Research Point : narrative and drawing comparisons

In this research point, the aim is to compare the relationship between narrative and style of drawing being used in either a comic book, cartoon or graphic novel.

I love comics and graphic novels, i’m by no means a nerd though and i’m pretty particular about what I read. I appreciate many older comic artists and genres which are less accessible these days, mostly horror and underground type comics. I’ve collected a few sought after editions of comics, but nothing mainstream such as marvel superheroes or DC.

There’re so many titles and genres on offer that I rarely have the time on a weekend to go browsing through them all at the local Travelling man or OK comics in Leeds, so I often buy graphic novels that I didn’t get around to reading the first time round when they were published : or i spin the wheel of fortune and ask one of the staff for recommendations (and i’ve had some absolute gems).

I often have a browse through the indie rack where the self published small press comics are, there are some amazing quality offerings and i’ve picked up some really great examples of the genre. One of the more professional offerings I started looking out for was Hocus Pocus.  This is a great format and it appeals to one of my interests which is the supernatural and the investigation and scepticism of it as a subject.

Hocus Pocus

Aside from the clean and beautifully monochrome scheme artwork, the narrative is light hearted and comedic and reads very cleanly without being overly cluttered or wordy. In my opinion the art compliments the narrative superbly, visualising and setting the scene perfectly for each tale. Each issue focuses specifically on one particular branch of the supernatural, so mind reading, Seances, ghosts, levitation and prophecy and each contains particularly notorious examples of exponents related to each area.

Interestingly the series features Psychologist, author and magic circle member Professor Richard Wiseman as the creative consultant. It’s such a good series in fact that it was nominated for an Eisner award for best limited series 2022.

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Black Hole

Comic artist Charles Burns’ dark tale of teenage angst and sexually transmitted disease against a 1970’s suburban American backdrop has become a graphic novel which has earned it’s place as a favourite among many other comic artists and writers, as well as garnering status as a pop culture icon.

Burns’ artwork is reminiscent of wood or linocut in it’s quality, yet the style is more akin to lowbrow art of the 1970’s underground period, although the heavy blacks and deep shadows leave you in doubt that there’s something dark happening in the subject matter. Although the artist has created many colour works too, it’s undoubtedly this book which shows off his technical ability most. The story is disturbing enough to begin with, but combined with the dreamlike and often graphically hideous portrayal of each teenagers transformation, the experience of reading this is so compelling it’s difficult to put down once you begin reading.

The heavy use of contre jour serves to heighten and create constant tension in passages where something eerie is unfolding, yet there’s an economy of shading in other parts which pumps the emotional response while reading : it’s subtle but very effective.

The narrative is paced brilliantly and there are visual metaphors and entendres throughout, to say either the art or writing outweighs the other would be impossible here, they complement one another perfectly. There are word heavy places throughout, but the page designs and layouts are so technically considered that there’s no interruption in the pacing, which has to be a testament to just how well executed it really is. The book was due to be adapted into a movie with David Fincher’s involvement, but this fell through although it’s rumoured to have been picked back up by Brad Pitt’s own production company. It feels every inch like it ought to be a David Lynch production.

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V for Vendetta

Alan Moore’s dystopian fascist nightmare is a superbly written graphic novel, first serialized in Warrior magazine in the early to mid 1980’s and superbly Illustrated by David Lloyd. The first comic strip I remember seeing David Lloyd’s work featured in was Night Raven, a Marvel comic strip in a hard boiled noir 1930’s. With that strip, I was more taken with the protagonist of the title wearing a mask which made him appear very mysterious.

V for Vendetta takes the mask wearing lead character to another level, cleverly fusing Guy Fawkes imagery into an antihero anarchist terrorist creating mischief for the established fascist government in the near future. David Lloyd’s design of the character V has seen the mask adopted by hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and other groups wanting to be seen as opposed to establishment in some way.

The first striking thing to notice about V for Vendetta as a graphic novel is that there’s a lack of sound effects as seen in many other comics : and V doesn’t have thought balloons, all his dialogue is spoken. This lends a cinematic quality to the reading experience where many panels of action unfold in silence and are left uncluttered completely without any text in many places. The result is, as you read these passages you get a real feel for the deadly stealth of V as a character. It was disappointing that many of these signature panels where V is seen jumping silently across rooftops on his way to assassinate some governemt stooge weren’t followed through in the movie version (Alan Moore reportedly hated the movie adaptation so much he distanced himself completely from it, I didn’t find it terrible…it just lacked lots of the brilliant sinister imagery which Lloyd created as stand alone panels : there was literally one shot where V was seen jumping over a roof in slow motion).

