February 2014

Here I am making use of thicker key lines and a stronger emphasis on colour to provide tonality and atmosphere. The thickest lines are in the borders, I think this helps push the impact of the panels and provides extra visual interest

Same again. Playing without panel borders, which seems to work well in the landscape layout. Although I have previously been apprehensive about using a lot of markers on my inks, I see now they help to add a world of atmosphere to an image.

I often exaggerate in these comics- although there is an expectation within the autobiography/diary/memoir genres of a great degree of truth, I think certain liberties must be taken to entertain the reader. For example, in this instance I actually did get some work done before spending far too long fooling around watching online videos of cats and goats. But I only have a page to play with, and I need to deliver some kind of punchline at the end.

Although this is obviously a strip primarily aimed at getting a chuckle, it serves as a play with the ides of truth- how far can you push a depiction toward the realm of fantasy before it loses all semblance of it’s authenticity? Although the events here as narrated are true, the visuals have been completely distorted. How does this affect the reading? Does it take it completely into the realm of fiction? Or does some semblance of a shared understanding between myself and the viewer still exist?

A bit of exploration in using symbols to represent thought processes. I’m not sure how effective it is, but at least the attempt to give information in a creative, mimetic way is more satisfying than dietetically explaining to the reader. I have very obviously used the cover of Action Comics #1 as inspiration for the first panel here. The idea was to draw myself smashing a trolley into one of the aisle stands, and as i started the image the thought to make it a homage occurred to me. This is very often the case, where the act of drawing brings about new ways of thinking, kind of evolving by itself. Sometimes you just need to stay out of the way and let the pen do its own thing.

This strip plays with the idea of time. Using a repeated frame with little or no variation I am able to give a sense of an extended pause- the time expended depends on the reader. It could be a moment, a minute, an hour.The only way to guide the reading would be to include signs such as a clock, moving shadows or such. 

Dave Gibbons said there are two tracks to sequential art, the pictures and the words. If one carries extra weight, then the rationale would be to allow leniency in the other. Not sure if this is always true, but since time is a constraint at the moment, that’s the theory I’m going with.

This one was a good learning experience. I thought I’d save time on having to redraw the desk and chair for each panel by drawing it just once (first panel) and then employing the magic of Photoshop in post-production to replicate them.

Sounds like the easy way, right? Wrong!

Because I didn’t plan it properly, in each of the panels the dude was sitting at different heights, with different proportions. So each time I had to transform the desk and chair to match the figure and stuff around him. Then there is some fiddly erasing of bits to have it all fit snugly and look right- the desk goes in front of him here, and behind him there, etc. I spent a lot more time doing all this than I would have spent just drawing the damn things in in the first place. The trade-off is that the final product has a nice uniformity, essential in depicting inanimate objects. The lesson learned?

Next time I do something similar  I’ll spend a bit more time on preparation.

I hope I don’t get sued for this