Jim Lee (DC Comics Artist/Editor) Draws Son Gokuu.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

It's pretty scary looking to me. He looks so bulky and unattractive almost like the Hulk or the Thing. Doesn't really look human to me.

A good job Goku isn't human then.

[Luso Saiyan]

I didn't know any of that. There's a live video?

Posted it in a previous post, but here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWGsSvh_YeM

He starts drawing Goku about mid-way through.

[Lord Beerus]

Face looks a little weird, but everything else is a 10/10.

[Chuquita]

I didn't know any of that. There's a live video?

Posted it in a previous post, but here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWGsSvh_YeM

He starts drawing Goku about mid-way through.

So it took him about an hour and a half to draw. That seems normal and not rushed so....maybe the hair's just drawn that way because he's never drawn it before and since he didn't use a reference as far as I can tell.

I have no familiarity with this artist outside of this thread, and I've seen other artists who've drawn more realistic Gokus that I like better so it's like....the most I can say is I understand the situation behind the drawing more. It doesn't change my opinion that I like the body, but not the hair and I'm kinda uneven about his face. It's not a bad drawing, but it's not my thing.

[Apollo Fungus]

A quintessentially Kunzait post full of genuinely great points. Seriously, go read it!

I wish I had say something more substantial to say in response to this post, but I want to thank you for writing it. It got me to realize a lot of things in relation to Jim Lee, most of which helped me to see that my opinion was based on a tiny portion of the man's body of work (and from what I can glean, not his best), which is hardly enough to say more than a sentence of an impression; never mind the couple of paragraphs I spent trying to critique the guy and his work.

On that note, I want to apologize for making even the suggestion that Lee's attention to detail could have implied him trying to cover up for otherwise unremarkable artwork. That was a really shitty thing to say, and one that I can't even try to defend as an opinion, considering that it would still be a mean-spirited opinion of a creative individual who hasn't done anything to deserve that kind of slagging. I'm sorry.

This doesn't mean that I like Jim Lee, at least for now. I don't like his artstyle, but I now understand that I really should check out a lot more of his work before I can make any kind of proper critique on the man's skill (in the same way I need to listen to more of John Williams' music or watch more of Hayao Miyazaki's films before I feel confident in articulating why I don't care for their bodies of work, beyond a personal feeling of "I didn't like it").

But even though I still don't get the appeal behind Jim Lee from a perspective of personal taste, I now have a better understanding as to why he's so revered in certain circles, and that there's a reason he's been such a mainstay of the industry. Thank you for that, Kunzait.

And lastly: I don't mean to slag on personal taste here, but come on man: you're telling me you find more inherent beauty in something like THIS over something like THIS? Come on: I know taste is subjective and all, but I find it INCREDIBLY hard to defend this one.

I don't take offence, so don't worry about it. I've got my fair share of unpopular opinions when it comes to entertainment media, so I'm long used to people disagreeing with me and questioning my taste. Hell, even if I wasn't used to it, I'm not surprised that my opinions don't completely line up from person to person, let alone a larger group of people - that's just how it goes. Everyone interprets everything differently, so it makes sense that we're gonna disagree on all manner of things. Honestly, I find that makes things more interesting, because then I get to try and understand what people like about the things I don't like, and therefore understand & empathize with them better (and hopefully vice versa).

I'll admit that I can't really defend that comparison beyond "I prefer one over the other". Whether or not that's a good enough defense is something I'll leave up to you to decide, and I won't blame you either way. (Plus, I'll happily admit that "beauty" might've been a bit too hyperbolic a term to use; I was reusing a comparison I'd made in a post I did elsewhere about a year back, when my opinion on Lee was more obnoxiously worded, and I didn't seem to realize the obvious implications of that term. I apologize for that, too.)

[goku the krump dancer]

Definitely a rush job but still hella cool!

