Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

A good read and really brutal critique of Steve Rude's art by Alex Toth.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77013

Re: Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

Good stuff. Even if getting that critique must have stung in the short term, there is a huge amount of solid information in there.

It reminds me of a guy I knew who was switching from chess to go. He would play much better people and get his ass handed to him. Then they would go over the entire game move by move, because the other players had it memorized, and the other players would point out every one of his mistakes. It allows you to learn fast.

Re: Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

And here I thought Rude was a really good comic book artist. I'd like to see Toth take on Leifeld.

Re: Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

To be fair, here's Rude's response. http://www.comicsbeat.com/2006/09/22...rude-response/

Toth makes some good points but I think he was being overly harsh. I understand he was a surly man anyway and perhaps he was doubly agitated because Jonny Quest was a property he worked on in his animation days. I don't know.

I do know that no artist is without his faults. I remember a page from a Toth romance story where he made some of the same sins he's criticizing Rude for. Silhouettes of characters not established (or maybe it was a shot from the character's back and not a silhouette, but I remember not knowing who the heck the guy was) and even a side shot of a character whose face was cut off by the panel. I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere.

Regardless I still have a ton of respect for both artists and will continue to enjoy their work.

Re: Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

It would have to be Jedi Ghost Alex Toth at this point...

Re: Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

‎"Always be a student! A scholar! Admitting to how little you know, how much there's still left to learn, is your key to learning! For a lifetime!" The late Mr. Toth's use of punctuation is highly dubious, but I definitely dig this remark. Also, Mr. Rude's response is hilarious. I loved when he tried to explain that it wasn't a camera at all, but rather a piece of surveying equipment and how Toth only became madder.

I think we've all been there, almost certainly in childhood at the very least, where someone is just worked up about all kinds of things and no matter how perfectly reasoned our defense may be, the fact we even have a defense only seems to incite further wrath. It's one of the most infuriating experiences there is because no matter how much self-respect or pride you have, eventually you just want it to be over. Once it is over, of course, you stew in your anger as much at yourself for letting it go and being bullied into backing down as you are at the other person for making you the victim of their irrational negative energy.

Most of Rude's remarks are pretty concise, not even able to recall specific issues for many panels and even a few pages, but that matter of Toth rejecting his perfectly sensible defenses came up a couple times. It's not difficult to picture younger Steve Rude reading the critique at home, trying to stifle his initial shock at the brutality and then feeling a renewed sense of self-confidence, knowing he had airtight arguments...only to have those lead not to a civil exchange ending in "Oh, well, then," but instead angrier shouting and a terminated phone call. I suspect it became difficult for Rude to even know how seriously to take any of that criticism, because some part of his brain had to be tempted to dismiss it all on the basis that Toth clearly hadn't paid the proper amount of attention to what he had reviewed.

Re: Alex Toth Critiques Steve Rude
 

This makes me want to re-read all of Nexus.