Great for a panel! (again)

Technology's Great!

I watch a lot of streaming TV on the computer. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Peacock. So much so that I no longer own a television. The phone and my two computers are the source for visual entertainment and news. As a comic book artist I can't help but catch myself noticing how some scenes would translate really well as a comic book panel. I shared four such images with you last May.

Now I've got five more, the last few dwell in a sort of 'staring contest.' Shall we begin?

"I'm going to punch her in the face!"

So says Sonya Cassidy's character Liz Dudley from Lodge 49. Here she's a dolled-up high end restaurant hostess learning some bad news about her boss/nemesis.

The face, all contorted in rage tells it all. If I were to draw this I would take note of the slight white of the eye above the iris, the curl of the tongue and how her gums really set off the rabid, almost ready to bite/kill teeth!

Hospital run

This isn't from something I've watched. I was looking up an actor from Turn: Washington's Spies a while back and wanted some more info on the actor Owain Yeoman who portrayed Benedict Arnold. One picture I got was from some drama. Here he's in a scene watching a loved one at the e.r. get shuttled off to the operating room (by the way nobody acts this way in real life, racing the stretcher to the room shouting 'STAT!').

Look at how this scene is composed: the swirl of hospital workers, the focus placed squarely on the man's reaction and scared face. By the way, I flipped the direction of this image backwards so that it reads left to right, more useful if it were a comic book panel.

Kim Novak, Vertigo

She's thinking, staring off to the distance. If you're one of the three people on planet earth who hasn't seen this movie, detective Scott Ferguson (James Stewart) saved a woman he was tailing, Madeline Elster from drowning after she fell into the San Francisco bay.

She slept for a while in his apartment, and has awoken, fixed her hair and had a cup of coffee. She isn't aware of how she fell in (Hitchcock's plot point: she's faking it). Kim Novak strikes the perfect sense of relaying an inner world, keeping her thoughts inside while showing an icy distance on her face.

Ray Luca

Back when Michael Mann had his hit TV show Miami Vice he decided to spin off that same idea: lots of music, heavy on style, frequent interruptions to the story with extreme bloody violence.

Only this time instead of the airy pastel brightly lit modern-day Miami he used the grimy, seedy, dark early 1960s Chicago in a period TV show predating Mad Men by 21 years: Crime Story.

Their main villain, a street thug trying to become head boss named Ray Luca is staring straight at someone awaiting an answer. Anthony Denison was perfect! His bad skin, stone face and dead eyes convey a real sense of menace.

Stringer Bell

Yes, The Wire again! Few actors can give you the 'staring into your soul' look better than Idris Elba. He's a British actor who can pull off an inner city Baltimore accent so well you never forget the cadence and force of his lines.

Here he's got a slight crease between his eyebrows saying he's not quite sure if you're thinking is in alignment with is. Whatever the reason, this look is very menacing and makes me squirm!

Well, there you have it!

Another five fine screen grabs to file away for great expressions/poses to use in a comic book panel. Have a great weekend!