Symposium Response: I Buy to Belong

La Danse d'Argent

I don't know why I bother

EC War Comic Pastiche

Here's my somewhat sardonic pastiche of a 1950s EC 'new wave' war comic. 'Two-Fisted Tales' and 'Frontline Combat' were two war titles edited, written and given layouts by Harvey Kurtzman, one of the few outstanding talents in comics history. The stories range from straight out heroism to more thoughtful tales which far from glorify combat. They were way ahead of their time both in their message, which was that war ain't that great, and in their technical achievements, which have arguably yet to be surpassed. EC were the first comics to allow artists to draw as themselves, rather than in the 'house style'. This approach allowed creators to create their own fanbases, and meant the EC artists vied to outdo each other in artistic excellence. The style I'm going for here is obviously modelled on Harvey Kurtzman himself, though I would need a few more years practice to match his skill with a brush. The fact that I'm working in the computer age means that I could apply zipatone (dots) effect with photoshop and do the lettering very quickly.

Mid Point Review (Part Time Group)

1. Evaluation of my project proposal as part of a self directed programme of study.

I think my project proposal has been a good starting point for my work, but it has changed quite a lot. Originally I wanted to do work which related to immigration detention. As I was doing work which was based on comics, I wanted to see how these could intersect. I later found this idea a bit prescriptive, so I took the ideas that came out of the concept of detention: borders, being stuck, frustration and confusion, and started doing some work around this. This has proved a lot more fruitful for me.

2. Where I need to develop study plans in relation to the Unit 1 learning outcomes

I think I could pin my proposal down a bit more and make it more specific. I'm also interested in being more experimental in my use of materials and presentation. I think before I used to think of presentation as a kind of step that I would take after I finished working, and not a very interesting one. Now I am interested in creating a finished thing, and making the form of that thing influence the content in some way.

Work in Progress

I'm preparing a short book for an alternative press fair at the end of the month. Here's some stuff I'm working on. Any comments would be welcome!

Roughs, Roughs

I thought it might be interesting for the hundreds of people who read my blog to see the byproduct of a day's work. Generally, before I start doing anything, I fill up pages with words and doodles out of which sometimes something interesting comes.

Joost Swarte

I subscribe to the New Yorker, mainly because they sometimes have good cartoons in there which can repay careful study. Joost Swarte's work is interesting. His style is classic ligne claire and very heavily influenced by Herge (well, who isn't?).

In the the strip excerpt below, we can see a joke working on several levels. As the protagonist talks to his (presumed) girlfriend, her body language from panel to panel displays increasing exasperation with his incessant talking, before turning out the light in the last panel. The guy is talking about his penchant for picking up knick knacks  and bringing them home for inspiration. Here, Swarte plays with the idea that in a comic book story it is minor variations in a panel that tell a story. The first time you read the strip, the room seems identical in each panel. But as you reread, you realise that the objects are different in each panel: on the bookcase, the table, above the cupboard. Of course this reinforces the idea that there is a proliferation of junk in the flat. As the artist himself comments in panel 5 "it's hard to concentrate when there's all this stuff around" - possibly leading to the inconsistencies between panels. This is a subtle and perfectly realised comics page, because the visual language is reinforcing the story in a very clever way. It's also a really good example of something which just wouldn't work in any other medium, even animation (where you would not have the luxury of going back to examine previous panels).

Lounge Lizard