Body Talk

Both Eisner and Thompson tell amazing stories in their books, and even though there are some differences, there are also some similarities. 

Is Eisner's work "A Contract with God", he writes four stories that are completely different from each other, but all four stories are connected in the sense that it happens in the same building, during the same time.  Eisner's work I believe is meant for a mature audience and wasn't intended for children or even younger adults because of the message he portrays through his writing.  For example, in his third story ("The Super"), there's mention of pedophilia and suicide in it, and doesn't really set the tone that much younger audiences could get into or understand with an open mind.  Eisner also focuses on the message of religion pretty heavily which makes me believe that Eisner was a religious man and wanted to portray that through his work. 

Thompson's work "Blankets" on the other hand seems like a very personal comic about his life.  As for the target audience, it seems like it's aimed towards young adults that may have experienced the same things he went through (such as myself, which I'll explain later).  This story is a personal narrative of Thompson's life through the comic strip, and uses dialog and experiences to connect to the audience. 

What really related to me was Thompson's "Blankets" story, at least in the beginning.  Some parts of it were disconnected from my life (like being freezing cold in the winter, mom being very religious, and the father figure in genera), but a lot of it actually sunk in with me on a personal level.  Growing up, I was the older brother (my brother being two years younger), and I felt it was my obligation to take care of him since we didn't have a dad in the picture.  I was also bullied pretty hard, but we lived in a bigger city, so the insults and bullying wasn't directly tied to my personal life, but towards my physical appearance and ratty clothes due to us being poor.  There were points in my life that I was always annoyed with what he did, and we always fought, which most of the time ended up in physical fist fights, but at the end of the day, he was my brother and I would have done anything to protect him.

The Comic Book

So I looked over the #1 issue of Batman (1940) and then looked at #600 (2002) for a comparison of how the comic book shaped in a 60 year time.  Bob Kane was the artist of the original Batman, and for its time, is actually quite impressive.  It's hard to look at a comic book from our day and age and try to appreciate the art style of something from the late 1930's going into the 1940's, but it's actually quite amazing.  The grid layout from the original comics is kind of standard, but this way because no one knew how to break the limitations of the grid to really explore the page.  The colors are very flat with no shading, but where there is no shading in color, the use of black fills that void.  The contrast of dark black and bright colors mixes well and gives a great sense character and feeling.  Issue #600 on the other hand stays away from bright colors, in fact, the majority of the comic uses very dark colors and blacks to portray the feeling, which makes sense because the tone of Batman is very dark (parents murdered, seeking revenge, stopping crime, etc..).  The exploration of the grid is very nicely done.  Overlapping panels, full page illustrations with decorated borders and backgrounds really shows how far comic books not just from an artistic point of view, but from a layout.

The next one I looked at was the The Adventures of TinTin.  The first thing I noticed was the art style, which for 1956 is very well drawn.  It kind of reminds me of the old Batman show where every sound effect is spelled out.  For example, when TinTin breaks an object, instead of just visually showing it, the artist shows it in words too, like *Crash* or *Ding*.  The grid structure is laid out in a very traditional way, where everything sits comfortably inside each of the panels.  The writing tells a great story, but it also has a light humor to it.  I feel like middle-schoolers would read this as gateway into the comic book world.

The Comic Strip

Nemo Classic Comic Library was a magazine published between 1983 to 1990 that hosted an array of comic strips.  The format of these comics is very specific, with minor tweaks. 

The first thing I noticed is the format.  All of the comics I saw in 3 different issues were in a 3x4 (12 panel) with a 3 panel horizontal header format.  It's a simplistic form that really minimizes the content in each strip, but it is very consistent.  The next thing I noticed is that all of the comics, along with all of the pages, are in black and white.  The cover on the other hand were always in color.

