Research on Comic Books

Because for my project I want to look at how comic books work and how the art styles can clearly present emotion and actions into telling a story, I decided it would be best to look in books explaining what comics are, how they create a story and characters, how they pick an art style for certain genres, and what makes some comics more successful than others.

What are comics?

In 'Understanding Comics the Invisible Art' by Scott McCloud, McCloud explains that comics are 'juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.' He also claims that the comic form has been around for centuries, for instance the Bayeux Tapestry and Egyptian paintings are both forms of showing stories through juxtaposition pictures in a deliberate sequence. You are able to look at these pieces and follow the story, informing yourself what the meaning is behind it, for instance in the Bayeux Tapestry you can see it's a war scene with knights and kings. However the difference between these two historic and famous items, comics that people know to be comics are no where near considered to be 'High Art' like the Bayeux Tapestry and Egyptian paintings. Its lack of value will come from being mass produced and being defined by people as "too narrowly". The typical conventions of comics would be simplistic (depending on the style) images portraying a story, writing in speech bubbles, drawn in boxes (left to right for western comics, right to left in manga's) that allows you to clearly read the story, drawn in ink, exaggerates emotions and body language, put in books or magazines, and realised every week or month like a TV series.

"The world of comics is a huge and varied one. Our definition must encompass all these types." - Scott McCloud

Creating a Story

Before a comic book artist can start drawing they need a story to illustrate. Usually there is a script writer who creates the story and then the artist would illustrate it. However you can get writer-artists, in which there has been several good ones according to Alan McKenzie. There are a few methods to the story production such as the method favoured by some major comic book companies e.g DC Comics where the artist works from a script that is a pure product from the scriptwriter. There is also the method known as the 'Marvel Method', made by Stan Lee the editor of Marvel, where when comics got too demanding for just one person to draw Lee created a system where he would discuss a plot with the artist, let the artist draw out the story, and then the pencil sketches would be handed back to Lee to write in the dialogue in pencil, then it is given to a calligrapher to be lettered to the artwork, and then finally the sheets are drawn in ink by another artist. Another comic method, which was used by EC Comics in the 1950's but no longer used, was to plan the story and then break down the pages into frames which they would then insert the captions and dialogues before the artist can draw. This is quite a bad method as it gave little room for the artist to work in.

It is important for the artist and writer to understand each other as it is a collaboration piece. So to help with understanding each other terminology is used. For example, close ups, head and shoulders, long shot, establishing shot. I'm fortunate enough to know these terminologies already from studying media studies for four years at school, so hopefully it will be useful for me when trying to present a story/emotion/body language clearly. However, even though these are similar to cinema/television terminology there is differences in how it's used due to the lack of sound in comics. However a good quality of comics compared to film is that there is no limitations to what can go on in the story as you can draw extreme mise-en-scene features without relying hugely on a large budget e.g fantasy worlds, magically props, alien-like characters. 

"A scriptwriter can ask for a hundred thousand alien soldiers charging over a hill and get just that... with only a muttered complaint from the artist" - Alan McKenzie

However there are a few problems with picking genre in comics as some don't tend to translate well, such as True Drama. There is also a few problems with keeping the story interesting due to the audience's attention span, so usually when there are moments of huge text, otherwise known as 'exposition', the characters would be doing something to make the reading less dull. The characters would sometimes show a little bit of their personality in these moments. McKenzie also mentioned how a common mistake among beginners is to have too much story in a limited space they have, as the story just becomes crammed. In US comics it is typical to have 20 pages available to work in.

Every story should typically have a beginning, middle and end. Theorist Todorov came up with the story/narrative structure: starts of as an equilibrium where everything is normal, an event then happens the disturb the equilibrium otherwise known as the disequilibrium, there is then a recognition that the disorder has occurred, then an attempt to repair damage,and then finally ending with a new equilibrium that is different to the first one. However in some rare cases stories don't all follow this structure, typically in more post-modern narratives. Mckenzie also mentions how stories need themes which would then lead you to a plot. Themes would sometimes be based on human nature, for instance greed or jealousy. The plot is separated from the theme as it usually is motivated from emotions to do with the theme.

"...your story could be about the solving of a murder mystery. That the murder was motivated by jealousy makes an observation about how far a human being can be pushed by such emotions." - Mckenzie

A goal in creating a successful story is to have the audience believe that the world you have created makes sense and could be real. So for instance you need a strong background story to creating the setting and make the audience feel as though they are in it. So you need to know:

• year of setting
• location
• type of place it is
• characters and extras fit in
• If it is based on reality you need to know your historic, social and cultural context.

The narrative can also have sub-plots inside the main plot, which helps give a small background story on characters.

