It is very evident looking at A Contract with God that it is a new sort of art form in and of itself. Before this book the graphic novel was not really a known thing, nor in fact a term that even existed. Eisner coined the phrase, or at least claims to have, for the purposes of marketing the book to publishers. The work appears fledgling in its attempts to fully explore a medium as the medium itself has only just been invented and the ideas of the limits to which it could be stretched have not even begun to be fathomed.
As the first of the stories of Dropsie Avenue begins Eisner plays with the idea of open paneling and exclusively uses caption narration to tell the first several pages of Frimme Hersh's tale. Instead of solid black borders around each panel he uses an implied border created by the gradually fading raindrops of the emotional storm surrounding Hersh. In later tales the panel borders become the more generic black lines as well as the fading implications of borders and the arrangement of panels varies throughout from basic square set ups to experimental flowing arrangements to better depict the emotional content of the page.
The choice of a short story format as oppose to a continuous narrative gives character more to the setting than the tenants, allowing Dropsie Avenue to become an entity in and of itself. Each tale shows a different angle of the tenement, various aspects of its intricate personality made up of all of its inhabitants. The stories are all about money, trying to move up in the world and perhaps failing, or succeeding in ways that you had not initially intended. The whole shows that life does not always turn the way you expect it to and not all things turn out for the best, or what you would've hoped for the best to be.
A Contract with God is a revolutionary work for its time, creating a new art form in the graphic novel that continues to be explored to this day.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Arrival
The Arrival, for me, did not arrive when it was supposed to. Since I started this class in the second week I had missed its assignment as required reading and spent the subsequent week scouring the town for a copy to no avail until I resorted at last to Amazon. After I finally did get a chance to read it I now understand what everyone was talking about in that, or perhaps because of it, The Arrival is a powerful novel.
The panel structure is very expressive, there are no real defined edges, rather the frame simply fades off into whiteness in a square shape, or the panel is the entire page, its edges stated by the edge of the paper.
The inability of the reader to understand the dialogue and alphabet of the new country the protagonist enters puts them into the same situation as that man, makes him more relatable. We are in his shoes, we've no backstory or understanding of what this new place is or why he came there or what to expect. And the world that Tan creates is so whimsical and surreal with only vague hints of the familiar that it is almost impossible to comprehend what's happening at any time.
The stories of the other immigrants who help the protagonist adjust to his new life further illustrates how this city is seen as a new beginning for so many people and they are kind and understanding in helping the protagonist adjust to his foreign surroundings. Despite the fact that the stories from the other immigrants are never really stated as being stories the reader can tell through the easy reading of Tan's images.
The Arrival is an excellent illustration of what an excellent storytelling medium pictures alone can become. Within its pages there is a whole fantastic realm to be inspected and the images are so rich that you can come back and read it over and over again and find new tidbits and angles of the story to give it more depth and meaning.
The panel structure is very expressive, there are no real defined edges, rather the frame simply fades off into whiteness in a square shape, or the panel is the entire page, its edges stated by the edge of the paper.
The inability of the reader to understand the dialogue and alphabet of the new country the protagonist enters puts them into the same situation as that man, makes him more relatable. We are in his shoes, we've no backstory or understanding of what this new place is or why he came there or what to expect. And the world that Tan creates is so whimsical and surreal with only vague hints of the familiar that it is almost impossible to comprehend what's happening at any time.
The stories of the other immigrants who help the protagonist adjust to his new life further illustrates how this city is seen as a new beginning for so many people and they are kind and understanding in helping the protagonist adjust to his foreign surroundings. Despite the fact that the stories from the other immigrants are never really stated as being stories the reader can tell through the easy reading of Tan's images.
The Arrival is an excellent illustration of what an excellent storytelling medium pictures alone can become. Within its pages there is a whole fantastic realm to be inspected and the images are so rich that you can come back and read it over and over again and find new tidbits and angles of the story to give it more depth and meaning.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Worlds' End
Besides just reading this weeks required works I picked up the eighth issue of Sandman and read through it so I thought I would share my thoughts on it with you here.
Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller and his Sandman series never ceases to amaze me. I recently finished reading the 8th installment entitled “Worlds' End” which had a lot to live up to since it was following “Brief Lives,” which is one of my favorite stories ever written. However “Worlds' End” more than lives up to my expectations.
The format of the story is very much like that of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in that the narrative consists of a group of travelers telling stories. However the travelers in Gaiman's tale have become caught in a “reality storm” and have converged on the inn called Worlds' End from many varied places and times to take refuge until the storm ends. The price for lodging at the inn, however, is a tale to help pass the time and so the travelers each take turns in recounting a tale from their home.
With the stories is where Gaiman really gets to work. The tales he chooses to tell are based largely on the artists who will represent them in visual form. There were six individual artists who worked on this issue of The Sandman, each bringing his or her own unique style to the telling of their tale. Bryan Talbot keeps the whole thing grounded with his representation of the inn, leaving Mike Allred, Michael Zulli, Alec Stevens, John Watkiss, and Shea Anton Penson free to explore their art form in the tales of the travelers.
However simple you might think the setup of this story might be in its Chaucerian styling Gaiman has managed to complicate things quite a lot. We see the whole as a tale narrated by Brant Tucker, recounting the experience of his time at the Worlds' End and what led to his arrival. At the end however it is revealed that he is indeed telling the tale to a bar tender in Chicago, and so really that bar and not Worlds' End is the true setting for the entire story, and that's only the first bit.
The six tales told by tenants at Worlds' End increase in complexity as they go. The first is simply one story with one character and one plot. However, each subsequent tale adds either a character from a previous issue of Sandman or a story told within the story. Some have both in fact, like the tale told by the young seaman called Jim. Within his tale Hob Gadling, previously seen in Sandman volume 2 “The Doll's House”, is a prominent player and is told a tale of fickle women by Gunga Din, a character from a Kipling poem. There are many literary references sprinkled throughout tales in Worlds' End besides Gunga Din such as Gaheris, a character from Arthurian legend, and Prez Rickard, the lead from a four issue comic by Joe Simon.
The most complex and rewarding of the tales is the final one, told by a young journeyman from the Necropolis Litharge named Petrefax. In the tale he is ordered by his master Claproth to attend an air burial and at that burial the workers performing the ceremony each tell their own tales. There are three workers and each tells one tale, but the final tale, recounted by Hermas is of his mistress Veltis, is one in which she tell him a tale of her youth. If your keeping track that's a story told by Veltis within a story told by Hermas, within a story told by Petrefax, within a story told by Brant Tucker. So yeah, things get a bit complicated.
Overall this eighth issue of Sandman is an excellent addition to the overall mythos of the realm of Sandman, and even though he never appears as a key player Dream and the rest of the Endless are there in the shadows as they always are.
Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller and his Sandman series never ceases to amaze me. I recently finished reading the 8th installment entitled “Worlds' End” which had a lot to live up to since it was following “Brief Lives,” which is one of my favorite stories ever written. However “Worlds' End” more than lives up to my expectations.
The format of the story is very much like that of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in that the narrative consists of a group of travelers telling stories. However the travelers in Gaiman's tale have become caught in a “reality storm” and have converged on the inn called Worlds' End from many varied places and times to take refuge until the storm ends. The price for lodging at the inn, however, is a tale to help pass the time and so the travelers each take turns in recounting a tale from their home.
With the stories is where Gaiman really gets to work. The tales he chooses to tell are based largely on the artists who will represent them in visual form. There were six individual artists who worked on this issue of The Sandman, each bringing his or her own unique style to the telling of their tale. Bryan Talbot keeps the whole thing grounded with his representation of the inn, leaving Mike Allred, Michael Zulli, Alec Stevens, John Watkiss, and Shea Anton Penson free to explore their art form in the tales of the travelers.