Charles Schultz is an icon when it comes to comics, his most well known comics was Peanuts.  His earlier comics are done in black and white with very little filled black spots (which shows a lighter side to his art).  His artwork is also very simplistic, in the sense that the stroke likes are very simple and fluid, and with very little detail. The panels are also very simplistic.  None of the art ever breaks out of the panels, and they are always square or rectangular.   I think the reason why Schultz was so successful in the making of Peanuts was the simplicity of everything; art style, panel layout, dialog and even the subjects in the comic (Children, snoopy, school, etc...), it becomes very relatable to most younger children, which I think was the target audience for this particular comic. 

Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes is all time classic (at least to me).  Growing up, it use to be my favorite comic to read and when I got into drawing, I use to try to mimic Watterson's style.  Although Calvin and Hobbes started off black and white, it eventually went to color later down the road.  I think what really connects me to his work is the way he shows emotions (in characters, body language and dialog).  In the characters, facial expressions drive most of the humor and story telling.  For example, when Calvin takes a bite of food that he hates, the way he is animated to spit it out is very over exaggerated and it shows.  The body language is also unique in the way he shows movement in both characters and objects.  The last in the dialog, which I find to be suited for kids, but not an audience as young as Peanut's is targeted for.  With the way each story is told, along with the words used, it makes me feel as if the comic is targeted more towards middle schoolers to early high schoolers.  Even though I really appreciate the way Calvin and Hobbes becomes colorized later, I still believe the black and white version is still holds strong.  I think that the colorization of the comic gives it a bit of depth and helps paint the picture of some comics (ie.  When Calvin and Hobbes are laying in bed with the covers pulled up over half their faces and the dark purple shade is used for darkness), but with the black and white, you're almost forced to use your imagination to set the tone of the comic, almost like an unspoken word.  The last thing I noticed is the way the comic strips are laid out.  Yes, most of the panels are constructed as squares or slightly stretched squares (besides the opening panel, which is roughly 2-3 panels long), Watterson actually breaks out of the panel and almost leaves a "window open" into the world of Calvin and Hobbes.  Which when thinking about it is actually very brilliantly done because with those specific panels, you're not reading a comic strip anymore, but looking into Calvin's world and experiencing it without a square boarder restricting what the artist wanted you to see.

Understanding Comics

I'm not going to lie, when I first started reading "Understanding Comics", I was a bit bored in the beginning, but as I read on, I got sucked into the literature and couldn't stop reading and before I knew it, it was over.  I even wrote down a few pages in the book where I learned something.

I think the biggest learning I took away from this book (even though it's a very simple concept for most people who read comics) was on page 66, "The Gutter". 

Although a simple concept, I didn't realize that the gutter played such a huge role in comic books and graphic novels.  Before reading that part in the book, I thought panels were just aligned in a order in which the artist intended the viewer to read the comic, I never took in account that spacing of the panels could showcase time between frames. 

The way he describes how the gutter works is actually very clever.  It's like showing a panel with a hand with a pencil in it above a blank page, and then showing the same hand, with the same pencil with artwork on the page in the next panel.  Your mind snaps to the idea that you KNOW that person drew something on the paper without actually showing panel to panel of the art being drawn.  It's amazing how our mind fills in that blank space of the gutter to connect two completely different panels. 

Also how the gutter space can be used to show amounts of time.  Such as, if two frames were close together, it can show a short period of time elapsing (ie. Showing someone opening a can of soda, then showing them drinking it;  You know it happens within seconds of each other).  Whereas if the panels are spread further apart, it shows a more lengthy amount of time (ie.  Showing the sun in the air in one panel and then showing the sun setting on the horizon in another; our minds know that it didn't just set within seconds, but took hours). 

He talks about the "experience" to connect the dots which makes a lot of sense.  If you've personally experience something (like opening a can of soda), your mind connects the dots and you know how long it'll take between actions.  In fantasy comics, it's a little less disconnected when it comes to experience, but because we know backstories of characters and origins, we can give a educated guess (ie.  The comic book hero Flash, most people know that he's incredible fast.  So if it shows him in one panel in New York, then shows him running, and the next panel he's in China, you know it happened within a matter of seconds because of his super power). 

This was the first time I've read "Understanding Comics", but there was so much I took away from it and I'll probably re-read it again soon.