Artistic Research

[Jason Eberly]

In the latest issue of Indestructible Hulk, a small scene takes place in the city I currently live in: Norman, Oklahoma.

The first panel of the scene tells us it is Norman, OK, and shows a dirt road leading away toward a hilly background where a couple farms can be seen in the distance.

Sigh.

While there are definitely places in this state that look like that, and perhaps even in a spot or two in the outskirts of Norman, for the most part the city looks like it is the 21st century, not the 19th. We are the third largest city in the state with roughly 110,000 residents. We have mass transit, all the usual shopping (including a mall), a major university, and even got indoor plumbing starting a couple years ago!

Anyway, my point is that a simple google image search would have shown the artist what this town actually looks like, and not the hick backwater he portrayed it as.

Anyone else here have this happen to the area in which they live?

[Le Messor]

Well, apparently it's happened to the city I was born in, and in these days of Streetview, there's just no excuse!...

Dude, I now live in Australia. You betcha!
The X-Men in Australia were supposed to be a desert outback town, (possible, even given their moving place on maps, when that was shown), but they had rainforest in the background.

I've got an issue of Justice League International (that predates the easiness of Googling) which is set right here in Canberra. It looks like some generic city with bunches of really tall buildings.
There's maybe one part of town that possibly could perhaps look like that from just the right angle?

My favourite, though, is in a couple of issues of Young Justice, set in 'Sydney'. I look at the pictures of this alpine country with tall mountains and ski-resort architecture (and the first time I read it, I'd been to Sydney a week before), and I just know the artist wanted to research Australia, but typed in 'Austria' by mistake.

~ Le Messor
"Many pages make a crowded castle."

[Phil]

My hometown was destroyed in an issue of Hellblazer. The writer was from there though, so there was a lot of photo reference used.

[Flightpath07]

No, but I plan on immortalizing my town by wiping it out in a demonic hell-sent bloodbath of apocalyptic proportions. Later on, I might do the same thing again, but this time in writing.

[Le Messor]

Has anyone read Marvel's adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand? The hardcovers reprint panels, and the photo-reference used for them. It's pretty cool.

They only made one 'mistake' - the characters stay at a hotel in Grand Junction that I've stayed at, and it looks nothing like it. However, it's pretty clearly an homage to The Overlook in Kubrik's The Shining (also a Stephen King book, of course), so I'm gonna allow this.

[Flightpath07]

No, haven't read it (at least not Marvel's adaption). But have you heard the story of Stephen King being a huge Ramones fan, he invited them to his house and asked them to contribute a song for the film Pet Sematary? Story goes, Ramones were in awe of him, and while most of them sat around and discussed the movie, Dee Dee Ramone took his two-string acoustic guitar into the next room and within ten minutes he came back and played what would become Pet Sematary for Mr. King, who loved it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3J0iwwsq-w

By the time the movie came out, Dee Dee had already left the Ramones. In spite of this fact, the band invited him back to record the video.