Week 3: The Comic Strip

For this week I read mostly the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips by Bill Watterson. Most of the comics were in strips of four panels and a handful were a little longer. They almost looked like newspaper comics in the sense that a lot of them were in black and white and then others were done in color (Sunday comics) and a little bit longer. The comics seem to all have a "Haha" feel to it if that makes sense. Not really hysterical but not really serious either. They're just easy reads that help pass the time.

The fun thing with Calvin and Hobbes is that we mainly follow the young boy Calvin on his short 4 panel adventures with his stuffed animal tiger, Hobbes, who he imagines is real. You get to sort of just sit there and face palm whenever Calvin does something stupid like a kid would do, but it gives is a sort of cute charm because of this.

Week 2: Understanding Comics

The things that Scott says is really interesting and backs the things I learned in my Writing for Comic Books class. Our brains fill in a lot of information when we are given images. We fill in the seconds of action or movement between shots. Being that our brains are doing this work and practically playing the comic like a movie in your head, it's beneficial to also have as little words as possible from frame to frame. You don't want it to be extremely vague, but too many words can take away from the action thats happening from frame to frame.

Week 1: The Arrival

Shaun Tan's story, The Arrival, is unlike anything I have read before. This story was told completely through illustration with no words. Something like this can be seen as a difficult task, but Tan successfully created a very compelling story.

It helps that his style of drawing isn't too stylized which allows readers to clearly see facial expressions and understand the scenes. The story follows a man/father who leaves his family and travels to a foreign land. You can see the emotions of this father arriving in a new place and not feeling like he belongs which is a feeling that many people are familiar with.

One thing I learned from a previous comic book class I took, is that you want to be able create a comic that uses as little words as possible. There are a lot of different shots and frame set ups you can use to tell a story without using many words. Tan did a great job through actions and moment to moment shots to tell the story.

With that being said, Tan created a very beautiful story that just about anyone can relate to with beautiful illustrations.