October 2018: Making Comics

[Heather]

Time to talk about the behind the scenes of comics.

[Heather]

Our group unanimously loved to read about making comics from Mr. McCloud. Here are the scores:

10, 8, 9, -, 10, 9, 10, 9, 10. Average score: 9.375

(If you attend the book club, but you didn't have a chance to read the book I will just put a dash in the lineup. This way you can see how many folks attended.)

We talked about two upcoming events. One, some of us went to see Venom together on Sunday. The second event was that Jason Witter will be signing and selling his comics on Halloween at Titlewave books. https://www.titlewavebooks.com/

Comments included:
-We loved the humor, it was almost Monty Python-esque.
-Eisner level of depth for the subject matter.
-We aren't going to read comics the same way again. Since multiple artists were used to illustrate points it's easy to learn the material and our understanding was greatly expanded.
-We appreciated the rules of comics, so we know how to break them once we get our own style.
-One of us liked the book so much, copies were bought for friends!
-Some of us tried out the lessons in the book at home and enjoyed them. Story building mostly. To illustrate a couple of lessons we passed around two comics from the newspaper (Thank you Fred!) They are in the pictures folder in this group page.
-"One of the best books I've read."
-The establishing shot concept was elaborated on well.
-One small criticism was that he mentioned drawing characters differently as a lesson, but then was guilty of it himself.
-We were able to pick apart the components of The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún, Volume 1 and understand why the Manga series felt so western to us.
-This book felt like homework, but enjoyable.
-We discussed the use of stained glass windows in the middle ages as a way to educate people on religion. http://www.scholastic.com/browse/arti...
-Art through computers has come a long way. We discussed assorted programs and styles.
-Neil Degrasse Tyson was bothered by the night sky in the film Titanic not being accurate. It's become a challenge to insert the film Titanic into our book club conversation every month. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B6jS...
-One of us loves the interdependent nature of art and words. That's what makes comics so enjoyable. The chapter on the culture of comics was also much appreciated.

works mentioned
-Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
-Dan Piraro. https://bizarro.com/
-Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
-The infinite panel comic. https://xkcd.com/
-Audubon. Sur les ailes du monde, Audubon
- Old Disney military training cartoons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Di...
-Tangerine Dream and the Bladerunner Soundtrack. https://www.salon.com/2017/10/07/does...
- Stranger Things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange...
-The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mar...
-Hamlet in three panels. https://goodticklebrain.com/three-pan...
-Warm Bodies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_Bo...

[Lyle]

I just encountered this video and I thought those who enjoyed McCloud's analysis of sequential art would find it interesting.

It gets into the history of the grawlix, or comic strip swearing, discussing its part in the development of visual storytelling.

https://youtu.be/a9ottUEiIm8

(eta: its not it's)

[Heather]

oooh! Thank you Lyle!