[JulieYBM]

Then you haven't really dug into Lee's work (certainly not his best or the stuff that made him into a major name artist) and don't have very much in the way of any real substance to back up your appraisal. Glancing at a couple of his recent DC drawings in NO way gets even within lightyears of seeing the full breadth of what it was that had built Lee's career into the industry legend that it's been for the better part of the last 30-something years.

I was very careful in choosing my words to assert that I had a small amount of experience with his work. Luckily, you have posted pieces that had more natural posture work.

That Goku drawing is far from great (for obvious reasons that have been well noted here), but calling a guy of his (VERY well known and documented) caliber and raw talent within the Western comics industry an "amateur" is just... thuddingly ignorant. On FAR too many levels for me to go into with any brevity. This was the same guy who, back in the late 80s, blew the minds of some of Marvel's most legendary 1960s and 70s-era talents (including Steve Ditko himself) by drawing a flawlessly rendered sketch of Psylocke within moments... completely freehand, and with a marker rather than a pencil.

Naw, I'm standing by what I said. He fucked up and we shouldn't be afraid of saying that. He drew a character he had no experience with, did it with glaring errors and then posted it without even acknowledging his errors. Am I boarding the next flight to Whereeversville to shove banana pudding down his throat as punishment? No, but he should've known better, especially sense he put all that time into shading only for that face, that hair and those arms to ruin the entire picture. An environment that breeds discipline is apparently not something he was bred in.

Also noting the unbelievably priceless irony that Sabertooth in those last few screencaps of yours is wearing the immediately recognizable and iconic costume that Lee himself designed for that character in the first place, as your using the clip as an example of "how characters should be drawn" to contrast against Lee. While Lee didn't originally create Sabertooth, he CERTAINLY indeed created his most well known appearance and is probably one of THE artists who singlehandedly defined the character's visual portrayal that virtually ALL his subsequent appearances throughout all media across the decades would draw directly from. Up to, and including that clip you posted there.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Basically you just used a character that this particular artist had an INCREDIBLY LARGE HAND in helping to develop as a model to effectively demonstrate how this character "should" be drawn in contrast with the work of the guy who helped develop him in the first place.

Tate Naoki draws a better Gokuu and Vegeta than Toriyama does, too (many of the animators who have worked on Dragon Ball are more striking artists than Toriyama, but that's a different discussion). Don't single the Lee example out because I have no problem in general calling Tate one of the premier illustrators around.

[Kunzait_83]

Naw, I'm standing by what I said. He fucked up and we shouldn't be afraid of saying that. He drew a character he had no experience with, did it with glaring errors and then posted it without even acknowledging his errors. Am I boarding the next flight to Whereeversville to shove banana pudding down his throat as punishment? No, but he should've known better, especially sense he put all that time into shading only for that face, that hair and those arms to ruin the entire picture. An environment that breeds discipline is apparently not something he was bred in.

I'm not "afraid" of saying that Lee did a thoroughly mediocre stab at Goku here. Its easily one of his worst ever drawings actually, now that I think about it. I'm just noting that there's a VAST level of difference between an "amateur" and an industry legend who did one fucked up drawing (and, from what I can gather about the vid, on a random whim no less).

And I don't use a term like "industry legend" lightly: this guy's one of a select number of individuals that can genuinely be said to have helped shape the evolution of Western superhero comic book art as we know it, certainly within my lifetime. This isn't just any old random comic book artist: the dude's a marquee trendsetter and stylistic icon (one who's inspired a whole GENERATION'S worth of imitators), and for a very clear and discernible reason that isn't at all hard to see or pinpoint for anyone with even a slight modicum of knowledge on Western comic book history.

There's a HUGE difference between consistently fucking up and fucking up on one or a handful of random occasions. The former is the mark of an amateur. The latter is a mark of just being human.

And just to hammer this point home one last time (this time using raw pencil sketches, without any coloring or finishing):

[spoiler]

























[/spoiler]

This is a dude that can draw like few others can. Using the level of hyperbole you're using in this case, over a fucking random off-the-cuff throwaway youtube sketch no less, just makes you come across as super narrow-minded and arrogantly dismissive, especially when its within a realm of art that (by your own admission) you clearly don't know a whole lot about.

