CCT300+Comic+Creation

CCT300 Comic Creation Assignment ** A Remix of Comic and Manga ** Professor Michael Jones Gabriella Yangyi Guo University of Toronto Mississauga The comics I’ve created can be construed as a hybrid between Japanese manga and North American cartoons. I chose to integrate these two forms of media not merely because of personal preference but also as attempt to resonate the act of remixing genres and styles that is consistent with the Internet culture. Growing up under the influence of anime and Disney films, I was artistically inspired and dreamt of becoming an animator who could create something that best represent both the East and the West. That dream soon became a global phenomenon; with the advent of “The Avatar: The last Air Bender” and “Scott Pilgrim”, appropriating Japanese anime style within a context of Western comics seem to be becoming the norm. However it is worth noting that initially, both manga and comics differ greatly in terms of artistic style and narrative approach. By citing Scott McCloud’s conceptual frameworks discussed in “Understanding Comics” (1993) and referencing some of the visual techniques employed in my personal favorite web comics - “Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name” (HnBn), this paper examines the design direction I took in creating the two pages of my comic. Overall, the visual style strikes a mid-ground between Western comics and Japanese anime. Accroding to McCloud’s diagram of “Pictorial Vocabulary”, it may lie somewhere in the middle, or even closer to the “reality” over the “symbol” side. The art also varies depend on the contexts, as the characters do not look consistent through out the scenes. There are moments when the characters “revert” from better-rendered and realistic stature to more simplified, “chibi” form. (Notice the physical change of both character “Gabe” and the shorthaired black girl in the second panel on the first page). A “chibi “is a juvenile or miniature version of a character. It is a technique often used in manga and anime to emphasize the cuteness and occasionally the awkwardness of a character. Another pronounced aspect of the comic is the use of strokes, color and pattern to indicate mood. In the last two panels on the first page, I incorporated gradients and pre-made screen tones to portray the psychological disturbia the characters are experiencing. In addition, the strokes on the letter as well as its corresponding speech bubbles also act as visual cues that inform readers of the state of mind the character is in at the moment. For example, the spikes on the word “little” and the funny looking bubble tail that seems to be puffed out from Gabe’s mouth mirror her shaky voice. The readers, for a second could almost “hear” her quiver muttering by looking at the unstable lines. This, as mentioned by McCloud (1993), underlines comics’ greatest and most mysterious function, – it’s ability to activate all of readers’ senses through one single modality – vision. Finally, I attempt to draw “outside the box” and play around with the panel layout. I try to adopt the dynamic composition displayed in HnBn. (hanna.aftertorque.com) I deliberately make the first and last panel borderless (to both enhance the overpowering effect of the explosion and the confronting attitude of the character “Carlo”). I also present an almost-whole figure of Carlo and placed on top of its adjacent panels to bring forth the character’s persona. The curvilinear outline of the second and third panel border creates a sense of motion in support of the plot. It can also be interpreted as a way of framing the scene to make it look more as if it is captured on a panoptic camera. My comic is far from perfect. The anatomy of Gabe and Carlo isn’t as accurate in the first panel first page. The background still needs to be rendered with more details. However, what I am most satisfied about my comic is the appropriation of manga stylization: the sudden transition from a normal character to Chibi figure, a random twist of mood from being playful to dead serious all of a sudden, the use of icons and decorative lines around the finger and the head to highlight the character’s spark of realization. Working on this comic project certainly enlightened me on how two forms of sequential art could merge. I look forward to further explore this topic in the future.

References McCloud, Scott (1993). //Understanding Comics: The invisible art.// United States of America: Harper Collins. Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name: []