David Lloyd’s drawing style is so well matched here to this particular narrative, his heavy chiaroscuro adds superbly to the theatrical feel of the Fawkes character and reinforces the sinister dystopian world the novel is set in. Each face is rendered expressively and imparts ethos and pathos equally well where it’s needed in accompanying text. The original strip first published in Warrior was in black and white and this worked better visually without colour (which was added when the complete series was compiled into a complete graphic novel) in certain places, however the colour also worked better for certain panels. At least it was sympathetically coloured and for this strip i can imagine it was a challenging job given that it was a very high contrast work.

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Richard Corben

I’m incredibly biased here as i’ve been a huge fan of Richard Corben’s work for the longest time and I couldn’t do a mention of anything graphic novel / comic related without including this ever popular and long time creator. Sadly Corben passed away last year aged 80 and he was still working on a semi retired basis right up until his death. Winning several high profile awards across his long career, Corben started out as an animator in Kansas City and made his own animated and live action movies, Heavy metal : the movie being perhaps the most high profile animation. During his early career self publishing underground comix, he developed his own method of creating vivid four colour separations which reproduced lurid and saturated colours, each plate being created painstakingly by hand and often using an airbrush to create stunning gradients of colour.

Corben’s oeuvre consisted of many genres of work, but he was primarily known for his adult fantasy and horror work in black and white, and colourized grisaille (unusually some of his strips were rendered partially in oil paints, resulting in beautifully sculpted and soft forms.

Corben wrote a great many of his own stories which were featured in other comics and they usually conformed to the eight page format so they could fit in alongside other strips. He also collaborated with other well known writers such as Jan Strnad and Bruce Jones, along with many others during his tenure with Warren comics, mainly on the Creepy publication. I often thought his earlier career as an animator shone through in his work, as many of his story panels were akin to keyframes, focusing and snap-shotting the best moments of action to dynamically punch the narrative home with as much impact as possible. The reveals, tension and climaxes in each story were masterfully paced, with each page breakdown resulting in an irresistible page turner which kept you wanting more. The skilful rendering often described graphically the awful thing you wish you couldn’t imagine.

I believe here with Corben’s work, there was another consistently solid example of the narrative and art working in synergy so very well. He created a vast body of work across his long career and he was massively prolific, and managed to always create stories which appealed to a wide variety of audiences : horror stories were always the genre he enjoyed most personally though and I believe it was due to his love of dramatic and jarring lighting. A testament to this is that he chose to create a whole series of adapted Edgar Allen Poe short stories and they all had the expected deep shadowy worlds, all fantastically rendered and paced.

I’ve managed to amass a fair collection of Corben’s work, from the very early to his last and I read them constantly because they are just so good on every level. It’s no accident that his name often comes up with any mention of fantasy or horror genres, even more so posthumously as new audiences are introduced to his work.

Like many other readers and admirers of his work, I was lucky to have corresponded with Corben via email several times and grilled him about very specific aspects of his techniques and he was always very forthcoming and helpful, and very humble in the way he would play down his talents. A truly sad loss, but his legacy is huge and he’ll always be remembered as one of the great pioneers in mature comics.

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Image references:

https://www.brokenfrontier.com/hocus-pocus-2-seance-collver-worth-watts/

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/06/hocus-pocus-bringing-skepticism-to-new-audiences-via-comics/

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2011/oct/30/ten-best-graphic-novels-in-pictures

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/484066659923581546/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta

https://www.otakusmash.com/read-comics/V_for_Vendetta_(1988)/

https://raggedclaws.com/tag/haunt-of-horror/

https://www.tcj.com/and-to-have-more-control-i-would-have-to-do-more-richard-corben-on-adapting-edgar-allan-poe/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01663UKHC?ref_=cmx_l_ur_u_u_bs

https://raggedclaws.com/home/category/edgar-allan-poe/

Project : Animation

Research Point : Beer Street and Gin Lane

Hogarth’s Beer Street and Gin Lane prints are two pieces which were produced as part of a campaign to control the consumption of gin, which had the poorest classes in England (London in particular) addicted in huge amounts.

On first inspection, both images appear to offer a satirical look at social classes and their respective lives and environments. There’s the obvious message that beer street portrays ale consumption as something to be enjoyed during the course of a hard day’s labour while taking a break : Gin lane however presents the misery of drinking from necessity due to addiction.

Both images however are loaded with symbolism and nods to faith and morality.

Some time ago I had more than a fleeting interest in oil painting which inevitably led me into a bit of a rabbit hole of art history, regarding materials, subject matter etc. I developed an interest in Memento mori paintings and the range of symbols within them, and that again in turn led me into digging ever deeper into symbolism in religious and other paintings. It’s a fascinating subject and the ingenuity that some artists possessed when composing images was amazing. Religious artists worked with Theologians almost exclusively at times as consultants to be certain nothing of faith was misrepresented or offended. 

