Innovation's '91 DS Comic, Book 3

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And here's the thirteenth page -

(Click here for a 1328X1996 version)

Note that three panels and their associated dialogue were completely skipped in the slideshow as well as a bit of dialogue from the first panel.

Also note that the fifth panel appears to reveal who is really talking to Granny Whitlock - it's the ghost of the little girl whose funeral we saw at the beginning of the story...

And now that Granny Whitlock's apparent purpose here has been fulfilled, who knows if she would have made another appearance in Book 3? This is her last appearance in this issue as, with the exception of four characters, the story moves on to other characters making their sole appearances...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Two more '92 LA Fest photos from SG #63:

And much more to come...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Now that were up to Roger's section in Book 3, it's safe to post what SG #66 from had to say about Book 3 without ruining too much:

We'll never know, but I do wonder what Innovation's Ellen Jones meant by "From this point, Book 3 explores Sarah's world." I can't imagine she meant that we would only see Sarah in Issues 2 through 4 of Book 3. If so, that would have been a slap in the face to people hoping that characters like Maggie, Carolyn and Roger would get the more coverage that David Campiti promised in SG #62 - what they receive in Issue 1 could hardly be considered "a lot." So, perhaps we were to see those characters from Sarah's POV - or perhaps Jones didn't mean that we would only see Sarah's world and the other characters would pop up between the parts that would focus on Sarah. I certainly hope that would have been the case. But whatever it was to be, the focus is sadly moot at this point...

[Uncle Roger]

Shadowgram seems to be overstating their involvement with the comic books. Big surprise, huh?

While Maggie does get more coverage in this issue that in the previous books, it's not exactly a leading role. Or is it? It's never quite clear who the focus of this issue is supposed to be. Is it Maggie? Sarah? Robin? Granny Whitlock? Will any of this have any connection to Barnabas or Vicki? It's fine to have subplots in a book but the pacing here is all wrong. Just as we are given a potentiality interesting scene with Maggie, Granny or anybody, the scene is dropped and we're thrust into a completely different scene with different characters and little, if any, exposition.
My main problem with the Innovation series is the decision to anchor the series in a block of continuity in the NBC series that was not depicted on screen. A bit indulgent but it could have worked better. Unfortunately, by choosing a setting that is locked into a specific time period turned out to be very restrictive. The DS characters aren't allowed to grow or develop because that might contradict things that happened on the series. So, they basically have to remain unchanged and stagnant.  The writers tried to get around this by bringing in a lot of new characters. With mixed results. I wanted to read about the Collins family and their circle of friends, not the goofy residents of Barrettstown or the Medusa family. Too often, the Dark Shadows characters seemed like guests in their own book.
It does rather explain why none of the Innovation staff became major players in the comics field.

[Gothick]

So, I'm guessing that at this point in the comic book, Roger has had a psychotic break and is ranting at an invisible Laura.

Thankfully, I presume there are only a few more pages to go in this trainwreck.

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

You can't tell all that well from the graphics in the slideshow because they're cropped so much, but when Page 14 is posted tomorrow it will be clear that Roger is speaking to a portrait. Although, that's also mentioned in the SG report in reply #62. It's a device that's often used in storytelling...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

While Maggie does get more coverage in this issue that in the previous books, it's not exactly a leading role. Or is it? It's never quite clear who the focus of this issue is supposed to be. Is it Maggie? Sarah? Robin? Granny Whitlock? Will any of this have any connection to Barnabas or Vicki? It's fine to have subplots in a book but the pacing here is all wrong. Just as we are given a potentiality interesting scene with Maggie, Granny or anybody, the scene is dropped and we're thrust into a completely different scene with different characters and little, if any, exposition.

Yes, the scenes in this issue definitely jump around with little flow or connection. Perhaps if we'd gotten all four issues it might make some sense why things are written that way. But we won't ever see Issues 2 through 4, so we're left to wonder...

My main problem with the Innovation series is the decision to anchor the series in a block of continuity in the NBC series that was not depicted on screen. A bit indulgent but it could have worked better. Unfortunately, by choosing a setting that is locked into a specific time period turned out to be very restrictive. The DS characters aren't allowed to grow or develop because that might contradict things that happened on the series. So, they basically have to remain unchanged and stagnant.

Indeed. And the worse thing is that they don't always operate within the plot points already presented on the '91 Series. As we've pointed out so many times that I've lost count, characters' actions and plot often and blatantly fly in the face of the series.

The writers tried to get around this by bringing in a lot of new characters. With mixed results. I wanted to read about the Collins family and their circle of friends, not the goofy residents of Barrettstown or the Medusa family.

I didn't mind the Grimm sisters as much as I loathed Barrettstown. There were so many good aspects of Book 1, but they were often overshadowed by the Barrettstown foolishness. However, I strongly suspect the only reason Barrettstown ever existed in Book 1 was as an excuse to use Lara Parker's image and to use her character to set the stage for what was planned for Book 4. Book 4 might have been quite interesting (we'll touch more on what was planned for Book 4 after this issue ends) but we'll never know. While parts were similar to what became Angelique's Descent, much was very different...

Too often, the Dark Shadows characters seemed like guests in their own book.

Exactly!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Another batch of '92 LA Fest photos from SG #63:

And still much more to come...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And here's the fourteenth page -

(Click here for a 1328X1996 version)

Note that the fourth panel and its dialogue were skipped in the slideshow...

