Word of Mouth

Check out this installment of a podcast hosted by the writing center at Brigham Young University, my alma mater.

I would have personally given a few more details as to the economic influence that has encouraged the prominence of superheroes in the comics medium over the years, and the hosts are a little monotone and unnatural, but they pull in a couple guests who are more lively, and the podcast in all is a good intro for someone who is curious about looking at comics more seriously and understanding the phenomenal popularity of comics-related media in the last decade (original post at wordofmouth.byu.edu):

NY Times Introduces Graphic Books Best Seller Lists

The New York Times today introduced its first-ever listing of best seller graphic books, split into three categories: hardcover, softcover, and manga!

George Gustines, author of the article, compares/links this newfound recognition of the medium with the feature-length Watchmen movie that is soon to be released. While Watchmen certainly is an important work in comics -- one of the first superhero comics to take itself seriously and explore the strengths of the medium -- this list comes long overdue, since before Watchmen was collected into a single volume.

That being said, this is definitely a big step in the right direction. The country is finally starting to recognize the important impact that comics have had on our culture. Granted, it's not exactly time to jump and shout for joy just yet. After all, this doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to be looking at comics as being anymore valuable than commercialized sludge pandering to children, and looking at some of the bestsellers it's obvious that the majority of the comics audience maybe isn't always demanding the quality of literature we could be getting (Batman R.I.P. being a major one that stands out to me -- a storyline that delivers soap opera plot elements and cheap gimmicks as a scheme to increase controversy, and thus readership).

But a step nonetheless. And, as I've shown, it should provide a useful tool for measuring the artistic appreciation of popular audiences for the comics medium.

What are your thoughts on what this reflects and where we are to go from here?

Review: Making Comics

Making Comics is Scott McCloud's third installment of graphic comics instruction, and a definite must-read for students of the form. Scott takes you through the basic artistic theories and guidelines that go into creating a comic. Mind you, this is NOT a step-by-step "how to draw" book -- while there is some instruction on the matter, the author largely assumes that the reader already has that skill and is ready for more tips on details that will bring his storytelling capabilities to the forefront.

In contrast to my somewhat harsh reaction to Reinventing Comics, I really, really enjoyed this book, probably because it relies less on giving debatable opinions on the future of comics and more on what already works, WHY it already works, HOW it works, and produces solid examples, both through McCloud's own drawings and published works of other noteworthy authors.

As a student of film, it was fun to find a lot of ideas in McCloud's book that I was familiar with already but applied to a different medium. For example, deciding how to frame a shot will have similar emotional implications in both forms (super low shot empowers the subject, super high empowers the viewer, etc.). The idea of producing an establishing shot in each new scene to give the reader an idea of spacial relationships is also prominent in each medium (and sometimes challenged).

One of the most insightful chapters deals with facial expression and the importance of really nailing it so the reader instantly understands what is being communicated. McCloud deconstructs the human face into its various muscle groups so the reader can understand how it functions, and then shows how different basic expressions combine to form more complex emotions that communicate more than one thought at a time (see excerpt included in this post). I've seen cartoonists draw a page of expressions of different characters as a guide for themselves, but never have I seen the mathematics behind them like McCloud so successfully shows here.

Understanding Comics showed us how comics are digested by the brain, their roots in history and the arts, and how to dissect them. Reinventing Comics showed us how comics have more potential than the popular world gives them credit and where the future should take them. Making Comics shows us the artistic implications in building a comic and what certain choices will mean for the reader's experience.

I highly recommend this book as another great demonstrator of comics' unique form and contributions to the artistic kingdom, and as an entertaining way to gain insights to the intricacies of the medium. Pick it up!

Comics in a Digital Era

I already commented just a tad in former posts about webcomics and their potential as "comics," and thanks to Scott Kurtz's reference at PvP, I came across this nice illustration that briefly criticizes some webcomics for straying outside of what an actual comic is, explains that definition, and shows what the author means through form following concept. (WARNING: some strong language in the first few panels, but it cleans up once it gets to the meat!)


about DIGITAL COMICS by ~Balak01 on deviantART

I think this Balak01 fellow has hit the nail on the head. He keeps comics pure by not straying from their basics -- images in a deliberate sequence -- but still makes them dynamic and manipulates time by taking advantage of the visual space properties that are unique to the digital format.

Dibujante de Muñequitos

Time for a very on-topic (yet undeservingly-short) plug for a documentary being produced by a good friend from film school:

Dibujante de Muñequitos explores the life, career, artwork and relationships of Ric Estrada, former comic book penciler who spent much of his career working at DC Comics and was the first artist to draw such popular characters as Power Girl. Ric has led a very interesting life filled with connections with interesting people, such as the late Ernest Hemingway.

In viewing some of the unedited footage of the film (such as this interview with Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics), what intrigues me most about Ric is his religious convictions and how he implemented them in his every day life and work. The comics industry is rampant with atheism, and Ric stands out as a man who isn't afraid to make his convictions a part of his projects and known to his coworkers.

Seth, Ric's son and my friend, is striving to raise funds for this film to pay tribute to his father, who is currently undergoing radiation treatments for cancer. Ric is currently in good spirits, according to Seth, but the nature of cancer is such that nobody can be sure how much longer he'll be around, therefore time is of the essence in securing these funds and completing this project.

If it is within your means, support this film and show your support for artistic expression through the comics medium. See the links in this post for more detailed information on Ric's life, the film's progress & content, and benefits of donating.

