 The " heightened realism " of Raymond 's photorealistic style has been " chastised for making his pictures too realistic , too gorgeous for its own sake " , although many commentators believe that this very method " plunges the reader into the story " . Raymond 's work has a " timeless appeal , " many aspects of which — including the use of feathering ( a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object ) — have inspired generations of cartoonists , his work becoming " the raw material for the swipe files of future generations " . His work on Rip Kirby is especially noted for its use of " sophisticated black spotting " , a technique Raymond used from c.1949 " for pacing " reasons . Fellow @-@ cartoonist Stan Drake recalled that Raymond called his black areas " pools of quiet " , serving as they did " as a pause for the viewer , something to slow the eye across the strip 's panels " . 