Deciding on Characters

When deciding on characters you need to make sure you know:

• the setting you want the narrative in and how it may effect the character, 
• what is the character's motivations and goals, 
• their background story that gave them their motives, 
• their personality, 
• how will all of the above effect their relationships with others - mixing personality types
• gender, race and age

Before deciding on their appearance and designing a full body shot of them. Typically in stories (mainly action/adventure genres) you get certain characters. For instance according to the theorist Vladimir Propp there is a hero (good guy/protagonist), villain (bad guy/antagonist), a donor (provides something useful to the hero), the dispatcher (sends hero on quest), the false hero (makes false claims), the helper (who aids the hero), the princess (act as a reward to the hero), and the father (who rewards the hero for their efforts). Not all these characters play such huge roles, for instance 'the princess' doesn't have to be a princess they can just be a love interest - so get the girl. But also not all stories have to have all these characters as some stories don't need a love interest or dispatcher. The main characters are the protagonist and the antagonist, where good defeats evil, and this is strongly used in comics particularly. Most success comes from the likeability of the characters as well - a role model of a hero, and a twisted but interesting villain. Humour also does very well.

The story/narrative is usually told by a characters point of view as the audience is made to observe their live. 

"A useful hint here is to limit the use of thought balloons to the character you have chosen to represent the point of view" - McKenzie 

Picking an Art Style

There are many kinds of comic styles and it can depend on the genre of story you want to get across. You can get newspaper article comics which range between just one picture to two pages. These comics tend to be simplistic and cartoony usually telling a small joke (occasionally on society or what is in the news of the time). You can get adventure comics like the ones by Marvel and DC Comics where they exaggerate on muscles and jaw lines. And you can get manga which is Japanese comics. Manga follows a similar drawing style but changes on the story and artist as well, they also cover many genres, much more compared to western comics - maybe because it's more popular so they have more audiences to pick from?

The Nikopol Trilogy

I came across this comic from 'Graphic Novels Stories to Change your Life' and found the art style complex and full of textures. Not only is the lines creating textures and showing the dimensions, the colour plays a roll in it too.
The scenes in this comic is always quite grotty, setting the mood of the story. There's also a main character that stands out amongst the other characters - you get this a lot in many other comics, as this allows the audience to clearly know and recognise who the story is about without confusing them with less important characters.

Button Man - Harry Exton prepares for a kill

For 'Button Man' the comic art style uses much more looser lines, making me think back to the mark making project: they used marks to show the light direction like what van Gogh did in the painting 'The Starry Night'.  It's cross hatching that creates the textures, representing the eerie atmosphere the story wants to get across. This wouldn't work well for a light hearted comedy comic because of the sharp textures and chiaroscuro lighting.

The Starry Night
1889
Vincent van Gogh

Garfield

More light hearted comics such as 'Garfield' is much more simplistic with minimum detail, especially in the background. This makes it easy to read for all audiences. These types of comics also are kept very short and don't have complex stories such as comics from Mavel and DC Comics - Due to the lack of space.

Batman

Super hero comics are kept very darkened and over exaggerated, especially for the muscles and jaw lines. This gives the appearance of being dramatic and powerful, and also comes across very serious.

Both the Garfield and Batman comics include rain but are done very differently. In it Garfield comic it is made up of lines and generic water drops, whereas in the Batman comic there are angled and suggests a gloomy atmosphere.

Attack on Titan

This manga is a serious, dramatic kind with an action/adventure genre. It uses view angles to show how powerful characters are. So in this scene it uses a low angle to emphasis on how big the monster is to the regular people.

Manga is typically in black and white, and isn't as heavy on shadows like the Mavel or DC Comics. It still however shows a lot of detail in the scene.

Ouran High School Host Club

This manga is much more different to the other one as it's a comedy, so it is allowed to exaggerate on emotions through facial features.
For instance blanked out eyes, larger mouths that cover half of the face, lines going across the cheeks and nose, and other little features that show specific emotions. Sometimes the mouth even comes off the face.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realists

In general in manga the faces are rather limited on features - very different to American action comics. The facial features are made up of only lines and limited shadows (unless they want to be dramatic).
I've attempted drawing in the manga style before and found it extremely difficult as if you get one feature slightly off it throws the whole thing.










In conclusion I found that even for me to make a small comic scene I need to have some sort of background story to make it work and flow better, so pretty soon I need to come up with a small story. I'll probably come up with something very simple and generic as I don't want my main focus in this project to be making a story. I've also learnt that the more successful characters are interesting, so a twisted yet likeable villain and a strong, powerful hero. For art styles I am taking a liking to the Mavel and DC Comic style as I really like the exaggeration of features and shadows.




Sources:
Understanding Comics, The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
How to Draw and Sell... Comic Strips by Alan McKenzie
Graphic Novels, Stories to Change Your Life by Paul Gravett