Week 7 The Production of Comic Books

I had a look at the production of comic books during this week as well as had a look at Reading 8 and did a little bit of research on the Graphic Novel.

The method of production and reproduction was my main focus for this week. I had a look at the study activity questions and answered them to the best of my ability. I have a very strong opinion about the comic book and I believe that a more, how should I word this, a more desirable product is produced when there is a team of artists working on it. Although working individually is quite good for smaller comic projects, and more personal projects, the higher end comics need a large group to work fluidly in order to produce the desired product by the deadline. However there are some distinct disadvantages to working in a team environment. More often than not there is a ‘clash of the titans’ of sorts. There will always be a person, or minority of the team that disagrees with the proposal. This doesn’t occur when working individually. However, this can also be considered a disadvantage of working individually. There is nobody else to bounce ideas/concepts off in order to produce the most desirable effect.

I also had a look at a variety of different comics, ranging from personal and low key comics, such as Cyanide and Happiness, to older style comics such as X-Men and Wonder Woman. I also had a look at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics so I could compare and contrast the techniques of production and how these can effect the visual appearance of the comic. Looking at the comic page below from Wonder Woman it is clear that is it a far later comic than that of the X-Men, because of the ‘poor’ quality of the imagery and the lack of clean cut lines. This, I believe, is largely related to printing and drawing styles.

Moving on the Graphic Novel now. A graphic novel is a type of comic book, usually with a lengthy and complex storyline similar to those of novels. The three graphic novel titles that are considered to be important in the development of the graphic novel were Batman- The Dark Knight Returns, written by Frank Miller, Watchmen(1987) by Alan Moore and David Gibbons, and Maus by Art Spiegelman. The most memorable out of these three for me was Maus, which is used as a reference in my essay for this subject. It is a very touching and disturbing tale, the biography of the author’s father.

Although I enjoyed having a look at all of the different comic books and graphic novels I didn’t really feel like I could much out of this study activity. However, I did enjoy studying Maus and I enjoyed the brief study so much that I actually went out and hired the novel out to have a read of it. I was captured by it immediately and couldn’t put it down until I had finished it.