I know that you've got a dense fountain of knowledge on the modern Japanese animation industry (that easily puts to shame that of my own and most other folks here): but modern Japanese animation isn't the be-all, end-all of all creative outlets that exist in the entirety of the world or human history, nor is it some universal standard by which to grade or judge different kinds of artists working within different kinds of mediums within different cultures or even different eras.

And I'm making that distinction especially in your case, because I'm more than familiar with you by now, and you have a thoroughly long history on both here and on twitter of going on numerous cringe-inducingly ignorant rants along these very same lines where you talk up the "inherent artistic superiority" of contemporary Japanese animation over everything from live action film as a broad and collective whole all the way on down to even fucking Renaissance-era art (two other mediums of art that you also admit you know or have experienced very, very little of): both astoundingly ludicrous and dimwitted comparisons that expose a STUNNING lack of cultural and self-awareness, to a degree that would rightly and justly get you uproariously mocked in almost ANY kind of social or academic setting that isn't some dumpy anime convention, and acts as real-life examples of exactly the kinds of reasons why Otaku carry the kinds of negative stereotypes and stigma that they do.

I mean look at it this way: imagine reading a lengthy breakdown from someone (who freely admits that they mainly only ever watch Shonen anime and doesn't explore very much of anything else in other mediums) that attempts to explain and rationalize how various random Pokemon animators have a more thorough understanding of raw visual storytelling than guys like David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick, or how the guy who drew the keyframes for one of the Naruto movies has a grasp of linework, anatomy, and raw emotional power that puts to shame "unimpressive hacks" like Matthias Grünewald or Giotto... try putting yourself in the shoes of someone other than yourself (i.e. perhaps someone with maybe a bit of a broader depth of knowledge and experience with artistic mediums that extend beyond cartoons for Japanese 8 year olds) and imagine how statements like that might come across, and you might get an idea of where I'm coming at you from here.

Look, I'm genuinely, sincerely sorry to be an asshole here, but art is something I certainly care VERY immensely deeply about: and seeing art in a broader sense be so consistently and ignorantly reduced and trivialized within this community of only mattering or warrant taking seriously or studying with any scrutiny when it applies to children's toy cartoons, is both something that's LONG many years ago gotten supremely tiresome to put up with without any comment, and its also one of the most intellectually toxic aspects that's clung to this place for the better part of a decade and change now.

All's I'm ultimately saying is, have SOME degree of humility when A) talking about an arena of art that you aren't in any way really all that familiar with and B) when talking about a guy who's not only obviously gifted, but has genuinely made a significant mark on the history of an entire medium in a way that not a whole lot of other artists working in his field can claim to have.

[Bullza]

People that can't draw, critiquing a legendary artists fan drawing that he did just to release on social media....ok.

[Doctor.]

Tate Naoki draws a better Gokuu and Vegeta than Toriyama does, too

You'll have to elaborate on this some more. Not sure people are gonna let this one slide so easily.

collective whole all the way on down to even fucking Renaissance-era art

Sorry to stick my nose in, but, uh, what?

[Gaffer Tape]

Naw, I'm standing by what I said. He fucked up and we shouldn't be afraid of saying that. He drew a character he had no experience with, did it with glaring errors and then posted it without even acknowledging his errors. Am I boarding the next flight to Whereeversville to shove banana pudding down his throat as punishment? No, but he should've known better, especially sense he put all that time into shading only for that face, that hair and those arms to ruin the entire picture. An environment that breeds discipline is apparently not something he was bred in.

