I used to believe (original)

I was planning on editing these a bit more, but figured since they wouldn't count towards the assignment at all to just post them as the original sketches. Enjoyed these a lot more than the actual project though haha...

Mod du

The last part of Module 2: create a comic using black and white and no words using the following words/ideas: family, dog, wall, fence, water.

Poetry and Comics

I actually started this assignment without reading the instructions, so maybe I'll post my earlier attempts eventually. Ultimately, I was told to " create a twelve-panel grid and have text in each panel that alternatively begins 'I used to believe/but now I know.' Here's what I ended up with:

Reaction to Blood in the Gutter - McCloud

The third chapter in Scott McCloud's graphic novel covered some things that I had already heard of; the gutter effect in comics, various types of transitions between panels, etc., but also covered some that I hadn't. In reading a variety of both western and Japanese comics, I had passively taken in the very different styles, whereas McCloud has cleverly pointed out where they can be so different. Western comics tend to focus much more heavily on "action to action" transitions and a few others, but very rarely a transition called "aspect to aspect" in which time is sort of at a stand still and various images are used to depict the mood or setting. Japanese comics, on the other hand, make much more frequent use of "aspect to aspect" transition in comparison to their Western counterparts. I'm sure that now when I go to read a graphic novel, I will be looking much more closely at the scene transitions than I would have prior to reading Blood in the Gutter.

mod du - du

For the other part of Module 2 we had to look at Pieter Brueghel's piece, Proverb and create a narrative from various sections of it. Please excuse how ridiculous the following story is:

mod du

For this assignment we had to find a trailer that we had never seen before and take screen shots of each "key" scene. We then take those shots and, after numbering the order in which we took them, attempt to arrange them in a cohesive narrative. Mine isn't very cohesive, but if you look closely, maybe it will come to you:

Module 1 is over

Image 1 = Single Image Narrative
Image 2 = Usable Instructions for Making a Grilled Ham and Cheese
Image 3 = Part 3, entitled "Low Five!" Note that the first panel was originally from Frans Masereel, the second one is my build on it

Comments to follow eventually

Reaction to The Vocabulary of Comics - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of Scott McCloud's book was surprising in how much it discussed that my Multimedia Century class is also covering. McCloud focuses on the use of "icons" and how much more universal they can be than almost any other medium. At the same time, Multimedia Century has begun the dive into the abstract and cubist movements in which visual art also becomes more universal. However, how universal we see visual art in the aforementioned movements is more because they are moving away from functionality (i.e. a testament to religion, patriotism, or some family hierarchy that only people from that culture can enjoy) and instead trying to only evoke emotions through basic color and line techniques that anyone can enjoy. Hence in The Vocabulary of Comics, Mr. McCloud is implying that comics like Tin Tin, which make much higher use of icons, can be much more universally enjoyable.

Personally, I prefer to see slightly more stylized or realistic comics, such as Preacher, The Dark Knight, or Kingdom Come. In these the icon is still at work, but I can focus on both the narrative and how the artist has chosen a visual aesthetic. Another example of this in the world of webcomics would be Karl Kerschl's The Abominable Charles Christopher ( http://www.abominable.cc/ ). I love how the characters have varying degrees of detail but are all very emotionally identifiable.

Thought this might be a bit relevant:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

The creator takes random strips of Garfield and removes Garfield and his dialogue from the strips without editing them in any other way. This presents John, now a solo character,in an entirely new light. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad, but mostly different in terms of graphic storytelling and general comics.

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