The style of Barry Windsor-Smith

Cartoonist Jim Rugg wrote a review on Literary Hub of artist Barry Windsor-Smith's work on Wolverine's Weapon X story from the 1988-95 Marvel Comics Presents anthology:

Barry Windsor-Smith was one of the most popular creators at Marvel Comics. Part of his popularity was due to his style. His comics did not look like or read like other comic books. It is important to clarify that Windsor-Smith’s style was not defined exclusively by his artwork. Windsor-Smith approached storytelling very differently than the standard Marvel house style approach.

The average age of comic book readers in the 1960s was seven. The storytelling style of Marvel as well as many other comic book publishers was “show and tell.” Captions often described the drawing in the panel. This redundancy made sense for young, inexperienced readers. But by 1991, readers were older and hopefully better readers.

The 1980s saw the rise of creators who felt that comics were an art form and were not inherently limited to young readers. These creators challenged misconceptions about comics being for kids with complex, sophisticated works like Maus, Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Love and Rockets. The growth of storytelling in the art form meant that creators like Barry Windsor-Smith could use different techniques to engage and challenge their readers.

One of the more obvious storytelling choices in Weapon X is the lack of narrative captions. Without literal explanations, readers must pay close attention to Smith’s artwork in each panel to follow Weapon X’s story. This one choice dramatically changes the reading experience. It places much more value on the artwork. One cannot understand the story only by reading the words. The art in each panel provides critical information. In order to understand what is happening, the reader must interpret the images and the character’s dialogue. This was a radical departure from most Marvel comics of 1991. This kind of reading requires time, attention, and thought in order to process what we see and how it fits with other panels. It also creates an experience where the reader’s knowledge is similar to Logan’s—limited. We do not always know what is happening. We often piece together the story from a subjective, fragmented vantage point. At times, this effect makes Logan’s character more relatable.

Well that was then, and this is now, and while sophisticated writing/art may have been common at the time, it most unfortunately has turned into a lost art as of today, if we take Brian Bendis' writing as an example. And while Rugg may be right about how Windsor-Smith approached the writing/art in Weapon X, I'm going to have to disagree with Dark Knight Returns, if only because Frank Miller sowed the seeds that brought down the Masked Manhunter in the mainstream DCU proper over time though DKR.

And if Rugg believes what came about in the early 90s makes good art, what does he think of modern "art"? Seriously, I think anybody who can't apply an objective view to modern storytelling as much as older stuff is not providing enough to challenge the readers either. Rugg's review of Windsor-Smith's Wolverine tale from MCP is impressive, but it still doesn't substitute for explaining why modern mainstream comics aren't delivering. In fact, there's a valid argument to make that if narrative captions were thrown away by later writers, that's honestly not good, because they do still have use even in modern times, though what's really bad is when thought balloons suffer the same fate. Without those, how can you know what's on the superhero's mind? If Superman and Spider-Man were written without thought balloons, they'd be getting nowhere in past decades as a storytelling vehicle. That's why, while I don't doubt Windsor-Smith's talent in the past, narrative captions and thought balloons still shouldn't be thrown away as storytelling tools.