The representation of time in comics is a topic that I have never pondered in the slightest. I really enjoyed how the article was written overall, and specifically how the author used the medium of a comic strip to most effectively demonstrate the techniques used. The most interesting thing to me was the fact that motion no one even attempted to portray motion in a graphic medium until the 1800’s. I have never really been that into comics as I am sure you can see, but I have read a few here and there. The importance of the techniques pioneered by the artists of Japan is not fully appreciated by many. The ways serious animation is done in America today would be way different if they had not worked so hard to figure out how to display motion.
While I liked the article, the way the artist portrayed the use of word bubbles as overcomplicated and hard to understand. Anyone worth two cents can figure out what comes after what in a comic, as it is common sense. The author dwelled on this point too much. Also, the author showed all the different kinds of borders, but did not discuss any of the implied meanings behind any of them. I was left feeling a little confused over this, and wish he had made a point to clarify this.
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3 comments:
I too always just read comics and never thought too much about them. To me, there were always just cheezy laughs but then again the only type of comics I read were from the Sunday paper. I never really read a comic book intently but as we mentioned in class, people are capable of a lot. Like the article said, the way that comics are sturctured, it is just a horrible form of reading and as Ross mentioned they extremely predictable but we yet still manage to follow this interesting structure of pictures, squares, borders and thought/word bubbles. Comics can be intriguing to all ages, from kids reading about super heroes or to adults reading Garfield in the Sunday paper, each one has their own structure as all comics have since they began using comics to either entertain or get a point across such as political comics.
If you think about it, the points, accentuations and tones that an author of comics uses is almost infinitless. So much can be expressed through shapes, size, and content. Frames play an important role such as placing a setting on the comic strip. Certain characteristics can be accomplished from such little differences.
True while I never sat down and analyzed the hell out of comics, my understanding of their complexity was founded about the time I tried to write my own. The only dynamic I was able to mimic was the speech bubble dialog. Progression of dialog in the comics was difficult enough without the illustrations. Showing movement like you brought up is a pain. Try to write dialog as your characters are running and you've got five panels of awkwardly posed people mid-stride. Personally, I'd rather stick to frame by frame animation.
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