Observation of the greats- Will Eisner

I have always wondered why the Pre 1960's style of comic strips and comics seemed so alien to me. They were cartoony and silly even though many of the techniques we use in comics today were inspired by those  cartoony styles- Milt Caniff,  Will Eisner and others. what I wasn't understanding is that their style along with the more ultra real styles of Hal Foster, and Burne Hogarth which we more attribute to the current comic -book style were just as skilled in their draftsmanship and design style. So I took the challenge to see what was so cool about the work. I started to just trace over an image of Will Eisner character to see what it would look like and what would be the difference. I noted he had great command of thick- to thin line work on his characters, although they may look funny to me- they had character and that's the beauty of his work. Character!... so my next task was to try to interpret one of his characters poses. Once I tried to mimic his purposeful and characteristic line-work- I found out it was not hard to recreate a look that also had character.  I also noticed that his way of scrunching up the character's pose was such an exaggeration that it even pushed out more character and feeling- more than the character I created.  This was a fantastic lesson for me and I challenge others to do the same with work that seems alien to you. It may make your work that more  a character of YOU!!!