One of my favourite set of symbolic images which are less subtle in many regards are Goya’s Los Caprichos prints. I was lucky enough to see these many years ago and they poke fun at the more modern Spain in which Goya lived which was at odds with it’s still very superstitious and aged beliefs, it’s morality and corruption and it’s politicians and class system : all very much a Caprice, changing vaguely and without much direction sometimes. 

Both images are a sort of loose mirror of one another, and through further research i discovered they represent real areas of London, Beer Street depicts St. Martin-in-the-fields, while Gin Lane depicts St.Giles-in-the-fields.

I found it interesting that the images are presented as Beer Street and Gin Lane and not the other way around : traditionally Left and Right (or Sinister and Dexter in Latin) are often used when portraying messages of morality, which would have had them swapped around here. I wonder if popularity dictated by this time in history that most used Good and Bad as a more common phrase. (you don’t often hear people say evil and good, it’s usually good and evil for example)

There’s plenty to go at here in both images, so here goes.

Gin Lane connotation and symbolism

1. The Pawnbroker in this image is doing quite well for himself, making a living from the goods that the gin drinkers are pawning to buy more alcohol with which to feed their addiction. Here the proprietor can be seen holding up the tools of what look like a carpenter while another offers crockery.
2. This character is depicted in a catatonic stupor from over indulgence of gin. There’s a tiny snail in the foreground, generally regarded as an early Christian symbol of lazyness or sloth.
3. Here a black dog fights with a drunk over a bone, possibly showing what they’ve been reduced to in the face of gin alcoholism. Black dogs are commonly seen as a portent of ill-omen, here probably symbolizing depression or conflict.
4. This central character represents a fallen lady, a destitute mother reduced to prostitution through her addiction. Her legs show signs of The French disease (Syphilis) and her only concern while in her intoxicated state is drawing a pinch of snuff from a box, unfortunately while her child is neglected and falls to it’s likely death.
5.  A dead soldier still wearing his tunic and leggings is looked over by another black dog, possibly symbolizing death here. In his basket, there’s a printed article which has upon it The downfall of Mrs.Gin : this possibly shows a contrast between how he was trying to warn against the ills of Gin, yet succumbing to it as one of his hands rests on a gin jar while the other holds a cup.
6. A vignette of three people featuring one in a wheel-barrow, this could be symbolic of a hand cart used to carry the dead, the person administering the gin looks like a nurse or maid of some kind, implying that it’s futile to resist the fate of death at this stage.
7. A small child is grieving for their dead mother from the excesses of gin consumption while her corpse is being loaded into a coffin, overseen by a custodian.
8. Here, a man is showing the madness and excesses of gin, parading along with a pair of bellows on top of his head while in the other hand he holds an impaled infant on a spike.
9. Although Gin Lane has been reduced to a slum, the undertaker’s sign is still symbolically showing signs of a healthy trade due to the high mortality rate through gin poisoning.
10. That a blind man and a disabled beggar are shown fighting one another under the influence of gin shows what people have been reduced to under the weight of addiction.
11. Two girls who are wards of the parish (signified by the emblem on one of the girl’s arms) are taking a measure from the distillery, possibly symbolizing that nobody whatever their standing with faith and morality is safe from the clutches of alcoholism and eventual downfall.
12.  The lady in the foreground is seen administering gin to her infant baby as a pacifier. This was a common reality of the day.
13. The name of the distillery is Kilman, a play on kill man (as in gin kills men etc)
14. The pole outside this crumbling establishment resembles a barber shop pole, the hanged man pictured inside possibly the proprietor? He appears to have killed himself, probably due to a lack of business as people no longer care about their appearance and self respect.
15. A building on the Lane is seen literally falling into disrepair as the dreadful scene unfolds, a motif perhaps for collapsing morality in the face of an increase in gin addiction and the inevitable horrors associated with it.
16. The spire of St.George’s, Bloomsbury can be seen in the background, a long distant beacon of hope and faith among the dereliction and decay in the fore and mid ground of the rest of the scenery. The figure is king George I depicted in Roman dress, the creatures around the base represent the end of the first Jacobite uprising. Even though they represent their own metaphors in the context of the actual church building, I think they visually look like the beacon of morality at the top being surrounded by the encroaching animals, the decline of the land through excessive alcoholism and associated immorality of the time.
17.  The pawnbrokers emblem is said to represent either the Medici family or house of Lombard : either way, it represents banking, an earthly and materialistic institution : here, the sign is placed directly over the church spire, showing it at odds with morality and divine salvation. A triumph of earthly pastimes (here the hopeless addiction to gin) over the symbol of the rising church spire, spiritual hope.

