Walsby

[jaybird]

Am I crazy, or is he just tracing photos on a digital drawing pad now? I've always thought he was a good cartoonist, and a gifted, hilarious writer. But honestly, tight, technical drawing ability was never his strong suit... until maybe a year ago after he started doing most of his work on a tablet vs traditional pen-and-paper freehand media.

Exhibit A: these are pretty good examples of what I would consider his historic "freehand" style ... they display all his usual strengths and weaknesses as an artist - humorous content/concept, with strong, blocky line work, but also showing a somewhat amateurish technique when it comes to basic proportions and anatomy like drawing hands, which is admittedly rather difficult:








But recently, he's been posting stuff like this, which to my eye, look like obvious tracings and/or photo manipulations:







Some folks have commented in the threads on fb how much different these are than a lot of his past work, on a purely technical level... he says he's just drawing in a different style/medium... what does the dagboard think? Did he suddenly become a seriously technically advanced artist over the last year, or is he cutting A LOT of corners with this shit? It seems kinda lame to me that he's selling stuff that appears to be the digital equivalent of a paint-by-numbers kit from the 1970s... but maybe I'm wrong.

The floor is now open for debate.

[FlexMyHead]

[jaybird]

I mean, really?

[version sound]

If they weren’t labeled as such, I would never attribute those last two to him. They are kind of interesting artistically speaking, but don’t have an ounce of the personality of his real drawings.

[jaybird]

If they weren’t labeled as such, I would never attribute those last two to him. They are kind of interesting artistically speaking, but don’t have an ounce of the personality of his real drawings.

Yeah, this is basically my point. I do think he's talented and tremendously creative.. but this just seems like the sort of thing a teenage girl would do in their spare time... and the fact that he's kinda playing these off like they're his own original illustrations, rather than admitting that he's basically just digitally painting over other people's photographs... for someone who is known for mercilessly skewering all of the hypocritical and hilarious fakery and bs that has abounded in underground/indie music over the last 35 years, this seems like a really, really cringey move on his part.

[scannest]

I just sent him $$ for prints of the Peter Criss and Stooges/Fun House things he did. I think they look really cool, regardless of how he made them.

[jaybird]

I just sent him $$ for prints of the Peter Criss and Stooges/Fun House things he did. I think they look really cool, regardless of how he made them.

I do lots of free-lance design and artwork as a sideline gig, and I do use lots of digital manipulation and editing techniques... pretty much everyone does to some extent or another these days, unless you're working in strict pen/paint/paper physical medium of some sort... but I would never try to pass off something like this as my own work, much less charge people money for it. I just think it's pretty unethical and dishonest from someone i otherwise admire and respect as an artist.

[scannest]

The Stooges one looks like something he drew "freestyle".

[jaybird]

The Stooges one looks like something he drew "freestyle".

Yeah, that's pretty obviously his own work... the last batch of KISS stuff pretty obviously isn't, apart from taking the effort to paint over a photographic image source.

[FormerLurker]

Where's Iggy?

[scannest]

Where's Iggy?

[SamDBL]

I must say this surprises me.

[scannest]

Bob Dylan has a series of recent paintings where he is obviously taken stills from various films and traced the images and then painted over them, and...I think they look really good! I don't see what the big deal is. People like Walsby are always working off an image someone else created. I don't see the insult or disservice.

Here's a Dylan painting based on a still from Andy Milligan’s "Fleshpot on 42nd Street"

[jaybird]

If someone is upfront about the process, e.g. " hey I took this photo and traced/painted over it" then I don't really have an issue. I think it's cheesy and lame, but whatever, no accounting for taste. My issue with Walsby is that he's being very coy and evasive about the fact that these are not actually his original illustrations. Just seems really weak to me.

[FlexMyHead]

Unfortunately I'm not very artistic (drawing/painting) other than some graphic stuff (making flyers or something like that) so I can't relate to art from the "creating" it aspect, just the admiring it for the feelings/thoughts/emotions it can evoke, but I would think that if even if an artist takes source material they didn't 100% create, if their finished product is transformative then that would suffice in terms of making/creating something that didn't exist in the way it does without your artistic ability/process?

It sounds like you don't think the change is that significant or pronounced. I get that. I also think the included image of Dylan's thing looks kick ass. Walsby's KISS things look pretty great but I'm not a KISS fan, so it doesn't hit me in the same way it might others. Surely you'd have to agree that, just viewing it, you get a different feeling from the photo or what Walsby created? Maybe not. I know I do, I'd hang up Walsby's but not the photo, if that makes sense.

I'd be curious to hear Shary's thoughts if he would care to share them?

