Dimension/Depth/Space

For this weeks Blog Exercise I chose a page from one of the web-comics I read, Gutters Issue 45.  The background of the website makes use of lots of overlap with pens, pencils, brushes and erasers on the edges of the comic page. Tone and line also help to give these artists tools a perceived 3-dimensional quality. Navigation is located at the bottom of the page and sort of makes use of overlap. My favorite is an inkblot behind the papers and ruler near the top. I also like that the add banner is set within the ruler. Inside the page the artist uses linear perspective and simulates atmospheric perspective in panels 1 and 6.  He also uses overlap with a characters foot in panel 1, one character over another in panel 3, and the noise words of panel 4.  Panel 5 makes use of relative size and overlap to show characters at a distance behind a dying civilian in the foreground.   Relative size and height simulates the distance between the characters of frame 6 combined with some overlap and linear perspective to make it the most complicated and interesting panel.

Week 6: Syntactical Guidelines - Success and Failure Pancakes

- Failure Pancakes -

The first panel is nearly indistinguishable from the second panel.  The main subject, G, of the panel crosses from panel 1 into panel 3, but is still behind V, the main subject of panel 2, which causes confusion with the reader.  It appears as though G and V are fighting back to back, but they're not, for in the far right corner of panel 2 you see that G is shooting at V.  The backgrunds of panels 1 and 2 are also a similar pinkish tone causing them to blend.  In Panel 3 all the motion travels against the flow of reading (left-right, top-down) and in panel 4 the motion moves in an arc back towards panel 2, not down to panel 5.  Panel 5 sits in the fore ground as an out line of V, which is also slightly confusing because overlaps panel 3. Panel 6, the last, is the muted pinkish again making it difficult to distinguish but the white of the "Thwup" draws attention leading down to G shooting from the corner of the page implying the turning of the page.  In general the page fails because the artist tried to use to many tricks of characters coming in and out of the panels and foreground,  the motion countering the way we read.  The panels are unclear, not balanced and cluttered with no symmetry guide the reader.   I can imagine what the artist was trying to create, a sort of chaos of battle, but there is so much chaos the reader is unable to tell whats going on.

-Success!!! -

This page is much clearer.  The fist panel is an establishing shot of a palace with a river that flows with the way we read.  The middle frame follows the fire flowing from someones arm in the fore ground across the panel, again following the flow of reading.  In the 3rd panel the fire circles around the main subject ending at a word bubble that points to another word bubble in panel 4.  In panel 4 the reader continues to follow the fire around the frame to bottom right corner and last word bubble.  At which point the reader may decide to turn the page or follow the fire around the frame and backwards though the comic.  The panels are arranged symmetrically keeping the page clear/clean. Within each panel is a balance, such as in the first with the palace on the left and narration on the right.