This week we learned about one of my favorite comic artists Winsor McCay, and the overall effect of the comic strip movement. Nemo in Slumberland, along with other comics that came around this time, showed the interest in reading comics instead of other forms of literature, which is cool because they could create a lot of work and make great money for it. Artists like Winsor McCay who were fast enough to create lots of work would make that much more money because of how much content he produced. McCay was able to create a complete world by producing a lot of stuff for Nemo, and even to this day people care about his work.
Monday, February 22, 2016
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
First blog post for this class! The overall excitement for the class as settled down a bit and due to some unforeseen circumstances it seems as though I'm getting a bit of a late start on it, but that should be cleared up and caught up eventually.
The idea behind works like Shaun Tan's "The Arrival" is almost like a literal depiction of the idea behind a picture being worth 1000 words. There is potential to have more to say with just illustrations, so adding any text wouldn't help at all. I have a strong appreciation for the work and approach that Shaun Tan did. He is one of my influences when it comes to communicating a good narrative. The Arrival had moments in it that could have been easily misunderstood, like the parts where he was out looking for a job, and he couldn't really find an easy way of communicating his need to work. In fact, the ways that Shaun Tan showed how the main character was communicating was pretty smart with his hand gestures and facial expressions. Half the time he didn't understand what was going on and would make these confused facial expressions.
Something that made a lot of sense to me when it came to how the narrative was shown, was how alien-like the new world seemed to the main character. The shape language that Shaun Tan decided to use for more hostile creatures and objects could make someone feel really uncomfortable and shows how foreign the whole places seems and feels.
Overall, artistically it's easy to see that Shaun Tan has the ability to not only illustrate well, but his communication techniques are what drive his narrative abilities home. He's a smart guy who understands how to present his work in the graphic novel format.
The idea behind works like Shaun Tan's "The Arrival" is almost like a literal depiction of the idea behind a picture being worth 1000 words. There is potential to have more to say with just illustrations, so adding any text wouldn't help at all. I have a strong appreciation for the work and approach that Shaun Tan did. He is one of my influences when it comes to communicating a good narrative. The Arrival had moments in it that could have been easily misunderstood, like the parts where he was out looking for a job, and he couldn't really find an easy way of communicating his need to work. In fact, the ways that Shaun Tan showed how the main character was communicating was pretty smart with his hand gestures and facial expressions. Half the time he didn't understand what was going on and would make these confused facial expressions.
Something that made a lot of sense to me when it came to how the narrative was shown, was how alien-like the new world seemed to the main character. The shape language that Shaun Tan decided to use for more hostile creatures and objects could make someone feel really uncomfortable and shows how foreign the whole places seems and feels.
Overall, artistically it's easy to see that Shaun Tan has the ability to not only illustrate well, but his communication techniques are what drive his narrative abilities home. He's a smart guy who understands how to present his work in the graphic novel format.
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