[SamDBL]

There is no question that tracing a photo and using a photo as a reference to freehand are two entirely different things in terms of artistic skill and labor. It would also be true that the simple, up front admission that ‘These are direct tracings from photographs’ would go a long way. As with any kind of art, how the artist got from point A to point B is even more important than what the final product looks like. At least, if you are going to judge it on any sort of standard. Otherwise I guess we’d say that a tracing of a photo by a teenager and a still life painting from a highly skilled master are pretty much the same thing because they both look realistic in the end. There is also a difference between using a source photo as a starting point for some unique, imaginative method has more merit than just tracing it, line by line, which pretty much anyone could do.
Anyway, I love Walsby and typically I love his art. And I’m totally supportive of him. So I’m not really commenting on this specific case. Just the overall debate.

[jaybird]

Unfortunately I'm not very artistic (drawing/painting) other than some graphic stuff (making flyers or something like that) so I can't relate to art from the "creating" it aspect, just the admiring it for the feelings/thoughts/emotions it can evoke, but I would think that if even if an artist takes source material they didn't 100% create, if their finished product is transformative then that would suffice in terms of making/creating something that didn't exist in the way it does without your artistic ability/process?

It sounds like you don't think the change is that significant or pronounced. I get that. I also think the included image of Dylan's thing looks kick ass. Walsby's KISS things look pretty great but I'm not a KISS fan, so it doesn't hit me in the same way it might others. Surely you'd have to agree that, just viewing it, you get a different feeling from the photo or what Walsby created? Maybe not. I know I do, I'd hang up Walsby's but not the photo, if that makes sense.

I'd be curious to hear Shary's thoughts if he would care to share them?

I agree these KISS prints look good.... largely because they are direct tracings of photographs...But that's not really the issue I'm talking about. Again, he's been directly questioned, "Hey these are great and way different than your usual style, what's the story here, are you using different techniques or what?" Instead of being upfront and saying "Yes, I'm using photographs as a template and digitally 'painting' over them" he's dissembling and saying things like, " I'm just using blocks of overlaying color, without any black lines or line work"... which is technically true. But is also a fairly significant lie of omission, IMO. Why he's not being upfront about this is strange to me... but I would guess that saying in effect "these are traced/painted over photographs" might tend to make them somewhat less marketable/valuable as opposed to just letting people believe they are freehand illustrations. It would be interesting to know how much he's actually selling these for opposed to his 'freehand' style work, and in what sort of volume....?


And again, I do think he's actually quite talented, and brings unique voice and perspective along with his best work... but this stuff (the KISS prints) just seems hacky and kinda underhanded to me, which is why it bums me out. If I thought he was just a talentless hack, I would not give a shit. I think he's better than this sort of thing.

[jaybird]

Where's Iggy?

Also, WTF is going on with Iggy's absurdly tiny baby foot in that pic?

[Mark T.]

Where's Iggy?

Also, WTF is going on with Iggy's absurdly tiny baby foot in that pic?

He's only Five Foot One.

[jaybird]

P.S.: I am wearing my Walsby Nils shirt today.



Looking at it again, I think it's possible he may have traced the band members' basic outlines to get their relative placement and perspective in relation to each other correct in accordance with the photo from the S/T record, but Alex's hands are pure Walsby freestyle.

[JGJR]

P.S.: I am wearing my Walsby Nils shirt today.



Looking at it again, I think it's possible he may have traced the band members' basic outlines to get their relative placement and perspective in relation to each other correct in accordance with the photo from the S/T record, but Alex's hands are pure Walsby freestyle.

That looks just like my Walsby Big Star shirt even down to the black/yellow colors.

[Mark T.]

That looks just like my Walsby Big Star shirt even down to the black/yellow colors.

[scannest]

I ordered a Nils shirt along with the new Doughboys one he posted recently.

[jaybird]

That looks just like my Walsby Big Star shirt even down to the black/yellow colors.

That is definitely one of his better free-style drawings... it's totally identifiable as his work. Like VS noted upthread, the recent KISS prints have absolutely zero of the personality/vibe/style that makes his work his.

[Knutsen]

I prefer his Peanuts style.

[FlexMyHead]

I prefer his Peanuts style.

I think he had a good sense humor about that, I mean fuck, look at the 7" cover he did in 1986 directly mentioning Charlie Brown!

[jaybird]

I prefer his Peanuts style.

I think he had a good sense humor about that, I mean fuck, look at the 7" cover he did in 1986 directly mentioning Charlie Brown!

One of his long-running gags has been to put a Charlie Brown and/or Batman in the moshpit whenever he draws one of his 'Walk together, Rock Together" type panels.

[FlexMyHead]

I was wondering why there hasn't been a "punk" artist to try to fuck with NFT's. Seems like Walsby could try that.

Shary, have you looked into that at all? I'm talking like the Bored Ape Yacht Club etc? I'd think there might be some interested on a small scale, not to the extent they would be worth 200K each or anything.