Eye of the Camera
is Kurt Busiek's, along with Roger Stern's, quasi-sequel to the
near-twenty-years-old classic by Busiek and Alex Ross entitled simply
Marvels, which mainly
retold the 1960s “Silver Age” of Marvel Comics from the
perspective of a photojournalist, Phil Sheldon. It was, of course,
Alex Ross's big splash onto the comics scene, beautifully rendered in
his practically trademarked fully painted, photorealistic style, but
the approach to the story as written by Busiek was, I think, an
underappreciated aspect of its success. Between the two of them,
Busiek and Ross made the fantastic seem so very real.
Well, Ross is not along for this later story, although according to
Busiek's afterword he had input into the original idea and gave his
blessing to it being developed, and surprisingly, I think that works.
No question, I love
Ross's work, and I think that it was perfect for the original
Marvels, but this is a
very different story and I think that Ross's clean, ultimately bright
and shiny, often iconic images would be less appropriate for Eye
of the Camera than is artist Jay
Anacleto's and colorist Brian Haberlin's darker, grittier, more
down-to-earth and moody style.
