Jim Steranko: "Harnessing Mythology: Reflections on Narrative Theory"

I greatly enjoyed reading Steranko's article; it was interesting to learn about the approach of a professional comic book artist/author. Some of the techniques mentioned were in fact techniques I frequently employ, such as viewing each scene "on the movie screen of imagination" or listening to music while working that corresponds to the scene at hand. But the portion of the article that struck me the most was at the end, where Steranko went through a page with panel-by-panel explanations. It was incredible to see just how important each line of each panel was--not a single one out of place. Something so easy to take in at a glance had an amazing amount of thought put into it. I personally have never given panel layouts very much thought, just tossing in characters and props almost haphazardly. As an amateur, I could easily see where my attempts at comic-drawing fall short compared to the work process of a professional. This article was both insightful and inspiring, and I plan to keep some of Steranko's advice in mind on my next project.

Past/Present/Future

On the right is panel 64 from Frans Masereel's "The City" (found here). On the left is an image I created depicting a possible "before" image to match Masereel's "after" image--the calm night sky before the storm of fireworks, with a single rocket shooting upwards to herald the upcoming activity. I also altered the house on the left side of each image; when the night appears calm, the house is quiet and still, but after the fireworks begin a woman looks outside to view the festivities. I chose to use a darker black for my image than the greyish-black in Masereel's image, to emphasize how much light the fireworks bring to the scene.

Poetry as Comics

For this assignment, students were to create 12-panel comics. Each pair of panels had to begin with "I used to believe..." and end with "...but now I know..." I chose to design my comic around important themes and lessons from popular manga and anime that I enjoy (that's what I get for looking at the word "believe" in the assignment description, and then looking at a picture of Kamina--believe in you who believes in yourself!). On each of the "...but now I know..." panels is the face of the main character of the series the text is referring to. Coming up with a concept was simple enough, but laying out the panels and the characters was far more difficult; I had trouble deciding if the panels should all combine into one image, or if individual images for each panel would be a better approach. In the end, I went with the one-image-for-all-panels idea, as it was easier to incorporate the characters using that method.

All characters belong to their respective owners. From the beginning of the comic to the end:
Light Yagami, Death Note
Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist
Tohru Honda, Fruits Basket
Sena Kobayakawa, Eyeshield 21
Kamina, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann