If you've read 'Making Comics' by Scott McCloud, you'll be familiar with the chapter in which he divides comic creators into four different groups or 'tribes' which describe the basic working goal of the creator. The groups are:

Classicists
Believe in creating beautiful comics. The classicist wants to create a work of enduring artistic beauty. The form and content and meaning are less important to the classicist than the artwork itself.

Humanists
Create stories where the characters and feeling are the most important thing, and take precedence over beautiful art, clever form and big ideas. For the Humanist, it's the content and the emotion that is the important thing.

Formalists
Are interested in experimenting with the capabilities and limits of the comic form. Scott McCloud identifies himself as a formalist. Formalists experiment with panels, word balloons, formats etc. to see just what they can do to tell stories with sequential art.

Iconoclasts
Create a comic with the goal of putting across a message. The idea or message is the driving force of the comic, not how it looks, how it is told or if the characters can be related to.


Many comickers don't fit comfortably in one group, and many move around throughout their careers. The groups are arranged like this:

Cl Hu

Fo Ic

Most artists will fit into two groups, usually horisontal or vertical from each other, for example, a Classicist Formalist would be a person who is interested in experimenting with how they could use art to tell the story, and beautiful page compositions, or using unusual media in comic form. The diagonals don't generally fit together well. Iconoclasts are meant to just want to get a message across without bothering about how it looks, so they're unlikely to also be Classicists, who care a lot for creating a work of aesthetic beauty as well, and a Humanist, who draws from their feelings and intuition is rarely interested in the cold mechanics of form.
Obviously, this way of classifying comickers doesn't work so well for comics made by more than one person, because a writer and artist could be different classifications (probably a good thing, since if you compare the Humanist Iconoclast, Stan Lee, with the Classicist Formalist, Jack Kirby, it's a great match-up!).

Which would you say you feel you most belong to? Or perhaps you can't agree with this way of catagorisation?

I'm probably a Classicist Humanist. I'm always trying to improve how my artwork in the comic looks, and how I use media to make my work look pleasing and exciting to the eye. I try to make quirky, interesting characters, and make the reader feel for them. Though I sometimes dabble in formalism, it's usually from the point of view of getting across the emotion or making the page look nice. I'm not very iconoclastic, I just want to tell a story with nice artwork, and though there's a bit of feminism thrown in there, and some symbolism, it's just a subtext, not the reason for the comic.

I must be weird then, because I seem to dabble in all four. I'm probably more a Classicist Humanist than any of the others but Due East is strong in an underlying message and I like pushing the limits at times.

Good idea for a thread!

I don't like to label myself, but I think I'm a little bit of everything :D.

I wrote stories, prose, and poems years before I even started drawing. But once I started drawing, I stived to create the prettiest pictures. Now I'm trying to do both. I love my artwork to look the best that I can make it; part of my comic is visually driven. But, I want my words, since my comic is based on poetry (a "Formalist" idea?), to carry a lot of weight and a message.

Well according to this label system I'm a Classicist Iconoclast... The look of my work is VERY important but I'm also all about big ideas... I don't see how these things have to be mutually exclusive. I think a lot of artists who do comics approach them similarly- I mean people from a more artistic background, not just a comic artist. They often have big ideas they want to expand on in their work and they often care a lot how it looks.

The names used for the positions are just names in this sense, I understand that, but it is interesting that they don't exactly mean what they do in that list.

Over all I would probably be Humanist with Classicist being second to it. Above all else I want to push the emotion the characters have and their depth. But I also want to improve on my art because that helps convey the emotion so much better.

However, in certain stories I would be an Iconoclast. Since I have many sub stories for my comic a number of them do simply try to push an idea or have an underlying message.

Not too much of a FormalistI suppose since I kinda tend to stick with what I know in formatting things. I do try some different ideas at times, formatting the pages is my hardest part since there are so many options and my limitations in implementing many of them prevent me from trying them. That goes back to the whole "I don't like trying to get the same page done for over a week" mentality I have.

You make a good point there. I don't think Mr. McCloud explained why the diagonals don't go together as much as maybe he should have. Looking at the book, he puts it that iconoclasts tend to tell the grim and gritty truth of life, which goes against the classicist's aesthetic values. However, if we look at 'Sin City', we see a comic which is beautiful, experiments with form and is also very gritty and meaningful and also goes deep into the feelings of the characters. Would that make Miller all four? Hmm. I wonder if we asked Scott McCloud on his blog, he'd clear things up?

I'm a classical formalist.

If a comic isn't fun to look at, I fail to see the point. It's like prose which is utterly disjointed.

And I like experimenting with comics and trying new ways of doing things. Not the consistent mediocrity you can find.

I'm almost entirely Humanist. My characters ARE my comic. They drive the plot and create the whole mood. In a different setting, the content would likely remain nearly unchanged. The characters are all very complicated, deep, and dynamic, and the whole point of the story is their interactions and development. I'm all about the people.

If I had a second tribe, I guess it would be Iconoclast -- in a minor sort of way. My messages mostly have to do with how people can change, a story of forgiveness, and the strength of friendship despite adversity. (Which are all "humanist" type lessons...)

I'm really more a writer than an artist, so I guess this classification reflects that too...

Definitely Humanist. Maybe I don't count because my comic's not very big yet, but I know where it's going and what's going to happen, and I can tell I fit into that category the best. Maybe second to that I'd be a Classicist because I'd like to see my art improve and grow into something nice that people can enjoy reading for either story OR art.


This was a fun topic, thanks for putting it up.

Lots of people seem to have the Classicist or Humanist factors in them so far.

Humanist...unless it comes to my splash pages (Like MOSAIC p 32 coming this Friday) then Classicist.

90% Humanist and a good helping of everything else, in order to serve the 'Humanist' part From the story, which is character driven to the way I write dialogue, everything is to make the characters three dimensional, real people in an extraordinary situation. Everything is to show the strength (or weakness) of the human factor in an otherwise grim backdrop of situations and conditions.

I'm probably everything but a humanist. I like characterization. I really do. But in my work, I focus on it the least.

EDIT: I know that probably sounds bad. But it's really not. I do parody, so the characterization tends to come pre-packaged. In fact, my forte is usually taking stuff that's already established, or "stock" if you will, and doing new things with it. Which is where the iconoclastic and formal aspects of my work really take shape. But I am still a storyteller, so characterization does happen in my comic. I don't want people thinking I toss characterization out the window. It's just the goal of my comic is to make people laugh, so I built up this intricate foundation of parody, tongue in cheek, pop culture kitsch.

I'm defintily a Classicist-Humanist I'm always trying to improve the quality of the art in penciling, inking, and shading to make it look cleaner and nicer. And I've created a story that really runs on it's characters and their eventual growth and emotions.

But I've looked at my overall script and noticed there might be a tiny bit of Iconoclast in my story. Nothing really profound, but it ties in with the humanist aspect of the characters and their beliefs and values. And I'm even a little bit of a formalist, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve the technical quality of my comic like the word bubbles, the panels, etc.

But overall I'm primarily a Classicist-Humanist.

Humanist-Iconoclast. Emotion is the driving force of my comic~ how people interact with each other, how their personalities grow as they learn, how their actions are fuelled by what they feel... But it's all got some really strong (somewhat lofty) goals to put across and bring awareness to issues that are close to my heart. There's also a big allegorical aspect to it - the title "Rainbow Carousel" is in itself a metaphor~ As are a few other things in the comic.

This isn't to say I don't care about the visual aspect of the comic~ I spend a lot of time making it look nice... I just don't experiment with it much or want to make it into some piece of outstanding artistic beauty~ Partially because I've found a nice style for it anyway and don't want to change mid-way through but also because I'm too wrapped up writing out the plot and rounding out my characters to spend hours and hours creating beautiful pages all the time. XD Plus, damn, I'd never keep up a daily update schedule if it took me much longer than it does already to make each page!

Classicist Humanist.
Classicist because I try to convey cinematic beauty as much as possible. If the art isn't up to snuff there's no point in drawing; might as well fanfic.

Humanist because the point of pretty comic/manga art is to tell an enjoyable cinematic story which stirs a reader's emotions. If you just want to experiment with art, might as well draw poster art or paint. If you want to get across some political/philosophical message, prose is much more efficient.

Definately Humanist, no doubt about that. Characters have always been the main driving force in my stories. I think that Iconclast would come in as a very distant second.

The way scott mccloud explains it you cant be the diagnals at the same time.

A person can be all four, but not at the same time. Iconoclasts reject the ideas that classicists have. Iconoclasts would rather draw something disgusting than something beautiful, where classicists try to draw the most beautiful thing they can.

I'm more of a humanist(I thought he called them anamist, humanist is a person who follows humanism, a religion) iconoclast.Sin City is mostly iconoclast work. In the book it defines an iconoclast as someone who tries to break the known rules of art. Its the opposite of the classist. Franks work in Sin City looks awesome, but you cant look at any single picture in that entire series and compare it to more classical art. You are personally taking beautiful too liberally in this context. Artwork can be UGLY and still be beautiful. What a classicist does is tries to create images that look perfect. If they were to draw a woman she'd have the perfect body(okay, franks there.), the perfect face(less so, cuz frank doesnt focus on detail so its less a representation of a beautiful woman) and they are usually involved in an ugly subject. Prostitution, drugs, murder, etc.

What scott mccloud was talking about was the way the artwork looks or the story reads.

A classicist would sculpt a human body and try to make it the best looking human body it could be. They'd have no flab, they'd have perfect hair and they'd probably be naked. David by Michaelangelo is a good example.

A humanist(I still think he said Animist in the book) would sculpt something that brings some emotion out of you when looking at it. The picture of a woman with her face towards the ground and a tear rolling down her cheek. He'd probably use a real model and sculpt her to look like the person the best he can.

image link

The guy who sculpted those would have been in a humanist(animist). All about the emotion in the peice.

Formalists are as you said, primarily concerned with the form. The act of creation is big. They use the "right" tools, or experiment with different tools. They are focused less on creating something beautiful but still want the best looking FORM they can get. Although they want the PERFECT statue, they tend to prefer more realistic captures of life than the classicist. In sculpting, they'd make something like: http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/354/09statueofalion2ce.jpg

Iconoclasts would make something that breaks the basic rules of the art.

I'm linking this pic cuz I thought it was awesome, and the artist is crossing so many idealistic lines its not even funny, but the art itself is very formalist oriented.

http://worldofwonder.net/image1/monadieselworth-tm.jpg

Look how the artist took a very classic look of beautiful art and made it "ugly" by putting vin diesels face instead of the original face.

Robbie, I've already noted that the way the names have been used in the original descriptions are wrong as far as their ordinary meanings go, but that it wasn't important because they're only being used as labels. I well know what they mean because I studied art academically for almost a decade...

If you want to have a label that focuses on big ideas, "messages", then you simply can't exclude all other labels as well. in a literal sense "iconoclasts" are not about making things "ugly", that's a irrelevance, an iconoclast is simply about change. But in this sense, as it's presented by Darth Mongoose, it's the only one of the labels that describes someone who wants to "put forth a message". Heh, I suppose like all labelling systems it's flawed, limited and faulty, the more so if there are rules to the way you can apply it.

-edit- oh, and please restrict multiple replies to a single post. Please?

too lazy.

This is getting more complex for me then. Because with my work, I definitely stick to a formal framework. There is a specific look and feel that I am parodying. I am making light of the fun happy comics of the 50s and 60s. Specifically the Superman/Superboy comics of the day. So I'm not trying to break the rules since there's a form I'm following.

But at the same time, I am breaking the rules. And I am bringing a message out with my work. In the modern age, where anti-heroes are the norm ... where grim and gritty ... dirty and sexy ... violent and gory ... are what sells (be it Marvel's Civil War or DC's Identity Crisis) ... I'm trying to break the rules by going back to a different form. The bright, happy comic with somewhat quirky, amusing plot resolutions.

And my message is very much intended. I am here to make fun of what the mainstream super hero comics industry has become. When I created my comic it was to riff on the "image" house style. These days its to riff on the new Marvel, which reads a lot like the old DC Elseworlds.

So yeah, I'm confused about Mr. McCloud's boundaries/classifications now. Since I do indeed follow a pretty noticable format and set of rules for my look. But it's definitely designed to act counter to a particular trend ... (though after 20+ years can it even really be called a trend anymore?)

Don't fence us in, baby...Sometimes, a cigar is just a tree.

