Graphic Novel

A Contract with God by Will Eisner, is often considered the first “Graphic Novel”.  I don't really understand this, as to me it was more of a picture book consisting of a few short stories, rather than something that's using the standard comic devices and using it more in a novel format.  This however is merely a dispute in classification, because regardless of what you call A Contract with God, it's an undeniably great piece of art and writing.

Eisner's comics often times seem to read as a sort of still frame of a movie, stopped to show specific actions, giving it a polished storyboard feel.  His art is absolutely brilliant, as you can see in the below frame where he takes away everything in the background that is unimportant and shows only what the subject is doing.  He is able to depict all of the emotion through the character's slumped over body language and the feeling of almost being just overcome by the torrential down pour that's flooding the street.  Another thing worth mentioning is his amazing use of type;  Each page seems like a design where he weaves the type into the picture.  Sometimes he just uses expressive typeface changes or deliberate sizing changes to portray a certain emotion or sometimes he makes it a little more illustrative to blend it with the drawing which can also be shown in the picture below.

Blankets by Craig Thompson was an interesting read.  It's definitely appealing to most people because of the sense of familiarity and connection humans have with their first love.  I think it's definitely a realistic approach to a first relationship, having the couple realize that they aren't perfect for each other and by the end of the novel go their separate ways.  This isn't always the case obviously, as “storybook endings” are a possibility, but this outcome is more of a probability.  I wasn't particularly a fan of how abrupt the story ended since it was really well fleshed out until that moment and I would've liked to have seen a little more craft to the end.  It was speculated in class that this was an error on the author's behalf, and he most likely spent too many pages in the beginning and didn't pace it correctly for the publisher's restrictions, and I think this is probably the case. Thompson definitely has a gift for prose, not ever wasting a single word, keeping things to a very minimalistic narrative, but still giving the reader a deep understanding.  This transfers into his art too, effortlessly transitioning between panels.  One of my favorite devices that he employs is when depicting flashbacks it never really says it's a flashback but you can instantly tell through his use of imagery what's happening and that you've been transferred to a different time in the protagonist's life.

Overall, I think this week's reading has been the most satisfying so far, with the introduction of the graphic novel, my personal favorite comic format.

The Comic Book

    The Comic Book, in my opinion, a much more familiar and appealing format to experience sequential narratives as opposed to last week's comic strip.  I've been reading comic books in one way or another since a very young age, typically the usual comic book super heroes and promotional books for things like dental care and other pursuits such as environmental awareness through Captain Planet.  But, the comic book is a much more broad genre of sequential narrative and I've come to find that the most popular ones in the beginning weren't your typical super heroes.  The work of comic creators like Carl Barks was more typical at the time as comics were perceived as a medium for children.
    I read quite a few Carl Barks stories with Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck not forgetting about Huey, Dewey, and Louie of course.  These books are certainly being written for a younger audience with their light humor, charming characters, and fun situations, but Barks is able to bring a certain sophistication that many comic book illustrators, at the time, weren't able to achieve while still keeping the youthful audience.  I enjoyed Barks' comics to a degree and respect them for what they are, but they weren't really to my taste.  After Barks,  I stumbled on Herge's The Adventures of Tintin, and I'm exceptionally glad that I did.
    In specific I read, The Adventures of Tintin: "Explorers on the Moon", a relatively long “comic book”, closer to what I would commonly associate with a Graphic Novel in length.  Herge has a similar practical and simple drawing style to Barks, but obviously for a slightly more serious and mature audience.  This is shown in "Explorers on the Moon", as you progress through the story, there is an obvious fear of death, both through the loss of oxygen and through murder, as well as a blatant use of alcohol, though it's used in a humorous way.  Herge gives each character very specific strengths and flaws that blend effortlessly into their role in the adventure.  It's interesting how accurate some of the ideas are in "Explorers on the Moon", written before man actually went to the moon, such as the oxygen supply problem and the lack of gravity.  Obviously there are inconsistencies, like the Martian caves, but these are added to supply a sense of danger for our heroes in a time where science fiction and aliens were first getting popular.  I was extremely surprised to find that Tintin was originally a French comic book that had been translated into English, because it read so naturally and actually reminded me of other English comic books of that era.
    I also watched Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy.  I had never watched this movie, but I've always been some what of a fan of Smith's other movies that I didn't hesitate to watch it.  It was a well done movie, but I expected it to and wished it had more to do with the actual creation of comic books rather than the “romantic” story that it turned out to be.  It certainly wasn't my favorite movie (I hate Ben Affleck too, by the way) but, it was a good twist on the typical love story.
    After having the good experiences with comic books this week, I'm looking forward to the graphic novel next week!

The Comic Strip

I've never really been a fan of “comic strips” when I was a kid because they just weren't complex enough to read 1 at a time in the sunday paper.  They do have a place in my mind however, because they eventually lead to the creation of comicbooks and graphic novels which I do enjoy quite a bit.  But, we'll get into comicbooks next class, so for now lets discuss some comic strips.

I'd never been exposed to any of Winsor McCay's work until coming to Ringling, but I really do have an appreciation of his work as a whole.  I read the first few years of production on Little Nemo: In Slumberland.  McCay sets each strip up by showing Nemo getting “awoken” in this new world but it's usually pretty normal for a few panels until he's fully immersed into the Slumberland.  I think this was intentionally done as to gradually move the reader into the fantastic worlds that McCay illustrates in each strip.  Almost every strip I read however ends in Nemo becoming terrified and either falling out of bed or yelling for his mother or father to help him.  The comic strip about Nemo going to Santa's workshop and being able to eat all the candy he wanted ended in a more cheerful way with Nemo actually wanting to go back to Slumberland.  This made me realize that I wanted to see a little more variation in how each story ended and I didn't want all of his experiences to be bad ones.

During class we read some of McCay's earlier strips in the form of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, which is an obvious interlude into Little Nemo, as each odd unrelated dream ends in the dreamer realizing they had the dream because of something they ate the night before.  The illustration style is also derived from his earlier work with an almost animation quality to the characters, but Little Nemo has a much more diverse and vivid world for the characters to explore.  Dream of the Rarebit Fiend is also far more adult in content, most strips resulting in some sort of violence; Nemo also does this, but not to the same degree and it has a lighter approach.  One thing that bothered me about Nemo, was that McCay often would put a caption at the bottom of each box telling the reader exactly what was happening in the panel and not only do I think it slowed the experience down but, it was completely unnecessary in most cases because is little dialogue and excellent illustrations already do the job.

I also read quite a bit of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon.  I really got into this one, the illustration is superb in every panel reminding me a lot of the golden age of illustration pen and ink work and kind of a prelude to what you think of as a comicbook style use of ink.  I think what drew me into Flash Gordon is that even though it is a comic strip it follows an interesting story for an entire arc, which leads me to believe that it's one of the comic strips that sort of launched the comicbook format, with longer more well written stories and dialogue.

Oddly enough, after hearing about Little Nemo in Slumberland for the first time when I came to Ringling, it brought back memories of one of my favorite games that I played on the NES when I was around 4-5 called “Little Nemo the Dream Master”.  I thought this would be interesting to some people, it was developed by Capcom, but I don't think it's very well known...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Littlenemocover.png