All PostsOver at his blog, Ben Towle, in discussing layouts and finishes asks of a particular panel:
Now, why can’t I just write “breathtaking view” and be done with it instead of having to draw hundreds of buildings!?
I’d hazard that he could. I’ve posted a few times about comic artists using words as a descriptive part of an image, for instance in my ComixTalk column about text in comics. This type of thing might be considered “cheating” but on the other hand as a writer “cheating” if he describes something? It’s just another level of word-image interaction for comics to explore.
The advantage of using text to say “breathtaking view” is that it directly conveys the point, while an artists attempt at a breathtaking view may not necessarily be so breathtaking and instead we just get a view.
For what it’s worth, I also agree with Ben that the planning (narrative, thumbnails, etc) is the more engaging aspect of making comics rather than the actual drawing part. That’s why I think I end up rushing a lot of the actual drawing when I’m working on Things Change.
there is an unfortunate tendency in comics to equate drawing with illustration.
Writing “breathtaking view” would generally be, well, not good, because you’re telling, not showing. Not to mention using a cliche. It would be just as bad using it in a novel, instead of carefully describing the view. And it would be kind of lazy. If you’re doing it once, ironically, fine, but the point there is that you’re doing it ironically…
As for thumbnails, etc., am I the only cartoonist who finds inking the most exciting part of the job? I also think my favorite comics are exactly the ones where I can tell the artist found the drawing to be the most engaging aspect: Gary Panter, Tony Millionaire, Kirby, Ditko. Going back to a comparison with novels, what if Flaubert had thought that the planning is the exciting part and the writing is just a drag? On the other hand, Queneau did say something like that, and he still came up with some pretty amazing books.
“Show, don’t tell” is an arbitrary rule – there’s no reason you can’t choose “tell” over “show” if you thnk you can make it work. One of the rules of Classical drama was that action took place off-stage and the characters on-stage revealed what had happened in their dialogue. That was another arbitrary rule, of course, but they made it work.
As far as plotting and thumbnails go, I deliberately break down making my webcomics into as few stages as possible. If I plot, then script, then thumbnail, then pencil, then ink, each stage robs the finished piece of immediacy and vitality, and the process of fun.
For my current comic, The Cattle Raid of Cooley, I wrote an outline and am improvising it in ink, page by page, based on that (for the prequel, Ness, I didn’t even bother with an outline, but it was a shorter story with fewer characters). The only other preparation I do is if I have to draw something I’m not familiar with, I’ll find reference and sketch until I know what it looks like and I’m confident I can draw it from memory.
(Pre-rush out the door comment:)
I agree with Patrick on the issue of “show v. tell”. It’s arbitrary and if you really examine the issue the two categories are artificial. The concept is most often applied to writing, where, in a great sense, everything is “tell.”
I think Genette has some good arguments about this, I should look up again.
I do agree, Andrei, that writing “breathtaking view” would be cliche, it’s not the best example. My point is that we can use words in comics that way. I should be adding that it should be an effective use.
I can appreciate both sides of the planning/drawing(writing) aspect. For me, the planning is the part that really has me thinking more. The drawing is fun, but it’s a different kind of activity.
Well, I’m not saying that “show, don’t tell” is a hard and fast rule, but as for every aesthetic rule out there, there is a reason it was formulated. That reason does not apply in every single case, but here it definitely would.
[...] My previous post about using words instead of images (borrowing an example from Ben Towle) was a bit of a throwaway post, a brief thought that I did not elaborate. Thanks to some of my insightful commenters, I am forced to give more thought to my post. [...]