No labels...Just create and let other's try and figure it out for themselves...That's one of the joys of being a reader.

Humanist more than anything...which is ironic since most of my characters aren't human.

i think I'm probably a Formalist Iconoclast.

Not to say that i dont care about the art, if i didnt I'd draw my own damn comic, but when I'm writing my story my main focus is the message I'm trying to get to. As a formalist im always up for trying new things with borders, word balloons, page formats, and how i convey my comic's message.

I'm not too sure, but I guess I'm mostly a Humanist. I'm probably part of the other groups in a small way, too.

Iconoclast -
Create a comic with the goal of putting across a message. The idea or message is the driving force of the comic, not how it looks, how it is told or if the characters can be related to.


Also Scott Mcloud seems like a moron to me, I read his book and thought it to be drivel. If you want to learn how to make a webcomic, read webcomics. If you want to make comic books, read comic books. If you know what you want to do, don't read anything. Less chance for any of it to influence you. Personally, I don't care what label I get applied to me, I make penis for two reasons, to be funny in and of itself and to cause internet drama over if its atually funny which is funny to me. What difference does it make if my art style is stick figures, pictures of the holocaust with word balloons, or the most detailed Liefieldian misproportioned near naked women, I do what I do, I know pretty well what I'm doing, and to quote Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinnie "Everything this guy just said is bullshit." There are no real labels to apply, and we shouldn't want labels or genres. We should do work that we're proud of showing off.

Personally, I just try and do funny comics. I could wake up tommorow and want to do near-photo-realism drawings or manga drawings and copy and paste those around in penis. It'd be the same characters, the same words, but would I like it the same if I had to put that much effort into nose hairs? I don't think so. So you won't be seeing stuff like this in penis anytime soon. I just don't think it works as well for what penis is. I've always said that penis is nothing more than a parody of a bad webcomic, thats actually a good webcomic. Doesn't work if its not overly cut and pasted.

a me...ist.

the comic I make varies depending on how I feel like making it. If I want personalities, they'll have personalities that differ than other strips of the same series. If I want to get a message through, I can do that. If I want to make people laugh/cry/hate me, I can do that. Whenever I want. That's what's great about making a comic. If you can group your comic into just one of any of those categories, and have it define what you REALLY do with your comic, then that's pretty lame. I mean really, all comics fit into one, or a combination of four categories? No. Comics are as unique as the people who make them, or at least they should be. But then again, a lot of people don't like being unique anymore, so I guess that says a lot.

"I'm a prep/jock/goth/punk/nerd/artiste/emo".

Based on McCloud's theory - I'd say Better Luck Next Time is a Humanist sauce with a dash of Iconoclast. What comments I get are more about the writing than the art.

I never read the book, but I'll check it out.

Happy 4th of July everyone.

the idea isnt to label you or your art. its to help understand yourself better, in a small way. What ideas do YOU look to express in your art. The person in this thread did a slightly poor job of expressing the idea, but its a good one. I find myself to mostly be iconoclast oriented in art.

I do like reading books that help me understand the past and present state of comics, it gives me a heads up on what i can do. scott mcclouds definition of comics made me want to write a blank page.

Steven Kings ON WRITING is really good too, though not for comics. Alan moores writing for comics is awesome, of course.

Theres tons of good books out there, scotts are bad ass. Learned lots from him.

Iconist would be the biggest one because i love to have deep complicated messages in my stories...

I love to experiment with panels and stuff... so formalist is one to

i want my art to be buetiful and convey the feelings of the character in it so i guess im a little of everything... but then again the formalist classicist and humanist in me are all meant to add to the iconist sections of the story... so yah

stop with the teenage angst crap. The four categories are meant to be specific to the way ones mind FOCUSES on certain issues. Do you focus on creating the most beautiful people? On raw emotion? on creating "art"? on experimenting with style and accepted rules of art? Its been said those are the four basic, most primal urges in art and the idea is to help you find people who are more like minded to confer with. Nobody is fucking labeling anything.

Also, for future reference, you labeled yourself quite a bit, unless Zirnitra was your birth name. you labeled your comic as fantasy, too. damn. more labeling. uh oh. Does your girlfriend have a pet name she uses for you? damn dawg(heh, more labeling!)! how you gonna let her do that to you?!?!