Idea for a Graphic Novel

So, I have to make a short comic for graphic storytelling. I've decided that I should do it with black and white photography. The comic will center around the growth of a young man with extreme insomnia as well as narcolepsy. It should be fun, and I don't want to say too much more and ruin the surprise.

Narative Theory

For GS we had to read an exert from a book on Narrative Theory. For me, what was largely the most helpful part was the section about lighting. For me, I do enough photography that I've given a large amount of thought to the angles at which things are shown. However, because I have always been working in a very casual, and minimal, setting, I have yet to really experiment with light. As such, this section which explained the different ways to use light to your advantage when working with any medium was incredibly helpful. For example, the use of a darkly lit surrounding and a slight outline lighting on two people to suggest that there is a romantic setting had never occurred to me. After reading this article, I want to use my next few rolls of film to try out a bunch of different things with a flashlight or some such to see how I can use light to my advantage without having to be shooting on a large set-up.

Sooooo much structure...

Last assignment for this batch. We were told to write a poem with a ridiculously ridged format (see if you can guess it), and the put them into a comic. I had originally wanted to maintain some semblance of originality by making my comic from a picture of a graveyard and using each of the tombstones as "panels," but that didn't work out because my camera apparently doesn't expose half my film to light at random intervals, so I lost the vast majority of my pictures. So here is what I wound up with instead.

The images themselves were made using darkroom techniques, and the only thing I did with photoshop was  the text an positioning. Any framing was done chemically. By the way, I'm not sure how effectively this was communicated, but I actually have a fairly positive view on death as a sort of freeing inevitability. Everyone is going to die, and the world is so old than virtually nothing we do will matter in the long run. The trick is to make the most of life while you got it, and see if you can help a couple other people while you're at it cause, hey, why not?

Newspaper Poetry

So, another assignment. This time, we had to remove words from a newspaper to create a poem. I made two along a similar idea.

Both of these are made from the idea of having a "poem" which makes absolutely no sense, so the reader is left gripping for a meaning that isn't there, and applying their own (though the first does have a little bit of a theme). Yet, the second they get to the last few words where it becomes clear to them that this was all nonsensical, and everything makes sense in a last bit of humor.

The future

For gs, I was assigned to make a single panel image in the same style as a work called "The City" which depicted the past, or future, as related to a scene from the work. I chose the first image:

 http://www.nebulous-cargo.com/masereel/woodcuts/city1.html

and made this:

I suppose it has a message to it, or some such. It's my personal belief that nothing we do can or will have drastically lasting consequences, and that the future of this bustling rail station is a forest around a single, abandoned track is a reminder of this.

Mind Map

Another task for GS. For this assignment, I had to make a "mind map" (a flow chart on crack) explaining a lecture or television program I had attended/seen. Because I don't take any really obviously visual classes right not except for gs, I decided to try to make a mind map of a concept in physics, in this case how resistivity works in circuits. Hope you like it! (Click for full view)

Coraline Soundtrack

Not at all related to Graphic Storytelling, or comics in general, but the Coraline soundtracks is one of the best movie soundtracks I have ever heard. The music is dynamic and interesting, totally different form anything else I've ever heard. The over all combination of the darkness of some sections with the somewhat childishness of others creates an incredibly unique and effective atmosphere. I strongly urge you to listen to at least a couple of the songs off it if you have the time, and these two are a good place to start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8ry1f_3Lsk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxs2vS2gJ-c&feature=related