However simple you might think the setup of this story might be in its Chaucerian styling Gaiman has managed to complicate things quite a lot. We see the whole as a tale narrated by Brant Tucker, recounting the experience of his time at the Worlds' End and what led to his arrival. At the end however it is revealed that he is indeed telling the tale to a bar tender in Chicago, and so really that bar and not Worlds' End is the true setting for the entire story, and that's only the first bit.
The six tales told by tenants at Worlds' End increase in complexity as they go. The first is simply one story with one character and one plot. However, each subsequent tale adds either a character from a previous issue of Sandman or a story told within the story. Some have both in fact, like the tale told by the young seaman called Jim. Within his tale Hob Gadling, previously seen in Sandman volume 2 “The Doll's House”, is a prominent player and is told a tale of fickle women by Gunga Din, a character from a Kipling poem. There are many literary references sprinkled throughout tales in Worlds' End besides Gunga Din such as Gaheris, a character from Arthurian legend, and Prez Rickard, the lead from a four issue comic by Joe Simon.
The most complex and rewarding of the tales is the final one, told by a young journeyman from the Necropolis Litharge named Petrefax. In the tale he is ordered by his master Claproth to attend an air burial and at that burial the workers performing the ceremony each tell their own tales. There are three workers and each tells one tale, but the final tale, recounted by Hermas is of his mistress Veltis, is one in which she tell him a tale of her youth. If your keeping track that's a story told by Veltis within a story told by Hermas, within a story told by Petrefax, within a story told by Brant Tucker. So yeah, things get a bit complicated.
Overall this eighth issue of Sandman is an excellent addition to the overall mythos of the realm of Sandman, and even though he never appears as a key player Dream and the rest of the Endless are there in the shadows as they always are.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Little Nemo in Slumberland
Having never read any Little Nemo before, “Little Nemo in Slumberland” was an experience I went in to completely blind. The story was really very rewarding and I fully intend to read more Little Nemo when I get the chance. I read the few strips in the issue of Nemo: The Classic Comics Library available for download and this is what I garnered from the small taste I got.
The comics may be considered classic due to the time period in which they were created but the strips are groundbreaking and revolutionary more than old-fashioned, setting the tone of comics for years to come. Many of McCay's techniques in the Slumberland arc, such as that of changing the sizes and shapes of panels to reflect the action of the strip, have been used so much in modern comics that contemporary readers hardly think anything of it. However McCay was drawing his Little Nemo strip in a time when the idea of comics was merely in its infancy and most artists were trying to get a handle on simple square frames for use in narratives.
Each strip in the overall Slumberland series is one dream in and of itself and so all end with Nemo awaking, usually to the sound of his mother calling him or commenting on his behavior. Because of this each dream is highly abbreviated but even the single page limitation cannot contain the surreality and simple grace of McCay's lines as he explores the human psyche through the medium of Nemo. Overall Nemo is more of a secondary player, he has no real personality, instead being an observer of the fantastic things happening around him. This is more to allow the reader to be immersed in the fantasy of Slumberland and not get caught up in the personal situation of Nemo, whose name literally means “no one.”
In each strip of the Slumberland story McCay pushes and morphs the medium of comics into an effective means of telling intricate stories. He begins by using awkward captions under each numbered panel along with the speech bubbles coming from the characters within said panels to attempt to clarify the actions within. However he later realizes these captions are unnecessary and gets rid of them, allowing the panels to speak for themselves. This allows the reader to focus more on the actions of the story as opposed to being distracted by trying to follow a continuous verbal narrative. He also, as previously mentioned, gradually plays with the idea of changing the length and width of the panels to better illustrate scale and movement in the story. With each strip he adds something new to the vocabulary of comics, things that are still in use today, like breaking the fourth wall by having the character be aware of the artist as an entity and knowing that the world in which it exists is merely a fictional construct.
All in all Little Nemo as a whole, not just the Slumberland arc, is a brilliant experiment in the infancy of comics into the vast potential of a fledgling medium for the telling of brilliant tales.
