, Death: The High Cost of Living, and his first run on Generation X (I'd post some examples, but I think it is a pretty given thing, no?).
2. Chris Bachalo's change in art occurred at the same time his inker on those projects, Mark Buckingham left the penciller/inker team to become a penciller himself.
One thing that I posit as true, but others may disagree:
1. Chris Bachalo has always been a penciller that inkers have a large effect upon. Just look at X-Men Unlimited #1, where Bachalo is inked by Dan Panosian.
Does it look anything like you would expect from Chris Bachalo? And that is not "early" work by Bachalo, either. That is post-Shade, post-Death Bachalo.
In addition, check out the release this Wednesday of Age of Apocalypse #3, penciled by Bachalo and inked by SIX different inkers. The change in quality between the six is stunning.
So here's the basic question, and I would love for any insight into this from anyone who knows anything about the situation - was the change in style BECAUSE of Mark Buckingham's departure as Bachalo's inker (in that, without Buckingham inking him, Bachalo just could NOT draw that style anymore), or did Bachalo just use the departure of Buckingham as an impetus to make a change in his style (much like Michael Golden has dramatically changed his art style...and I know Bachalo is an admirer of Golden)?
posted by Brian Cronin @ 1:12 AM
2 Comments:
YEAH I've noticed this too and I never really thought about how much the inkers he worked with affected his art. It's true though. Even the proportion of his characters varies greatly from his early issues of Generation X and the issues at the end. Then when he started drawing X-men the art changed even more. I thought it was because he was just getting more comfortable with this style and it was just flowing but now that I think of it there are drastic changes when he changes inkers.
I think alot of it has to do with tha fact that very few inkers know HOW to ink over Bachalo's pencils. His style tends to be fairly loose, with a bulgy-cartoonish quality, but look at his most recent work, and even Steampunk, and you'll see what it's become, I find his best work comes from his own inking , i.e. his recent work on Uncanny X-men. Though I'd Say Richard Friend is probably the one inker that really 'gets' his style, but he's used to working with guys like Travis Charest and Humberto Ramos as well, so he is just an amazing inker...
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