I went to the school library for the first time since last semester - I wasn't certain whether I still owed them late fees or not, so I stayed away for a while - and while looking for books on Mexico City, Mayans and Aztecs for my senior project, I stepped into the comics aisle to see if there was anything new. There were a few books there that I hadn't seen, but the only things that really grabbed my attention were V For Vendetta, which I had already read (thank you, Mr. Gaughen), but thought Marilyn might be interested in reading since she asks whether we should rent the movie whenever we go to Blockbuster; and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. I'd never read the latter - it's an odd-looking oversized book, produced in prime McKean style, and the subject matter (Punch and Judy shows) always struck me as fairly creepy, which is, of course, the point. I dimly recall reading somewhere that it was either Gaiman's or McKean's favorite book that they'd done, so being in a bit of a dark mood lately anyway (my Silent Hill soundtracks have been getting a lot of play this week), I decided to give it a read.

As you might imagine, it's good. It's got a meandering narrative, dealing with the protagonist's childhood experiences living with his grandparents in an English seaside resort town and his frequent encounters with a Punch and Judy show "professor." As I finished the book I reflected on the fact that McKean manages to convey moods and narrative expertly, sometimes with as little in a panel as a couple of scratches on black background. It's fairly wordy, but the words never weigh the thing down, and before long, you find you've adjusted to the quirky style of it and the words and images meld together. I also thought about the way that Gaiman uses theme and expresses it so poetically. I feel hamfisted in comparison, and my project feels rigid, awkward, and terribly cliché after I read something like this.

Now, granted, my project is genre fiction (cop story) intended only to showcase my ability to draw modern-day material. I've also adopted the attitude that I need to understand how the conventions of the medium and the genre work - and be able to pull it off myself - before I can start playing with it, tweaking it, and coming up with something wholly unusual that will still work. So I'm trying to resign myself to embracing the cliché, at least for the time being. I want to become familiar enough with it that I can know how to do the unexpected, like Joss Whedon does with his stuff. Like Mrs. Berg said in English class, "You have to know the rules before you can know how and when to break them." Granted, she was talking about grammar and punctuation in fiction, but the principle still applies.

Still, when I'm in the right mood, this stuff inspires and encourages me. That's how it should happen. When I'm in the wrong mood, it's intimidating and depressing. I know I can't just leap to the end result without hacking through the crap that lines the path there, no matter how much I'd like to. Knowing and accepting are two different things, though.

In my senior project class, someone was passing books around. I thumbed through a copy of The Interman by Jeff Parker, a local artist. I'd read it before, and liked it - it's got a very "Mission: Impossible" feel to it, with a touch of "Johnny Quest" that gives it an odd retro feel, even though it's set in the present. I had heard a while ago that it's being optioned for a movie adaptation; I hope it succeeds in doing so, because it would make a pretty good action/espionage movie. But I noticed one of the major flaws in the book (in my opinion, anyway): the narrative flow suffers significantly because the transitions between pages are so choppy. You'll be reading a page, following the story flow, and when you turn the page you think you've accidentally flipped a page or two ahead. It feels like you've jumped ahead in the story, missing a few panels of action. It's difficult for me to describe here beyond what I've already said; suffice to say, it seemed jarringly apparent to me. Narrative flow is one of those things you don't really think about when you read a comic - at least, I never gave it any consideration - because if it's done well, you're not supposed to notice it. It can be done poorly; it takes more thought than you may imagine.

I made this discovery as I sat down to begin drawing my comic. Until now, I've been hammering out the script, and now that I'm prepared (well, not really, but I'm running out of time and I've planned 24 penciled pages) to actually draw the sucker, I find my visual narrative skills feel a bit rusty. I was going to open on a splash page - that's a full-page illustration - to establish the setting and opening circumstances, but aside from struggling with what angle to draw the scene from, I was finding the whole thing a little...I don't know, blunt, I guess. My teacher/advisor, Barb, sat down with me and after looking over the 10+ sketches I'd done in the margins of the Bristol Board and on a piece of scratch paper, began to recall a Batman comic which opened on a similar scene, but used a few panels of relatively close-up shots to lead the reader into the scene. It had Commissioner Gordon walking along a bridge and descending a set of stairs into this big urban scene, which Barb said made for an effective way of guiding the reader into it. It made sense, and now I'm trying to do something similar, but of course I can't just copy that, and it's tough to cram all the visual information in that I need.

My art instructors, over the years, have labored to make me draw BIG, to enlarge my drawings and not be afraid to use huge pieces of paper to draw things. Now I'm finding that my ability to draw little details has deserted me. I'm deathly afraid to draw anything small in a comics panel because I fear it will either appear too cramped and indistinct or that it will just be far too much work. Thanks a lot, guys. I'm inspired by Pat's work in this arena (as well as in many others, of course), because he takes some measure of delight in including all the fiddly little details in the background that make the scene seem more real and interesting to look at...not to mention sometimes amusing. He handles these things with such a quick hand and makes it look like fun. I want to recapture that ability, the desire to just doodle stuff in and put in a lot of it, because I'm uncomfortable with some of the big, blank spaces I have in some of my work. Pat and his mentor, Doug Mahnke, have been inspirational in this respect. Now if I could just figure out how to do it myself.

Enough angst for now. I've got a website to design by 1:00 PM.