Yes, Carnivale is finally available in print. I mailed most of them to Toronto for the TCAF, but I have some left to sell now. See the books page for the Paypal link.
This is what I have created for the second assignment in the on-line class I’m taking. We were told to take an object or an image and then change it into something else, and then change it back into itself again.
The first assignment for the on-line class I’m taking is due. This week’s lectures have all been about world building in art and our assignment was to create a still life considering the ideas brought up in the class.
And my students just turned in their research papers this week.
So I decided to do something about that conflict in my life: work and art. I decided to create a paper doll of myself that would carry my drawing pen. I used to make paper dolls as a kid and recently I’ve been inspired by the paper animation by Jamie Caliri and the maquettes by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
And here’s the final image…
I’m taking an on-line class titled Live!: a History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers. We’re just getting into the second week, but each week has a suggested sketchbook assignment. So here’s my response to the first one:
Okay, first read this. It’s a translation of an article by Barthélémy Schwartz about the defining characteristic of comics.
I’ll wait here until you’re done.
…
Finished?
Okay, so this reminds me of my old idea that comics are metonymy. With metonymy, a part or a related concept of a larger idea stands in for that idea. This can be seen visually in comics all the time. The minimalist backgrounds of someone like Jaime Hernandez are a good example. The backgrounds are often just simple lines and silhouettes that stand in for something like an entire neighborhood. So a part stands in for a whole. Yet this is done in painting as well, and so doesn’t seem like a fundamental enough idea.
So let’s move away from the individual panel or even the act of drawing itself. As Schwartz says, comics are created when “juxtaposed local images” make up “a global image.” For instance, we could have a panel of someone throwing a ball and another panel of another person catching a ball. As readers, we understand that it is the same ball in each panel and that the one person is throwing it to the other. Also, if they are dressed in uniforms, we may assume the act is part of a larger game, which brings in the related idea of other players and perhaps spectators. So these juxtaposed parts are pieced together and create a narrative larger than the pieces themselves. I would call this metonymy.
I’m not the first to say this. According to Ann Miller in her book Reading Bande Dessinée, Roman Jakobson first applied the concept of metonymy to visual art. Yet his understanding seems more akin to the first one I described above, which doesn’t capture what is special about comics from other visual art. Miller also says that “Fresnault-Deruelle has called [comics] a ‘metonymic machine’” (78). Still, as Miller goes on to describe this idea all her examples are of individual panels. For instance, she discusses how speed lines have become a grammatical element to stand in for speed.
But what I mean by metonymy in comics is more akin to what Schwartz says about individual images making a global image. The structure of comics itself is metonymic. The reader takes discrete images that relate to a larger idea to understand that larger idea. Related details stand in for a larger whole. This act is essential to being able to read comics. So it is a fundamental component of how the art form functions.
I just received a new print run of “Defrost” in preparation for the TCAF, and you can order yourself one. Just click on the cover to be directed to the books page.