The comics may be considered classic due to the time period in which they were created but the strips are groundbreaking and revolutionary more than old-fashioned, setting the tone of comics for years to come. Many of McCay's techniques in the Slumberland arc, such as that of changing the sizes and shapes of panels to reflect the action of the strip, have been used so much in modern comics that contemporary readers hardly think anything of it. However McCay was drawing his Little Nemo strip in a time when the idea of comics was merely in its infancy and most artists were trying to get a handle on simple square frames for use in narratives.
Each strip in the overall Slumberland series is one dream in and of itself and so all end with Nemo awaking, usually to the sound of his mother calling him or commenting on his behavior. Because of this each dream is highly abbreviated but even the single page limitation cannot contain the surreality and simple grace of McCay's lines as he explores the human psyche through the medium of Nemo. Overall Nemo is more of a secondary player, he has no real personality, instead being an observer of the fantastic things happening around him. This is more to allow the reader to be immersed in the fantasy of Slumberland and not get caught up in the personal situation of Nemo, whose name literally means “no one.”
In each strip of the Slumberland story McCay pushes and morphs the medium of comics into an effective means of telling intricate stories. He begins by using awkward captions under each numbered panel along with the speech bubbles coming from the characters within said panels to attempt to clarify the actions within. However he later realizes these captions are unnecessary and gets rid of them, allowing the panels to speak for themselves. This allows the reader to focus more on the actions of the story as opposed to being distracted by trying to follow a continuous verbal narrative. He also, as previously mentioned, gradually plays with the idea of changing the length and width of the panels to better illustrate scale and movement in the story. With each strip he adds something new to the vocabulary of comics, things that are still in use today, like breaking the fourth wall by having the character be aware of the artist as an entity and knowing that the world in which it exists is merely a fictional construct.
All in all Little Nemo as a whole, not just the Slumberland arc, is a brilliant experiment in the infancy of comics into the vast potential of a fledgling medium for the telling of brilliant tales.
Understanding Comics
I first read Scott McCloud's “Understanding Comics” two years ago, but it was well worth the second look. At the time of my first reading I was working on a research paper for my high school English class and my teacher had given us the ability to choose any subject we wanted as long as it interested us. I had been beginning to look in to the comics culture for a little while and thought that perhaps a paper over the idea of comics as an art form would give me a better idea of just what I was getting in to. A quick google search on comics research material led me to “Understanding Comics” and in reading it I discovered a lot more than I thought I would.
At that time I had never really read any comics aside from occasional newspaper serials and a lot of web comics. However, since Understanding Comics was written before the eve of the web comic it opened my eyes to the world of comics before those with which I had become familiar, the ideas within it led me to want to read more and more of what came before and inspired web artists like Scott Kurtz and Jeph Jacques.
In reading through it again after a few years and a lot more comics I picked up on things that I hadn't before, and I recognized names and comics that I hadn't known the first time round. The idea of closure and Scott's broad definition of comics seem ever more acute when put into perspective with my history classes. This is the sort of book that is improved upon as you read it when put into juxtaposition with your own personal experiences. Even if you have no experience with the world of comics the book is a great primer, a wonderful introduction to the huge realm of possibilities that emerges from comics.
The ideas McCloud presents allow the everyman to understand just what it is their getting in to and allows them to appreciate it on a deeper level. Having an awareness of the history and structure of comics increases the joy of the experience by leaps and bounds. Understanding the concept of closure and the highly flexible nature of time in comics makes reading that much easier to enjoy. Knowing just how varied the contents of the medium of comics are can allow people to see that there's something in it for everyone, that comics aren't just superheroes in spandex and Garfield lamenting Mondays, there's so much more to it.
I sound a bit like I'm writing a promotional ad for this book, and for that I do apologize, but in my life this book really jumpstarted my introduction into the vast world of not just what I thought comics were but what they really could be. I really feel that, despite how out there McCloud's ideas can sometimes get, this book is excellent for anyone interested in starting to read comics more seriously, wanting to upgrade from casual browsing to really getting it as a medium. The book is really great in the way it presents the ideas and how it is a textbook over comics without looking like a textbook about comics because it is, itself, a comic book, and comic books can't be textbooks. Or at least that's what you think until you read it.
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