Category Archives: Storytelling

The little gears and gyroscopes that make the story move, through discreet shifts and windings.

Teaching comics again

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This week and three weeks on I’m back at Holbæk school of arts teaching comics.

Today was the first of our recurrent music interpretation assignment: students make comics from a given tune, today with the added challenge to only use clippings from discarded encyclopedias and art books.

This found footage approach lets the students work with storytelling and graphic representation without being inhibited by their (perceived) drawing abilities.

Using ready-made imagery allows them to focus on the layouts, and the “lyrical” nature of the assignment relieves them of linear narrative concerns. Every time I give this task to a class I’m blown away by the powerful results.

The music interpreted here is “Making of Cyborg” from the Ghost in the Shell movie. Enjoy the snapshots, I’m mighty proud of this day’s work!

JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES

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A draft version of my editorial for next volume of C’est Bon Anthology, “Motion Picture”:

You know the guy. If you have ever in any social context tried discussing comics on more than a “Lil’ Abner was a durn good strip” level, chances are he was in the crowd. He’s a pretty nondescript guy, could be anybody really, but you’ll recognise him when he chips in and goes “Yeah, comics and movies are similar in a lot of ways.” And then the conversation takes a turn towards film, and it turns out he’s in cinema studies and really needs the attention. And sometimes he’s a woman. Look, I just made him up to prove a point, okay?

And there’s really no connection between comics and film, either. For one thing, comics don’t necessarily move (although some webcomics do); for another, movies very rarely work with plastic framing (since the silver screen doesn’t change its shape). Certain compositional analyses apply to both media, simply because they are both related to art theory, in which the analyses originate.

Film is the vision of a director (and a producer, and a board of CEO’s, and their daughter, and the pony she rode in on) filtered through a cameraman, a cast of actors, a sound designer, an editor, and, ultimately, a projector. Comics are the vision of a cartoonist, filtered through anything that might leave a mark on paper; the cartoonist sends her work to C’est Bon Anthology, you read it, end of line.

But there’s more: Comics are sequences of images composed and arranged to convey the passing of time graphically, and/or by juxtaposition transcend the meaning of the individual images. Which is quite exactly what the sequential images of a filmstrip can’t do without the projector, and, incidentally, in experiencing the time and space of the movie, we cease to perceive the sequence of the displayed images.

But the notion that film and comics are related on a deeper level is popular, and hard to lay to rest, much like Justin Bieber. What better way, I ask you, than to orchestrate an anthology of comics set to the tune of (no, wait, that’s our next volume!) – to the theme of Motion Picture? Read on, but be aware that we might be spoiling movies for you altogether!

Precipitation

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Think a little bit about how Navy CIS starts every block with the single last frame of that block. Is somebody being a smart-alec or is it subtle foreshadowing?

Silly me, its Navy CIS.

Consider then how the first ten minutes or so of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia basically tells the entire movie in compressed, hyper-aesthetic, symbolic form. Also, how that intro affects your viewing of the film total.

I think that kind of hands-on is generally underused, and is love to try my hand at it. Or just see more of it.

This is THE END!

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I was glancing through Christopher Webster’s “Malus” yesterday, and as always I was struck by the frenetic storytelling and linework. Another thing about Webster’s work is the way he uses almost iconographic symbols,  like a single cartoon star, as a shorthand to decompress the narrative. That gave me an idea for the short comic that follows, called “The End”:

It’s all drawn directly with felt tip pen in my sketchbook. No pencil roughs, no whiteouts or digital edits. Apologies for shaky lines and dodgy execution, it was a matter of  getting the thing down before the idea vapourised.

Basically, I wanted to tell a story of the world coming to an end in as few beats as possible, while maintaining a double narrative. Let me know in the comments if it’s too dense :)

Kottdjur

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While teaching comics at the Holbæk School of Arts last month, I was asked by fellow teacher Christin Johansson to make an assembly instruction for making pine cone animals.

The cone animals are a companion project to Christin’s current ceramics exhibition in Stockholm, and the IKEA-like instructions are included in the exhibition catalog.

I have been an admirer of IKEA manuals forever, and this was a chance to try my hand at the clarity of visual communication they employ.

The little character in the top left corner is lifted directly from the company’s instruction manuals, all else is by me :)

It came to me in a dream

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image1733245168.jpgEddie Campbell’s How to be an artist may be my favorite. Comic. Evah.