Review: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

At the time of this post, I haven't yet read the predecessor to this graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, but the story stands on its own well enough that there were very few occasions where I wondered if I was missing something that was perhaps in the other book.

Satrapi describes her experiences growing in 1980s Vienna, having been sent there during her adolescence to be distanced from war-torn Iran and its fundamentalist, oppressive government. She deals with the emotional pain of realizing that her family remains in danger while she is on her own, becoming a new person as she is exposed to much more liberal schools of thought than what she has hitherto been used to. Eventually she returns to Iran for a few years, to find herself defying her government, gaining greater insight to the motivation of her country's leaders, and fitting in less and less in the setting.

The story succeeds in delivering a great coming-of-age story while giving a Western audience greater access to a foreign culture. I'm not entirely sure how the telling of this story in comics form strengthens it as a whole, but I do have a few simple thoughts:

• The simple drawing style of Satrapi, utilized in a very Western medium (yes, there are Eastern comics, but the style and form differ), really helped me get drawn into the story more. I often find it a little more difficult to relate with foreign cultures when simply reading text about them or sometimes even seeing a movie. The author's cartoons succeed in helping me relate with the Middle Eastern protagonist and neutralize any undesired alienations I may feel long enough to help me understand her own cultural discoveries in faraway places.
• There are several times where I think it was easier for Satrapi to show rather than tell. One example is a page in the story where she describes how one begins to spot the different female body shapes under the many robes and veils they are required to wear, and illustrates how certain hairstyles result in a corresponding veil mold for others to see. It was much more effective to see this than have to read and trust that my imagination was doing the description justice.
• Obviously there is something to be said for pacing and juxtaposition in the graphic storytelling. I personally loved one page where Satrapi is showing a figure drawing class she was taking, with a female model who had to remain completely covered due to a mandate by the powers-that-be(were). She slightly exaggerates the size and pose of the model to really accentuate the lack of shape the student artists had to work with and thus proclaim how ridiculous a scenario she'd found herself in. Pair this with her words, "We learned to draw drapes really well," and we're given a fantastic commentary on liberal arts vs. fundamentalist conservatism.

All in all a great read, and, of course, an excellent example of comics wielding greater potential than perhaps what pop culture America readily sees. If you enjoy autobiographies, Middle Eastern/European cultures, and discussions of clashing ideals (and the birth of new ones), then this book is for you.

Review: Reinventing Comics

There are bigger, better, more in-depth reviews of Scott McCloud's Reinventing Comics out there, so I will keep this relatively short.

While most people feel that this follow up to Understanding Comics is either excellent or terrible, I rather think that it STARTS as excellent, and slowly goes downhill so that, by about 2/3 through the book, you're ready for it to end.

Scott begins very strongly. His first couple chapters really captivated me, because he spoke to my heart -- bringing up issues in the study of comics as art, how this movement to take the medium more seriously is important in developing art awareness and thus bring about greater empathy in society. I really was fascinated by his description of how the current business model for the comics industry has come into place and the impact it's had on the prominence of the superhero genre and commercialism of the form. This is all in the first 1/3-or-so of the book, and I loved every bit of it -- it really made the entire book worth reading.

However, as he begins to describe the road to the Digital Age and where comics need to go from here, he begins losing his footing. He rapidly covers the development of the Internet, oversimplifying its history, and then knowingly jumps into predictions and theories that he is aware will soon be outdated due to the rapid rate at which technology moves forward (the book was written in 2000). Some of his predictions are spot-on, some are way off, and his conclusions are questionable.

McCloud challenges the notion that a physical comic book will always be more appreciated than a digital comic, stating that the desire to actually hold a comic in ones hands merely exists because that is what we're used to, and that as we embrace digital comics we will soon abandon that sentiment. This fails to address the concept of ownership that prevails in western culture. How many of us prefer to own a physical CD than just a hard drive loaded with mp3's? There's something inside us that will always want a copy of our media that we can rely on, that is unique and "mine." I don't think this notion will change in a matter of decades.

Another strength he attempts to declare is that digital comics have the potential to allow the reader to see an almost-infinite canvas all at once, not having to limit panels to what can fit on one page at a time. While I certainly see his point, I think this is flawed reasoning. First of all, the reader is limited to what he can view on his monitor. If you create a comic that is large enough to cover the roof of the Pentagon and tell your readers to have at it online, they still will only be able to read portions at a time, and an attempt to see it all at once would result in an image severely scaled-down in order to accomodate a realistic canvas size for a home computer, rendering it impossible to really distinguish images and text. Secondly, is it not an inherent part of the medium to have pages that you flip through? I believe the physical flipping of a page, feeling a slight breeze as it passes your face, sending a wiff of ink and freshly-cut (or musty-old) paper to your nose, is part of the experience, psychologically and emotionally.

I certainly am not against digital comics -- I have been getting more and more into webcomics lately -- but I am rather skeptical of any movement that would suggest that the best path for the medium of comics as a whole is a series of 1's and 0's, that we need to get over this need for a physical comic book -- which is a Marxist idea of unlimited accessibility and lack of individuality in creation and distribution.

As the book went on and on, I found myself more and more ready to put it down. McCloud's easy flow with which he seemed to write his first book was lost in the last half of this sequel, leaving me clueless as to where he was going or how we even arrived to some of the topics he started bringing up, making me have to re-read previous panels so much that by the end I had given up.

I definitely recommend this book due to the excellent illustrations McCloud made (both visually and intellectually) in the beginning, but be aware that it won't leave you as satisfied as some of his other writing may.