comic-creating blather

[johncomic]

I think this link is full of phenomenally good work and phenomenally good advice -- I urge you to check it out if you haven't seen it before and if you're at all interested in the process of cartooning. That being said:

I kinda hafta disagree with the first couple of items, wherein “The Manga Way of Doing Things” is put down, and they say “It's not a style.” I dunno, I think it is a style. Admittedly, it's a style that too many artists adopt slavishly without inputting any of their own uniqueness into it, perhaps.

But I feel that the manga way, of using symbology and iconography in place of rendering, is still a valid way of approaching comic drawing. And it's a method that undeniably connects powerfully with (and communicates powerfully to) a large audience. If your goal is to create a comic that communicates, then manga style is still a strong and valid approach -- one of many -- that can still be considered, rather than simply dismissed as “not really drawing” like I feel is being done here.

Comments

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

the manga way, of using symbology and iconography in place of rendering... undeniably connects powerfully with (and communicates powerfully to) a large audience

I wonder how far you could take this principle. Suppose, for instance, that instead of drawing something similar to

=)

on someone's face to represent happiness, you simply wrote

happy

on that face instead.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

Something very similar to this was used by some artists in the old days. They would clarify mood by having a word like “joy” or “gloom” hover near the person's face like a sound effect. Its relative lack of sophistication [I presume] caused it to fall into general disuse years ago, though.