Apparently we're back to the 90's at DC

It didn't take four months until we saw the worst art cliche of the 1990s show up again in a DC Comic. In Batgirl #3, I could complain about the giant moon that while incredibly large was entirely inaccurate or the complete ignorance of Physics that lets Batgirl ignore inertia and swing into a subway car going around a sharp curve. The problem I have is with the use of an extreme closeup of the eye.



Let me say this again, it doesn't add to the drama to go right into someone's eye. The eye doesn't look that different when you're shocked except in its relation to the rest of the face. The face conveys so much emotion, that getting closer on one eye actually takes away from the drama of a scene. In this case, reflecting Nightwing's costume motif dds nothing since the entire last half of the book is Batgirl interacting with Nightwing. This is horrible, and absolutely bad art, and I'm hoping that they get a better artist on this book, especially if you're going to use Adam Hughes on the covers.

We're Back To Extreme Closeups of the Eye

I read Flashpoint #5 today and if there was any doubt that the DC relaunch is a return of the 1990s, it gets lessened by the discovery of the worst artistic trend of the decade, the extreme closeup of the eye.

I touched on this before, and it's a shot that's useless and usually used to elicit drama, but only when the artist doesn't realize that just pulling the camera back a little to show the expression of the face could convey the drama so much more. That being said, let's take a look at the following cuts from near the end of Flashpoint.

For a technique that's used to convey drama, this shot choice is really weak. Consider that this is the last panel on the page, and it is essentially a guy asking Barry Allen if he's all right.  Ooo, drama.