Maybe I'm missing some finer points here, but this reaction seems a bit overboard to me. I mean, this is some off-the-cuff drawing, right? What's the big deal? It's a character Lee doesn't usually draw from a franchise he's supposedly not too familiar with. And it's not his best work? Well, naturally. Does the guy have to be an immediate expert at everything? It isn't as if this is a finalized drawing found in an officially released Dragon Ball product or in Jim Lee's touring gallery of "My Personal Favorite and Best Drawings I've Done." I mean, I like Lee's style (I have a poster of his work hanging in my bedroom), and I don't really care for this rendition of Goku, but I don't get how he "should've known better."

[goku the krump dancer]

If this goes viral enough, I wonder if this'll lead into some sort of official DBxDC crossover. That'll be dope as hell. Even if it's just Goku being a fish outta water in the DC universe.. that'll be awesome!

[JulieYBM]

Naw, I'm standing by what I said. He fucked up and we shouldn't be afraid of saying that. He drew a character he had no experience with, did it with glaring errors and then posted it without even acknowledging his errors. Am I boarding the next flight to Whereeversville to shove banana pudding down his throat as punishment? No, but he should've known better, especially sense he put all that time into shading only for that face, that hair and those arms to ruin the entire picture. An environment that breeds discipline is apparently not something he was bred in.

Maybe I'm missing some finer points here, but this reaction seems a bit overboard to me. I mean, this is some off-the-cuff drawing, right? What's the big deal? It's a character Lee doesn't usually draw from a franchise he's supposedly not too familiar with. And it's not his best work? Well, naturally. Does the guy have to be an immediate expert at everything? It isn't as if this is a finalized drawing found in an officially released Dragon Ball product or in Jim Lee's touring gallery of "My Personal Favorite and Best Drawings I've Done." I mean, I like Lee's style (I have a poster of his work hanging in my bedroom), and I don't really care for this rendition of Goku, but I don't get how he "should've known better."

The reaction's so strong because I apparently need to argue with a lot of exaggeration and hyperbole the simple point that perhaps Lee made a bad move, rather that just moving along with the conversation. He dropped the carton of eggs on the supermarket's floor as he was trying to remove it from the cooler. Kunzait was deploying his usual exaggeration and hyperbole over comments prefaced with the acknowledgement that the comments that had been made had been made with less-than-extensive research and followed by the concession that "Oh, hey, he once did some slightly better stuff, too".

As for why he should've known better: he's been drawing for decades and they still thought "Oh, I like this drawing with the really awkward posturing, framing and features enough to post it and provide next to no admittance that it's hardly very good". I'd expect him to be a little more critical or at least upfront about saying "Yeah, I shat this out in five minutes with no prior experimentation and am not totally enamored with it". It's really that easy to get a genuine 'pass'. You have to set a content for when you put this sort of thing out and if it's the wrong context for the quality of the work you're going to look out of your mind.

Lee is a blank-fuckin'-canvas in my mind, so perhaps that's why I can poo-poo over his decision here. He's done nothing to win me over at any and all levels. I'm just surprised at the emotional reaction to the idea that perhaps releasing a poor drawing is something worthy of criticism.

Tate Naoki draws a better Gokuu and Vegeta than Toriyama does, too

You'll have to elaborate on this some more. Not sure people are gonna let this one slide so easily.

Sure. I'll pop back to the image I posted from Super #56 in my earlier post. Tate was bred in an environment of constant short deadlines that required him to have to produce a large amount of work quickly. As a result, Tate learned to create a drawing with the bare essential amount of detail while also giving that drawing the sense that it could function both in stationary and in motion realistically. It's a very hard thing to do, which is why there is a significantly fewer number of great illustrators than there are bad illustrators. Toriyama in his youth was very capable at drawing characters in dynamic positions but the longer Dragon Ball ran the less he would draw natural looking body language. The focus on superfluous during the latter half of the Cell through Majin Buu arcs led to stiffer art because while there might've been more detail from Toriyama in a higher number of lines there was less detail in how the characters stood. The example of Vegeta I posted above might be simple but still looks like it would move in a detailed manner. Tate's loose manner of drawing gives the impression that Vegeta has done his pre-exercise warm-ups for the day and can bring into action at any moment.

