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Something I've been meaning to bring up for the longest time.
I spend an awful lot of time reading comics, all kinds of comics, from political cartoons to gag cartoons, from comic strip serials to comic books. I pore over them largely to learn from them and apply those lessons to my own work. This results in many hours of thinking about such things as thought bubbles, pacing, silence in comics, simplicity in drawing, and all sorts of other fun stuff.
I know a few of these topics have come up the odd time, but I don't think they've ever been explored properly.
I'll get the ball rolling.
Silence in comics.
Someone once wrote a post in which they said that silent comics weren't really comics. I meant to reply, but it slipped my mind. A conversation with some friends about the current crop of Widescreen comics made me think about how certain people I know dislike that style of comics because there's no sound. What's a big action spectacle without the sound?
After thinking of various ways that sound could be utilized in comics, it dawned on me that this silence should be used to comics advantage, rather than seeing it as a stumbling block. Many of my favourite comics use silence at appropriate points to affect pacing and mood. Very rarely is silence used in TV and movies, and even when used there is still usually movement of some sort. Paintings and illustrations are usually not narratives. If silence is described in the written word, you still have to read a description of the silence, thereby interrupting the silence itself. Music can, and does, have pauses, but that usually just makes an absence of music. Comics, because of their dual nature of writing and drawing, can have a narrative that has a pause which still transmits information, via the drawing, while evoking a quiet that I can't find the equivalent to in other mediums.
This isn't to say that the other mediums are inferior or can't use silence in their own way, just that comics do it in such a way that an almost perfect stillness is created.
Simplicity in drawing.
I draw fairly realistically. I've studied anatomy, perspective, etc. It usually takes me at least 8 hours to finish a page. And I have a large amount of friends that can draw circles around me, comic-wise.
Cartooning has always seemed like one of the most accessible of mediums. Sometimes a simple drawing can evoke more emotion then an accurate representation of what's being depicted. Comics history tends to prove this correct. Many of the most popular and significant comics were drawn in a simple manner. The two most influential cartoonists of the last half of the 20th century (Jack Kirby and Charles Schulz) drew in styles that allowed them to put their work out at record pace.
I know that this has been dealt with by Scott McCloud, but I'm bringing it up because I'm finding that I'm learning more from my friends, people who know nothing about the craft of comics, and children, who know nothing about "art".
Other comics.
I understand why this board deals primarily with modern comic books, since these are invariably the works that the majority of us have easy access to, thereby making it common ground. However, I'd like to hear what anyone has to say on the topics of political cartoons, comic strips, gag cartoons, even manga and woodcut comics. Basically, anything that doesn't fit the standard set in North America. Manga, for example, tends to come out weekly, and has a definite end. Euro-comics often come out in albums, and are kept perpetually in print. How do these aspects effect the reading of these comics?
Words and Pictures
On this board there is a large bias towards writing over art on comic books. I don't mean this in a bad way at all, just a statement of fact. In contrast, I regularly visit an illustration based message board, and they almost never talk about individual writers. It's always about the art.
My own bias is towards those comics that have a cartoonist at the helm, namely someone who both writes and draws. In a way, these people often don't separate the tasks. The work they do becomes "cartooning", and the writing can't be separated from the art. Individuals who write as they draw include Clowes, Ware and Schulz.
Although many of my favourite comics have a writer/artist team, and often times that team can become almost like one person, I feel that there's something missing in the work that other comics done by one creator possess.
Truly popular comics
I remember various members of Barbelith saying that comics readers are too easy to please and have no time for criticsm. For this particular comic reader, my acceptance of even bad comics largely comes because I can find something positive in almost any comic. Take Bazooka Joe, for instance. I find it fascinating that this comic has probably been read by more people than any superhero comic.
In addition to Bazooka Joe, I have a fascination with Jack Chick, comic strips and Archie comics, all for the same reason. The comics community largely ignores these comics, though their circulation and, in some cases, their high public exposure are the envy of regular comic books. It amuses me that people think that selling 150,000 copies of the New X-Men is a great step forward for the medium, when many comic strips enters more than half the homes in North America.
Sorry about the length, but I always get carried away by comics theory. obviously these views are still something I'm constantly reconsidering, so any input would be great.
[ 13-03-2002: Message edited by: moriarty ] |
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