Yeah, that Batman Confidential art is not very good at all.

Imentioned briefly on Wednesday that this week's Batman Confidential #37 had some of the worst art I saw in a comic book this week, and that it was bad enough that I decided not to buy the book, despite my interest in the subject matter (That subject matter being Batman and The Blackhawks, specifically Lady Blackhawk). (I should note that I didn't look at every single new book, so maybe the art in Batman Confidential #37 wasn't really the worst of everything that came out on Wednesday; just of the ones I picked up and flipped through).

Yesterday I noticed that DC previewed the book on their Source blog, where you can see the cover and five pretty bad pages of art, like the awful, awful one above (Is she supposed to be crying in that last panel? Is that what the clear liquid in the middle of her cheeks is supposed to signify? That's not much of a "crying" expression though, is it?). That was the first page my eyes landed on when flipping through the book in the shop on Wednesday, the one that prompted me to think, "Jesus, this looks as bad as Greg Land art. Ew."

So I was amused to see that the second of the three responses under the Source preview was from an "straightace," who said, "I like the art. A nice blend of Paolo Siquiera and Greg Land." He/she/it obviously meant that art resembling that of Greg Land was a good thing, which reminded me that there's a reason DC and Marvel publish such shitty, shitty art. It's not just to annoy me personally and to keep me from reading their comics--it's because apparently someone out there really, genuinely likes art that looks shoddy color effects applied atop re-purposed photographs.

I suppose that's something worth keeping in mind (you know, that the major American comic book publishers aren't devoting their resources to producing comics just to bug me, but man, just thinking about the fact that there are enough people out there that think Land-ian art is aces to justify the continued publication of work of this nature just depresses me right the hell out.

When Fangirls Attack linked to a post by a "bluefall" on Scans-Daily about the issue, where you can see a few more pages of the book. It doesn't look like it gets much better--they even seem to have turned old Blackhawk villain Killer Shark from a goofy villain who dresses in a shark motif into yet another generic shark-man monster character, probably necissating DCU law enforcement to round him up along with King Shark and The Shark to do a line-up whenever someone files a report about a shark-man attack.