While we have no confirmation as of yet for the rumored November 26th air date, G.I. Joe: Renegades artist Clement Sauve has updated his DeviantArt page with a very cool piece of Snake Eyes art, seeming to indicate that Renegades is indeed “coming soon”.
A big thanks as always to fellow Renegades enthusiast kennywr22 from HissTank.com for digging this up!
I know the quality of the art is subjective, but I’m still digging it, and I like that they’ve used an artist with some connection to the G.I. Joe mythology. Clem’s work on the Dreadnoks DeClassified TPB cover and the covers to the America’s Elite “Sins of the Mother” arc with The Baroness are all pretty cool as well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for November 26th…looking forward to it.
I’m sorry to be the one having to say this…again, but I find nothing really “cool” at all about such a lazy style of drawing. Animated or not, at least he could use some line weight variation to create some depth on the individual stuff he seems to be putting up. It isn’t that difficult to do, and would really add to the overall effect of the character and his art in general.
Of course, I was NOT a fan of his work on the DDP stuff he did either, for similar reasons…He just has a very lazy way of drawing. I guess it works for some people, but it irks me to see so many other far more talented guys out there, having work taken away to give to less talented artists, IMO, like “Clem”. I know, or at least am pretty sure, that on a personal level, the guy is probably a very cool dude to talk to or whatever, but I can’t get all warm and fuzzy about his artwork, like Justin can. That’s just me, well, lol, no, actually it’s A LOT of other people, but you get the point, it’s my personal opinion that his work isn’t as great as people keep trying to tell me it is, and I will maintain this until the quality improves up to a point that I can agree with. I don’t see it happening though. How many years and he still hasn’t really evolved his style at all, if anything, it seems to be regressing?!
The “trendy” pseudo-anime look just doesn’t “do it” for me, especially since I have a library of much more quality ACTUAL anime that also makes this style look weak by comparison…Ninja Scroll and Ninja Resurrection spring to mind, even Resolute was better by miles, style and art and design-wise. The ONE thing I WILL give Renegades so far, is that it is not as grim and gritty looking as Resolute’s coloring effects…so far, but then again, as bland as it is, maybe it needs to adopt that effect to hide the lack of detail being invested in the actual art…Sigma 6 wasn’t even as bland in its design and art style, but the dialogue, voices and plots were horrendously rendered for the A.D.D. crowd to follow…I hope Renegades isn’t a double whammy, because the art has a major strike against it, and the “monster” character lends little faith to the stories we’ll be getting.
Basically, when I see this SE art, I get a very vivid impression that he watches A LOT of Adult Swim, and “The Boondocks” in particular, which isn’t all that great either. The pants down around SE’s @$$ design is pretty lame too, very “ghetto cool”, but I bet it sure helps him kick Cobra’s @$$ when he has to hold them up while jumping around swinging his cool ninja sword in front of explosions, lol. Come on, there is seriously no depth to this artwork. It’s the equivalent of exploring a puddle on concrete, vs. scuba diving to explore the coral reefs in clear blue water. No comparison at all really. Which would you rather eat? A round piece of cardboard with black dots to signify a chocolate chip cookie, or an ACTUAL chocolate chip cookie, (and yes, let’s assume that you’d actually like chocolate chip cookies)? Personally, I’d rather have the real cookie, not something that very loosely LOOKS like a cookie and tastes NOTHING like one.
I’m sorry, this art and design style just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak. I can say this for certain though, there is absolutely NO project, comics, cards or otherwise that I would hire anyone to be paid to give me this sort of BLAND artwork. As an artist myself, and a comics/animation fan, and as an art project head, I and my peers, definitely hold the artwork to a much higher standard than a lot of people apparently do these days. I’m NOT the only one though.
While it’s perfectly fine for folks to like what they like, and considering that I bear no ill feelings toward anyone who likes Clem’s “artwork” style for whatever reason, I expect them to understand too, that I don’t need them to try and convince me that it’s somehow “cool”. I just don’t like it and that’s it, same as the abysmal “artwork” in the Cobra series of the comics. To me, that stuff just ISN’T any good, and it is rather annoying at times to continuously hear about how “cool, gritty and cutting edge” it may (or may NOT) be, when there is virtually NOTHING said about the guy who draws the Marvel continuation series, or guys like Benitez, who do such amazing work, and who are far more talented, detailed and generally skilled than guys like Clem and “Cobra artist guy” who continuously get rave after rave around here and the art really isn’t anything worth mentioning.
No offense intended or anything, but that is just my opinion. You can like it, love it or hate it, I don’t care which, but if I must keep hearing about (in MY opinion) the more dismal art/artists pumping out substandard Joe stuff, at LEAST give those other awesome artists equal coverage. Fair is fair, and it takes some of the sting off of hearing Clem’s name being dropped every other day or week, it seems like.
However, on another note, if it makes you feel any better about what I just wrote, take solace in the fact that not only is November 26, Black Friday, but that it is also my birthday and will be desecrated by the release/airing of Renegades. Black Friday I don’t mind so much, but that other thing…ugh. Oh well, I can always hope for their satellite/servers to fail, now THAT would be an awesome birthday present, lol, for me anyway…Probably won’t happen though. 😉