Toth Critiques Rude

by Rich

This is a panel by panel critique by the late great Alex Toth of an early Johnny Quest comic by the also great Steve Rude. Toth is unrelenting in his criticism but it shows how much damn thought that guy put into his work. Everything he says is dead-on. Although there’s a lot to learn from reading through this I can’t help but feel a little depressed by it. If Steve Rude who draws like no one’s business could be considered that sloppy then what the hell am I doing picking up a pencil?

Click here to see Steve Rude get his ass handed to him by a master.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Tips & Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

http://www.tessgadwa.com Tess

I can think of only three reasons to critique anybody’s work:

1)So that the creator can learn from it.

2)So that others can learn from it.

3)Schadenfreude

You be the judge of what’s going on here…
Herc

Yeah,
I can’t believe how widespread this critique has gotten. I remember reading it many years back. I also remember how it felt to get critiqued has harshly as Rude. hee hee Not fun. I learned to try to get better because of them. Well, after I smashed stuff ofcourse.
Rich, you are worthy to hold a pencil man. If we compared our talents to the people we admired we would constantly be overwhelmed and accomplish nothing. Some day people will be talking about your work and saying the same thing you say about Rude’s.
Peace,
Herc
TomD.

Hmm, Toth wasn’t criticising Rude’s drawing. He was slamming his story-telling abilities. Two totally different things. You could draw like Cathy Guisewite but still tell a story convincingly in pictures if your storytelling skills were up there.

Yeah, man, it IS a lot to think about!
Matt

This is really helpful. Not sure if I’ll ever become an artist but it helps to see story telling notes.
I love Toth and like Rude so it’s great to see them together sort of.
Frank

It was pretty harsh, but constructive at the same time. I’ve no problem with that. And Toth does say in it that Rude asked him for the critique. I’ve followed Rude’s work and have nearly every published comic he did but Toth is right on the money with his criticism, though I do enjoy some of Steve’s quirks, like the large statue head that shows up in a couple of panels.