Art Spiegelman's "Maus"

Maus seems to focus on a lot of narrative, and doesn't prioritize the drawings as much as the story being told so alot of Art Spiegelman's drawings in this specific novel are quite simplistic. He uses icons to depict his characters as animals with a few lines (as opposed to comics like "BlackSad" which goes past simplistic style). That being said Spiegelman's depiction of his father's pained journey through a simple style, has become iconic. I tried to do something similar by briefly depicting some facts about my grandparents' escape from Fidel Castro's governing.

Underground Comix & Robert Crumb

I was inspired by Robert Crumb’s cross hatching style and tendency to over-detail crude drawings. I also focused on a lot of his “inflated” sort of stylizations (Keep on Truckin’, Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural) as opposed to his more near realistic, and darker works. I was also inspired by other underground comics that aimed at cartoonier yet adult sort of styles (Freak Brothers).

Will Eisner

Eisner’s work tends to have rather realistic characters (although simplified and exaggerated to some extent for appeal’s sake) and very dramatic lighting (or inking in this case). Thick lines emphasize a very dramatic mood (be it noir or action) in his work. I mainly used his detective type comics, which seems highly inspired by 1940’s noir cinematography, as reference to my comic.

Carl Barks

This comic page was inspired by Carl Bark's work, specifically his Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck comics. I mainly focused on what kind of characters he often included in the comics, his stylization and how most pages of his comics (although are part of a recurring story) end with a sort of joke, or conflict.

Comic Strips

This is inspired by Popeye comic strips specifically. Not just inspired by the sailor theme however, I mainly focused on the slang or visual language they often went with. A lot of strips back int he day have very slurred sort of dialogue with tons of abbreviations (which make you want to read it out loud) and many of them (Like Popeye) had speed lines and sound effects illustrated in the strip.

The joke isn't all too great in this, but most comic strips back then have rather formulaic gags, as opposed to modern gag comics (such as Kate Beaton's work and KC Green's Gunshow). Comic strips tend to be formed by a set up, a conflict and then a punchline or pay off.

Comics Theory

Unlike the “silent” graphic novel I wrote about in my last post, I made a “gag” sort of silent 4-panel comic. I studied “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud and what grabbed me was the different type of transitions. This strip uses a “Aspect to Aspect” transition, since it focuses on different things in a place. McCloud also describes the importance of other aspects in comics such as icons. 

Also, creating a wordless comic sort of taught me about how important it is to be clear and to not depend on the safety of text when creating a visual story.