He mixes veiled biography and anecdote with a tongue in cheek, future tense second-person narrative mocking how-to manuals, riddled with aphorisms:

“Everybody will be full of unfulfillable promise in the cheery winesodden Friday afternoon of your life when you feel an unbearable nostalgia for events less than a day after they happen. You just see if I’m not wrong, Alex MacGarry. Just see if the Monday morning of your life don’t arrive like a broken elevator.”

(Alec MacGarry being the artist’s alter ego, to whom the instructions are directed)

If it weren’t enough that Campbell is a master of his craft, a razor-sharp critic of the comics medium, and a satyrically inspired autobiographer, his first-hand descriptions of the British comics scene of the 80′s would alone be worth twice the book’s weight in India ink.

“… guys with one eye on the coolometer and myopic guys, dilletantes, pretenders, complete wankers, sweethearts, boy geniuses. They’ll all traffic past you,” and more in-depth portrayals of the people closest to Campbell, er, MacGarry.

Also: the “Bam! Sock! Pow! Comics aren’t for kids anymore!” of the mid- to late 80′s –

“Batman. Well, of course, the whole plot has already gone to fuck as you can see right there. But it’s too late. It’s in the hands of the PR yuppies.”

- and the mess that remains the graphic novel -

“It’s a misnomer, of course, but the so is ‘comic book’ [...] The term will embody the arrival of an idea; a serious intent will be brought into the common comic and remain as a trend through the last quarter of the twentieth century, perhaps further.”

You will need to read this book, at least fifty times. In the end you may have to actually buy it.

In the meantime, Campbell is equally witty and contentious on his blog, Fate of the Artist.

You have been properly instructed, now go be an artist.


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Teaching, day 14

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image1109818281.jpgThis was my view all day :)
I’m a proud little teacher, all remaining students are hard at work at their final product, each by their individual aesthetic and ability.
“Remaining students”, yes. As expected, some have fallen by the wayside, a few even quite recently as the ambitions were raised according to their general accomplishments.
In a relatively short course like this (ie, not an entire term, or even an actual education) there is only time to play catch-up on the students who have the motivation to learn.
Fortunately, those who don’t generally have the courtesy of staying away instead of bothering others with their presence.
I am very excited that my publisher at Brun Blomst and Free Comics, Torben Hansen, is coming by tomorrow to see the almost-finished comics, and hopefully handpick a few for his monthly magazine! Yay!


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Sleepwalking the dog

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image1799076187.jpgOn the last leg of my seemingly endless commute to the art school where I teach comics at the moment, I recently noticed signs like the one pictured marking pathways into a large area of tenements.
The Danish text (which I believe English readers might get a kick out of) translates as “- on a leash” which is a pleonasm; the dog is quite clearly shown to be leashed.
Or what exactly is that thing standing straight out and backwards from it’s neck?
There is no hand holding the loop at the other end, which is hanging limply in the air, trailing slightly after the moving dog (from the not quite horizontal angle of the loop and the gait of the dog, I would guess that it is trotting at a brisk pace).
The only dogs that I know to wear such stiff wrangling gear on their backs are seeing-eye dogs, but I don’t think I have seen a terrier used for that purpose before.
Perhaps it is a seeing-eye dog for blind children? Or small people? Or slightly bigger, blind dogs? Either way, the image of the stray paints a heartbreaking perspective:
Somewhere, its underage (or vertically challenged, or canine; but very definitely blind) dependant is left to fate by their mutt! Alone in a world of eternal darkness and, hopefully, only recent despair!
The burning question of HOW? WHY? is answered by the pictured dog’s lack of eyes. Although many terriers have magnificent eyebrows that need to be trimmed ever so often, we can rest assured that they are not the reason for the invisible eye.
As a helper dog for the blind (and short) it would be certain that the tufts of hair are trimmed regularly. Nor would the creature be of any service if it was one or both eyes short. No, this dog is clearly asleep.
This brings into question the language of the blurb below: even though the signs are posted in a Danish rural town, the surrounding five-floor buildings are commonly held in low status, and are quarter to many friendly foreigners.
Is this image in actuality *not* the polite reminder to restrain the dog, but rather a “wanted” sign for a missing friend, servant, and invaluable assistant?
If the latter is the case, the message “I snore” suddenly makes sense even in this form, garbled by the non-English writer’s deficiency in the only common language of the local populace!
All the more touching is this desperate cry for help, rendered as it is in neatly set type by a visually impaired child (or low-statured adult, or retriever).
If you see this dog roaming the larger Holbæk area, please report to the local police. It should be easily recognizable: it gives off a loud sound akin to the sawing of wood, and is a dark green.


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