Blood in the Gutter

Chapter 3 of Scott McCLoud's Understanding Comics explains the idea of closure - the readers capability of creating a complete story from a series of parts. I found that like chapter 1, McCloud points out things that anyone can relate to but one doesnt usually think about. For example, we only KNOW things that we can absorb through our 5 senses. He visualizes this by making everything out of the characters field of vision disappear. People have come to assume that everything we know about exists even if we havent seen it ourselves. This is the value of the gutter - we are forced to imagine what happens between the images but people often make the same interpretations because of the universality of comics. I have never thought about the importance of the space between the panels, but thanks to this chapter I have come to realize it can be more important than the panels themselves.

Poetry & Comics

For this assignment I needed to explore the link between comics between poetry by creating a sort of poem with accompanying images. I had to alternate between "I used to believe" and "But now I know" for each image and relate them together to create a fluid "poem." Mine is about how people are innocent at first but as they age they come to realize many world problems that must be solved.

Module 2.3 - "Netherlandish Proverbs"

For this assignment I needed to cut out pieces of the painting "Netherlandish Proverbs" by Pieter Brueghel the Elder and turn them into a simple narrative.

Module 2.2 - Creating a Story from 5 Elements

For this assignment I had to create a narrative using only images and including dog(s), water, wall, family, and fence.

In my story, there is a family of dogs walking in the jungle/forest. As they approach a clearing the sun beats down and they get tired and thirsty. They spot a waterfall (a wall of water) over a nearby ridge, but upon arrival they discover that a fence blocks the way to the water.

Module 2.1 - Making Sense of a Trailer

For this assignment I needed to take screenshots from a movie trailer and rearrange them to tell a coherent story. I chose the trailer for the movie The Informant!

In my story, the Matt Damon character meets with his boss who gives him a bug in a suitcase to bring to a business meeting. However, the bug fails and Damon is forced to abandon the situation. He later is re-outiftted with a different type of transmitter, which he uses to record a person of interest in a suspicious production facility. The bug works well this time and he gets all the information he needs, and as a result gets to spend some quality time golfing.

Comic 1 - Adding Captions

For this assignment I needed to ascribe captions to a seemingly random collection of images in order to tell a story

Module 1 Assignment 3 - Masereel, Nuckel, & Ward

For this assignment I had to choose an image from one of Frans Masereel, Otto Nuckel, or Lynd Ward's woodcut novels and create either the preceding or succeeding image in the story. The image I chose was from Lynd Ward's God's Man and depicts a boat in a stormy sea. My image, which comes after, shows the boat's mast getting struck by a bolt of lightning - a real problem for the sailor.

Ward's original woodcut

My subsequent drawing

Module 1 Assignment 2 - Simple Instructions

HOW TO MAKE A PIZZA

The object of assignment two was to create a simple set of instructions using only images. Using a 6 step flowchart I illustrated how to make a pizza. The first step shows that one should first roll the dough into a flat shape. Second, spread the sauce across the dough using a spoon. Then sprinkle on cheese and put the pizza in the oven. After a little while, take it out and it is ready to eat.

Module 1 Assignment 1 - Single Image Narrative

The objective of this assignment was to tell a story using a single image (though it can contain multiple images, as mine does). I decided to draw a house and show a course of events that take place in the house if its occupant woke up late. The scenes are divided amongst five space, which serve to represent the houses different rooms and the events that take place in them. In this scenario, the character wakes up in the bedroom and realizes they have overslept. They proceed to the bathroom where they quickly brush their teeth before rushing downstairs and grabbing a bite to eat. They then go into the garage, get in the car, and start their day.

Wordless Comics - Calvin and Hobbes & Skibber Bee-Bye

CALVIN AND HOBBES
http://www.marcellosendos.ch/comics/ch/1995/05/199505.html
http://www.marcellosendos.ch/comics/ch/1994/12/199412.html

SKIBBER BEE-BYE

http://thehighhat.com/Marginalia/008/lanier01.jpg

Both Bill Watterson with Calvin and Hobbes and Ron Rege Jr with Skibber Bee-Bye are able to tell a story without words, however they have very different approaches. The most obvious difference between these examples are the black and white of Calvin and Hobbes against the vivid color of Skibber Bee-Bye. While neither are lifelike by any means (Calvin is floating in space...), Calvin and Hobbes is more gentle and easier to read. Skibber Bee-Bye, however, is covered in vibrant colors that fill the page and almost seem aggressive. That is, the comic is much more intense than Watterson's simple black and white sketches. Ron Rege Jr creates an almost surreal, dreamlike environment while Calvin and Hobbes are situated in a more conventional frame. Skibber Bee-Bye tells an easy to understand story that many can relate to (being lost in the woods) but puts his own unique twist on it - creating a vivid cartoon world with flying creatures. Watterson's stories are also familiar and his technique common (ex: onomatopoeia), and as such he creates characters that are much easier to relate to. Both artists use pictures to tell a story but the differences in their styles makes a world of difference in the reader's eyes.

Scott McCloud's The Vocabulary of Comics

Recently I read chapter 2 of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics entitled The Vocabulary of Comics.

In this book, McCloud explores many interesting concepts and introduces ideas which are easy to understand but one never really thinks about. For me, the best example of this is his proposition that comics are universal. In the book, he shows the varying degrees of realism of the human face in comics - beginning with a realistic shadowed painting and ending with a simple circle with 2 dots and a line. Every human being on the planet recognizes this as a face. While the more detailed examples are also obviously faces, their exclusive characteristics limit their universal appeal. Anyone can read a comic with a distinct character, but only a few can relate to the imagery. Whereas, with the dots-and-line approach, everyone can see themselves as the comic with a little imagination. This makes comics one of the most universal forms of art.

Another interesting point that McCloud makes is the distinction between pictures and words. He describes pictures as "received" information and words as "perceived" information. This further helps to illustrate the universality of comics. The message gained from a picture is instantaneous and applies to any culture. However, to understand words one needs to know and understand a certain language. It takes time to get a message sent by words.

My favorite scene from this book comes from page 24 - where the author asks "but how different are they?" (pertaining to words and images) with the words on his head and his face in the bubble. McCloud illustrates how words and pictures are often perceived as two different concepts but in reality pictures are a kind of language. Icons serve as The Vocabulary of Comics, a vocabulary understood by every human being.

Introduction

This is where I will be uploading all my assignments for a Graphic Storytelling course at RPI