New Comic

My new comic is not so much an adaptation, but more so inspired by the song Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture) by Muse. I figure I'll post both the comic and the song up since they depend on each other quite a bit. I recommend listening to the song first.



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A new focus

Lately life has decided to shake things up a bit. This has caused me to lose a lot of the focus I had going into, not only this class, but many other things as well. While I feel like I'm starting to get a grip on myself again, I'm not sure where to pick back up.

SO! I've decided that I'm going to start working on a long term comic. I think, if anything, focusing on this project will give me less time to worry about the crap which has been giving me so much trouble for the past week or so.

I have a lot of ideas planned for this comic but I'm not sure where exactly to start. My goal is to create a story which presents a unique look at friendship and the power it has to stick through an sort of situation. I intend to deal with a lot of existential and philosophical issues. Drugs are also gonna play a pretty big part in the storyline as well.

The main premise involves a reclusive artist named Mike (left) and his friend Kevin (right), who is a drug addict. Kevin's goal is to be crazy. He thinks that going insane would finally bring meaning to his life. Mike, on the other hand, is a pretty normal, albeit socially awkward, guy who happens to hallucinate this sketchy cat in his apartment. The two guys really only have each other and the comic is gonna deal a lot with their interactions through Mike's point of view.

Here you can see the cover/character page I drew up. I'm not sure how finalized the designs are but I'm pretty confident in each character's overall look.

My biggest worry is the amount of time I'm going to spend on the art for this. I feel like I am an alright artist at best and usually that's only if I spend a long time perfecting each panel. I might as well invest in a lot of erasers... I'm hoping that a lot of drawing practice will help develop my skills to a point where I'm able to recreate each character without referring back to my original sketches.

I'm not sure what I'm really trying to accomplish here but I have this idea that all the best art is formed out of some emotional experience, traumatic or otherwise. So perhaps this is where I'm meant to really focus my energy right now.

-Jeff

Possible revisions

A rough weekend was not the best catalyst for thoughtful revisions on my comic. That being said, I do think a few things could use some definite tweaking.

I want to go through and add a little more development about the link between my arm coloring and future interest in tattoos. It seemed like people wanted a bit more closure there and I think at this point, it's left a little too open-ended. Perhaps I'll use my final panel for some key important details instead of the blocky THE END which was, admittedly, a cop out.

Other than that, I was thinking of shortening the gap between the left and right panels on each page. Personally, I just think they're a little too far apart. Certainly not enough to form an immediate disconnect but, I want to make the message clear to any reader. I don't want something to happen like our discussion of Daniel's comic.

I'm hoping my group members will have more to say on this in class!

-Jeff

Interesting Article

I found a very interesting essay online about Music in relation to Comics. A topic we haven't discussed much about in class.

http://mail.comixtalk.com/node/7350

Coming from a music background, I find this very enlightening. It was a subject I was thinking about tackling myself sometime but was unsure how to approach it.

Comic assignment 2

Well I'm posting this having already finished my comic. However, looking back at my process, I really enjoyed working on slightly larger project such as this. Writing for comics is harder than it looks and especially when it's loosely connected narrative.

I'm looking forward to making more of these, I just hope my schedule allows me more than one night to work on the next one :(

p.s. you can read my comic by following the links below

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Hatfield: Preliminary thoughts

An interesting thought came to me while reading Hatfield's piece. Specifically the Chris Ware portion on page 38. He discusses the radical style Ware uses to combine image and text. Although he admits near the end of the page that "few comics test the limits of the form so rigorously", can we adequately compare superhero comics of the 40's and 50's and newspaper comic strips to a work such as Ware's "I Guess"? Or do comics fall into the same cliche as other art forms where there is content which is considered "artsy" and content which is considered "for the masses"?

I think it's an important distinction if we want to continue analyzing all forms of comics or just the ones "that make you think".

-Jeff

Understanding Comics

Having just finished the aptly titled, Understanding Comics, I really do feel like I have a better understanding of comics as an art, a storytelling device, and most importantly, a unique medium to convey ideas.

I'd have to say, the most enlightening part for me was Chapter 3. I've read a lot of comics over the years and not once did I stop and think about how my brain processed the information going on in between panels. I never realized the importance of the gutter or how much I had to subconsciously fill in. I especially liked the part that followed the different kinds of transitions on pages 70-72. I find the comparison of Western and Eastern comics very interesting. I think it says a lot about both cultures in the types and amounts of detail they express in their comics.

I also really enjoyed the quote on page 164, "Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn't grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: Survival and Reproduction" and the following discussion explaining his theory. I think it's a very clever point of view because it excludes so little. I think that if you're going to make a sweeping generalization about something, you should attempt to have as few exceptions as possible and McCloud does a very good job of that here. It also grounds his viewpoints by not sounding elitist.

Finally, I just wanted to bring up how often McCloud refers to the influence of Will Eisner, yet it doesn't appear that we're reading anything by or about him this semester. I'm just curious why that is?

Hopefully we can discuss more about this book on Monday. I'm really excited to hear everyone's viewpoints and especially critiques.

-Jeff