And speaking of the subject of the painting, would anyone who didn't read the comments in SG #66 know that it's supposedly Angelique in contemporary modern clothes?! The dialogue on the page makes it pretty clear that Roger is speaking to the painting as if it is Laura, not Angelique, so why would anyone jump to the conclusion that it is Angelique?! And what is it about what the woman in the portrait is wearing that screams contemporary modern clothes and only contemporary modern? And to complicate things further, in Book 1, Issue 2 we did see that Roger has painted both portraits of Laura (naked) and portraits of Angelique (dressed in 18th century clothes).

Although, if we're simply following what's been presented in the comics, in Book 1, Issue 3 we've seen that Roger has seemingly been tormented by Angelique. But that only makes things more confusing because there's been absolutely no explanation for it. Though perhaps they deliberately planned to keep people in the dark until an explanation might have come in Book 4, which was to focus on Laura and Angelique. And, of course, when it comes to Laura and Angelique we have no idea what was planned for Book 3, Issues 2 through 4 as SG #62 claimed Book 3 would have "significantly more background" on Roger's marriage to Laura. But alas...

[Uncle Roger]

That portrait doesn't look much like Lysette Anthony to me. Is Roger supposed to be a bad artist?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I always have to laugh whenever a fully dressed character (and not just a DS character) questions why someone else is -

Book Three/Issue One/Page 15 - Liz: 'VICTORIA? WHAT
ARE YOU DOING UP, CHILD? IT'S PAST MIDNIGHT.'

- still up at a late hour. The askee could easily turn the tables on the asker to question why they're also up, though they rarely do...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

That portrait doesn't look much like Lysette Anthony to me. Is Roger supposed to be a bad artist?

   But yes, Filipe Echevarria's style certainly doesn't capture Lysette the way E. Silas Smith's did:

Part of me does certainly wonder why they picked Filipe Echevarria to do the art for Book 3. I know they said it was because his 'ethereal "looking-through-gauze" style of art would suit Book 3's 'mood' - but I don't know - could he have blackmailed his way onto the project?    They also admitted that some of us might think it was more abstract than appropriate for DS, but they thought for sure it would grow on us. Maybe if we got all four issues. But I don't know. Some of the panels look like they're filtered though a lot more than gauze. I mean, just look at what I posted in the previous post - if it wasn't for the dialogue, we wouldn't know who the hell the characters being depicted are!!

[Uncle Roger]

Perhaps he thought that this would be a way to break into the potentially more lucrative American market. I also have a suspicion that Innovation's financial troubles were known to the industry before the general public and this was the best that was available.
Changing artists for every story wasn't as common then as it became later and probably did the book some harm.

[patrickm]

I know you defended Echevarria previously MB, saying this was his style...but that doesn't mean it was any good.  I looked up his work resume and he was pretty much a flop as a comic artist. This issue was the last work he did in comics. (He did a couple of graphic novels that have yet to be published ...wonder why?) then went into painting art. His style might look better as a painting but it sure didn't work in comics. Everything he drew looked like a eye chart for a quack optometrist trying to sell patients glasses. I was a subscriber to the comics originally and admire the thought and effort you put in for analysis MB, but truthfully the artwork is so horrible, I couldn't and can't even follow the story. In this case, a one and done issue was deserved.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I don't know much about Filipe Echevarria but I do remember that back in the day at some point not all that long after Book 3, Issue 1 came out I did a bit of research on him and apparently he'd received quite a bit of accolades over his 3 comic book treatment of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. He used the same style for that as he used for Book 3 here, and the essay on the inside front cover of this issue alludes to that. Apparently there are fans of his style in the comic universe, it's just that, unlike what Innovation hoped, perhaps there aren't many in DS fandom.    Although, I do have to say that when he does the characters/actors in close-up, I think for the most part he captures them quite well (there's a great version of Vicki/Joanna Going coming up on the 25th). On the other hand, today I came across this opinion of Book 3 on codelphia.com: "Disjointed storytelling and drab, murky artwork hindered this new, third Dark Shadows storyline, which never was continued.  On 31 December 1993, a bankrupt Innovation Comics abruptly went out of business." "Murky artwork" is a perfect description for what I posted in reply #70.

As for the possibility of not being able to get anyone else to work on the DS comics, as the essay also mentions, Hector Gomez, who did the front covers for Book 2, did the front cover for this issue and was supposed to continue to do covers for the rest of Book 3 as well as Book 4 (we'll be sharing some of his Books 3 and 4 cover artwork after this Issue 1 wraps up) and Jose Pimentel did the back cover head portraits for this issue and was supposed to continue to do them for the rest of Book 3 as well as return as the interior artist for Book 4. I like Pimentel's work for Book 2, so I'm really disappointed that we'll never see what he might have done with Book 4...

And while we're on the subject of the comics' artwork, there's an oddly identified piece of it on the front cover of SG #65:

Quite obviously it's not at all done in Filipe Echevarria's style - it looks much more like something Hector Gomez or Jose Pimentel might have done. And actually, it places Barnabas in the same setting that Pimentel had him on Page 18 of Book 2's Issue 1. Perhaps Pimentel did it as preliminary work for that page but later rejected it? (We actually saw how he made changes to Book 2, Issue 1's Page 8 between the time that page was shared with SG and the time it was actually published, including completely replacing the last panel.) It definitely doesn't appear anywhere in Book 2 - or any other book for that matter. And being so different from the art in Book 3, I can't see how SG identified it as such. Though it may not have been SG's fault IF it was identified that way to them and they were simply reporting what they were told...