Comic books

R

Rob Harding

Well-Known Member
Comics. Graphic novels. Call them what you will. Have any ever been in the mix for Signum study?

As an avid fan/reader/collector I often find them the overlooked stepchild of literature. A theme that unites many of the areas of study when it comes to Mythgard selection. Has anything from this entire medium of art been considered?

Just wondering really.
 
As there’s no buzz I’m going to run one myself of the composition of Watchmen as an intro class and how it utilise then medium in ways other media can’t lol
 
Being a comic book writer myself, I'd be very interested in this, if you do it. And Watchmen is the perfect place to start. Amazing book.
 
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Oh, love that you're a comics writer. What have you written? Very interested. I was joking, I haven't the capacity to really run a course. But I am interested if others would want to study and if Signum faculty have ever considered it. I know comic books are studied at college level but not widely. It was certainly never a taught element when I studied English. I wish at the time I'd made comics the focus of my dissertation.

Yes, Watchmen is lauded as the best comic ever written to the point of being a joke, but I think more than the story itself, it's the way it uses panels and page layouts and the mirroring of visual imagery with the written word that is such a masterclass in how the form of comics operates.
 
Rob Harding said:
Oh, love that you're a comics writer. What have you written? Very interested. I was joking, I haven't the capacity to really run a course. But I am interested if others would want to study and if Signum faculty have ever considered it. I know comic books are studied at college level but not widely. It was certainly never a taught element when I studied English. I wish at the time I'd made comics the focus of my dissertation.

Yes, Watchmen is lauded as the best comic ever written to the point of being a joke, but I think more than the story itself, it's the way it uses panels and page layouts and the mirroring of visual imagery with the written word that is such a masterclass in how the form of comics operates.
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I write a comic called Collapse for a very small publisher called Rising Sun Comics. It's my only published work as of now, but I have dabbled in screenplays and novels as well. Mostly in fantasy/scifi.

Watchmen would be a great place to start a series such as this on graphic novels/comics. A few others would be the Saga series or the Sandman. I've listened to quite a few of the courses, though, and dont recall any comics coming up.

I'd still love for Corey to go through the Imaginarium Geographica books one day.
 
Saga snd Sandman are music to my ears lol

I’ve heard of Rising Sun. Possibly it popped up on comixology? Where can I find Collapse.

Id love to get into comics but no idea how to find artists honestly. I’m currently focusing on screenplays and working on a horror feature atm.

I want to go stare at panels of Watchmen again now lol incidentally, here are two of my favourite pages in the series. And every panel in issue 5. That issue is an absolute masterpiece of form, composition and layout
 

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Rob Harding said:
Saga snd Sandman are music to my ears lol

I’ve heard of Rising Sun. Possibly it popped up on comixology? Where can I find Collapse.

Id love to get into comics but no idea how to find artists honestly. I’m currently focusing on screenplays and working on a horror feature atm.

I want to go stare at panels of Watchmen again now lol incidentally, here are two of my favourite pages in the series. And every panel in issue 5. That issue is an absolute masterpiece of form, composition and layout
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Collapse is available almost anywhere. Comixology, Drivethrucomics, kindle, etc.

I was lucky enough that Rising Sun paired us up with some artists. Most publishers want a team already assembled. You've got to be able to come up with money to pay an artist for at least the initial pitch, but also find a reliable artist. I'm working on a couple of comic pitches as well as starting a novel for NaNoWriMo currently.

Watchmen is probably THE masterwork of comics that will likely never be equaled. Is issue 5 Fearful Symmetry? Where the entire issue is a mirror image of itself? The way they used the 9 panel grid was also masterful. Even how they laid out clues for the plot in the extra material in the back of each issue.
 
Rob Harding said:
Yup that’s issue 5. And the amount of panels condense and there’s a single character at the centre of it. Just gorgeous.

In terms of NaNoWriMo, may I present this as an alternative:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1455822161810272260

followed by:
https://soundcloud.com/timclare%2Fsets%2Fcouch-to-80k-writing-boot-camp

It’s honestly one of the best writing resources available
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Yes, that issue, like many of Watchmen is impeccable. That issue also has the only example of them breaking the 9 panel grid for an action shot (that middle of the book spread) rather than as an establishing shot.

In terms of NaNoWriMo, I'm not a huge advocate for it. I've been a "member" for like 4 years, but this is the first year I'm taking part of it. But I'm not competing with anyone, I'm just using it as a motivational tool. I have been in a pretty bad place, writing-wise since the pandemic started. A lot of people talk about how they used the time off to write. But I've worked all the way through it, and bought a house about a year ago. So I'm basically using it to get into a groove again, because I have been extremely unproductive for almost two years. I wrote a first issue for a book I'm going to hopefully pitch soon, and worked on outlining and such on other projects I'm lining up. The one I'm working on for NaNo is one that I've been sitting on an outline for, for about 10 years. It was originally a screenplay I started, then decided I wanted to do it as a comic (and wrote the first issue for) but have decided to do it as a novel. I'm just using NaNo as a motivation to actually start putting pen to paper.

I will give that podcast a listen, seems interesting.
 
Lots of different types within a very wide genre. As a kid i used to read some of the marvel and dc comics, spiderman, captain america, x-men, conan the barbarian , ninja turtles along with french and belgic comics such as lucky luke, asterix, tintin...

Later i got a bit more into the adult graphic novel stuff, i have issues of Kabuki, james o'barr's the crow, tank girl, Xoco. I did read some Neil gaiman sandman and Hellblazer too.

The most stunning graphic novel i had read the past years was actually the adaption of do androids dream of electric sheep (aka bladerunnet) ... full text of the novel, completely illustrated.

As for Signum university... cannot say a lot about their courses and so shouldn't.
 
Octoburn said:
Yes, that issue, like many of Watchmen is impeccable. That issue also has the only example of them breaking the 9 panel grid for an action shot (that middle of the book spread) rather than as an establishing shot.

In terms of NaNoWriMo, I'm not a huge advocate for it. I've been a "member" for like 4 years, but this is the first year I'm taking part of it. But I'm not competing with anyone, I'm just using it as a motivational tool. I have been in a pretty bad place, writing-wise since the pandemic started. A lot of people talk about how they used the time off to write. But I've worked all the way through it, and bought a house about a year ago. So I'm basically using it to get into a groove again, because I have been extremely unproductive for almost two years. I wrote a first issue for a book I'm going to hopefully pitch soon, and worked on outlining and such on other projects I'm lining up. The one I'm working on for NaNo is one that I've been sitting on an outline for, for about 10 years. It was originally a screenplay I started, then decided I wanted to do it as a comic (and wrote the first issue for) but have decided to do it as a novel. I'm just using NaNo as a motivation to actually start putting pen to paper.

I will give that podcast a listen, seems interesting.
Click to expand...

I totally understand the feeling that everyone got on with creative pursuits during lockdown. I have lots of friends who are self employed artists so lockdown was very hard. But on the other hand, I worked full time and didn’t have mental bandwidth to create for most of it. Starting a course this year compelled me to and was immensely useful.

Tim Clare is incredibly mental health positive snd has such a balanced healthy snd inspiring approach to writing. And I really like his novels. Thumbs up from me.

Lockdown did provide the perfect opportunity to read a tonne of comics. Found some real gems.
 
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