This Jiren from Super #130 is another favorite of mine. The way Jiren's body is positioned and the placement of his arm makes it very easy for the viewer's eye to scan the image and follow any potential movement. Even though it's a still image with intentionally simplistic lines it's attention to detail, rather than mere illustration of detail, is what makes it so striking. It immediately caught my eye when the episode first aired.


I've gotta run to work, so I'll post back tomorrow or whenever I can to actually finish replying, but that's the skinny of it.

[GTx10]

That Tate picture Jacob provided is terrible. Vegeta looks slim, and like a bouncy-ball. While Goku's face and hair look odd his body looks like the typical Comic book superhero body. Also yay cracks against Yamamuro! So original... >_>

If anyone could draw Son Goku in this style better step up to the plate otherwise stop being so mean guys.

[Doctor.]

Sure. I'll pop back to the image I posted from Super #56 in my earlier post. Tate was bred in an environment of constant short deadlines that required him to have to produce a large amount of work quickly. As a result, Tate learned to create a drawing with the bare essential amount of detail while also giving that drawing the sense that it could function both in stationary and in motion realistically. It's a very hard thing to do, which is why there is a significantly fewer number of great illustrators than there are bad illustrators. Toriyama in his youth was very capable at drawing characters in dynamic positions but the longer Dragon Ball ran the less he would draw natural looking body language. The focus on superfluous during the latter half of the Cell through Majin Buu arcs led to stiffer art because while there might've been more detail from Toriyama in a higher number of lines there was less detail in how the characters stood. The example of Vegeta I posted above might be simple but still looks like it would move in a detailed manner. Tate's loose manner of drawing gives the impression that Vegeta has done his pre-exercise warm-ups for the day and can bring into action at any moment.

This Jiren from Super #130 is another favorite of mine. The way Jiren's body is positioned and the placement of his arm makes it very easy for the viewer's eye to scan the image and follow any potential movement. Even though it's a still image with intentionally simplistic lines it's attention to detail, rather than mere illustration of detail, is what makes it so striking. It immediately caught my eye when the episode first aired.


I've gotta run to work, so I'll post back tomorrow or whenever I can to actually finish replying, but that's the skinny of it.

Ok, but you're still not actually saying how Tate is better than Toriyama. What you're saying is, "Tate is better than Cell/Boo arc Toriyama, when he couldn't give less of a shit about the series he was drawing." How does Tate compare to the looser, more dynamic drawings of early Dragon Ball or even Toriyama's pre-Dragon Ball work?

[MrTennek]

People that can't draw, critiquing a legendary artists fan drawing

This argument...

You don't need to be a chef to know when food tastes like shit, dude.

[JazzMazz]

That Tate picture Jacob provided is terrible. Vegeta looks slim, and like a bouncy-ball. While Goku's face and hair look odd his body looks like the typical Comic book superhero body. Also yay cracks against Yamamuro! So original... >_>

If anyone could draw Son Goku in this style better step up to the plate otherwise stop being so mean guys.

I feel like your criticism of the images JulieYBM most aren't real criticisms and don't really have much basing to them. Your kind of ignoring the intent of the artwork and just saying, it looks stupid, which is a really shallow method of criticising artwork.

[Battojutsu]

I'd love to see Toriyama draw Superman.

He did... In Dr. Slump

[Vegeta_Sama]

I'd love to see Toriyama draw Superman.

He did... In Dr. Slump

Here he is :
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Exactly what I would expect from Toryiama I love it

[Jackalope89]

I'd love to see Toriyama draw Superman.

He did... In Dr. Slump

Here he is :
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Exactly what I would expect from Toryiama I love it

To be fair, that's a parody of the Man of Steel.
And looking through google...

Huh. Harder to find a decent anime rendition of Superman than I thought. Half of them are poorly done fanarts of Superman, the other half are either him fighting Goku, or Goku wearing the cape and "S" himself.