Beer Street connotation and symbolism

1. A pile of what look like coins can be seen here, a sign of affluent trade perhaps?
2. Here, a butcher is pictured, happy and content with a tankard of foaming ale in his hand.
3. A paviour, a person responsible for the upkeep of streets in earlier times is seen wooing a housemaid. She’s holding a key which often symbolizes new beginnings, openings, closures or home life.
4. A gang of workmen (paviours working the road with  pounding sticks) symbolize industry : one can be seen quaffing from a tankard, showing the further virtue of beer as a working person’s drink which can be enjoyed as a part of a daily toil.
5. A wealthy lady can be seen penned into a sedan by her large skirts, while her two footmen take a rest with a tankard of beer each.
6. Two market porters can be seen carrying baskets of fish, which are symbols of abundance and piety, and hold strong christian symbolism as the fish was considered as the origin of life. One of them is reading a declaration, possibly a law.
7. Here, a basket containing books can be seen : books often symbolize knowledge, power, learning and education. Here they could signify the advantages of drinking Ale over Gin, where beer could be seen as a less destructive form of drinking and one which could be enjoyed along with positive pursuits and pastimes, rather than replacing and destroying them. The real reason here is one of artistic comment from Hogarth though.
8. A rotund merchant drinks beer deeply from a tankard, happy and content and signifying the healthy counterpart to the grim emaciated drinkers of Gin lane.
9. The pawnbroker here in beer street has gone out of business almost, broke at the lack of employed people who no longer have need of his services. He takes beer through a hatch in the door from a seller, probably in fear of the bailiffs coming to debt collect. The building is in such a state of disrepair it is shored up with a support to stop it collapsing, the sign is pointing downward as if to signify the decline and downturn in business. It also points at the new larger public house under construction in contrast.
10. The new pub has a Sun sign hanging outside, a symbol of life, energy and vitality.
11. In contrast to the Gin lane undertaker’s coffin, a large barrel of Ale hangs on a loading jibbet above the public house.
12. An artisan in rags can be seen here painting an addition to the underneath of the Barley Mow signage. He may have found a renewed career after escaping the ravages of Gin lane’s addiction perhaps? The Barley mow is a sign of abundance as well as being a popular beer drinking song.
13. workmen on the roof can be seen taking a break from their toil and enjoying tankards of ale. The workers to the left appear to be tailors sat cross legged : tailoring was often viewed as a pinnacle of journeymen craft along with many other trades such as stonemasonry, gilding, bookbinding etc. So basically a very worthwhile endeavour and career.
14. There’s a flag flying on the church spire of St.Martin’s-in-the-field in the background, signifying King George II’s birthday, a cause for celebration in beer street.

Denotation

Dealing with denotation or the literal analysis as opposed to what’s inferred through connotation and symbolism :

Gin lane shows us a very decrepit and run down environment, with a cast of chaotic and fallen characters in the grip of Gin madness, melancholy and addiction, apathetic and angry alike. The buildings are in various states of disrepair and dereliction. This image appears to show more contrast in the vignette events in the foreground and midground than beer street (so character events and interactions). This is the very first thing to take away from Gin Lane, it’s instantly a scene of debauchery and wretchedness : a Babylon or Dante’s Inferno, hell.

  Beer Street has a very lively scene depiction in contrast, with cheery scenes of industry, celebratory drinking, commerce and abundance, people appear more corpulent than their Gin Lane counterparts and the mood is one of vigour and positivity. A message of the triumph of the positives of beer drinking over the vices of gin addiction. A scene of bacchanalia in comparison to Gin Lane, one of happy imbibing alongside the toil of daily work. A garden of earthly delights?

Conclusion

These are a brilliant pair of images, they capture such a broad range of aspects from two angles of opinion and reality. Gin has a rather chequered history as an alcoholic beverage, and here the class of people who could afford to blot out the misery of their daily existence were bound by their circumstance to only ever afford the cheapest option due to the lighter taxation. Beer was taxed at a much higher rate and therefore was probably only available to people who were in employment, so those who were slightly higher up the social class ladder of the time. The wealthiest were probably developing gout through drinking expensive wines, ports and cognacs rather than beer.

It’s quite telling that the most widely available and cheapest to manufacture spirit would have also been the one which accrued the highest amount of duty through it’s wide consumption by the underclasses : just like modern times really.

Hogarth has done a superb job with evoking both the misery of slum London with the more positive outlook of a less addiction-ridden parish.

Although a more literal analysis of Victorian London, Gustave Dore’s London : a pilgrimage is another collection of engravings which give a vivid visual account of life in the smoke. 

Image references:

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/gin-lane-1

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/beer-street-1

Project : Visual Storytelling

Exercise : You are what you eat

Project : Image and text

Research Point : Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Exploring the relationship between image and text and within narrative fiction, this example looks at how a variety of illustrators have interpreted and distilled Franz Kafka’s dark tale of societal alienation, The Metamorphosis.

While there appear to be a great many interpretations of the story’s metaphor and it’s meanings, I’ll leave that to somebody else to analyze, as a casual reader of the tale would be drawn in to it purely as a story first and foremost and that’s where the illustrations would support the premise.

My own opinions of Kafka’s work are that they were very unique for their time, and they still continue to influence writers even today. The Castle accurately describes certain situations in daily life for everyone, where getting the path of least resistance to an answer to something can feel just like ‘K’ trying to reach the enigmatic Count WestWest. The Trial is similar in that the protagonist can neither reason with his captors, or ever discover the reason for his incarceration and trial.

Interpretations

A great many of the illustrations related to The Metamorphosis are covers, and these fall mostly into the category of showing the popular Cockroach approach of showing the transformed protagonist of the story Gregor with a few exceptions. Interior illustrations generally give a broad treatment of the prose, where aspects of character interaction are presented between family / charlady and the transformed Gregor, or simpler vignettes featuring just the bug.

This pair of images are from an issue of the vintage American pulp magazine Famous Fantastic Mysteries, they’re credited as Virgil Finlay and Lawrence, I suspect they’re both illustrated by Lawrence (Lawrence Sterne Stevens, who signed himself simply Lawrence early in his career). Virgil Finlay was credited here as the cover artist.

The introductory image on the left uses a classic sort of story taster with a white space for a predetermined block of text. It was a particularly fashionable way of accompanying an introductory text within pulp fiction publications and here it wraps unashamedly onto the text side rather than being abruptly cut away into a simple text and image arrangement. Both feature a key piece from the narrative relating to the embedded apple in Gregor’s carapace.

It’s a little enigmatic compared to some of the other illustrations as it merely gives away the transformed Gregor standing at his bedroom door with an accompanying overlay of his sister Grete playing the violin (this could be used in itself as an accompanying image to the passage in the story where Gregor escapes through his open bedroom door having been attracted by Grete’s playing).

The second image here focuses on the discovery by the Charlady of Gregor’s transformed corpse in his bedroom. The composition here is simple yet very effective and reads visually in a V shape.

Although neither of these images represent the crux of the story as a whole, I thought they were worth including as they’re interesting accompanying images to this particular magazine imprint of the tale. These represent literal interpretations as an accompaniment to the text of the story.

This is an etching and aquatint by Robert Andrew Parker and although it’s not an accompanying illustration for any version of the book, it’s a piece which uses the overarching hook as a theme. It’s reminiscent of a goya etching, not least for it’s use of aquatint but also vaguely in it’s style.There’s a hint of Paul Rego here too, which isn’t surprising as I’m often reminded of her work when I think of goya and i think that’s more of a thematic link than a literal style or technique one.

The artist in this case has captured the transformation in a jarring and disturbing way, the shape and huge shadow underneath, the feeling of isolation in what feels like a rather squalid room with no way of ever hoping to open the door. The venus painting makes an appearance on the wall, this is a nod to Venus in furs by Sachor-Masoch : a little more of a thematic take on the story happening here aside from the main thrusts of the tale (the metamorphosis, the bed and room, the family and moral dilemmas etc)

This an interesting treatment of key parts of the story, here Gregor is seen hopelessly pinned to what appears to be his bed by an entomologists specimen pin as the charlady looks on, sweeping brush in hand. The contrast plays an important part in this image, the monochrome scheme only heightens the melancholy of the situation and Gregor is facing an open window with light streaming in, making the prospect of freedom even more tantalizing yet unobtainable. It’s certainly a different interpretation visually, using metaphoric more than literal aspects, the theme of social alienation, isolation and the mundane.

This cover is a little different in that it doesn’t particularly set the story in a given time historically : apart from being able to perceive that’s in the past sometime, it features both the transformed protagonist of the tale and the bed and room without giving much else away which in that respect makes it successful as a cover. I like the use of nothing but a large looming shadow to hint at the horrors to come, and the cool pastel palette sells the idea even further. Although the presentation here is literal in the sense of it delivering the main aspects of the text, the large foreboding shadow is a device which can be used to unsettle and evoke deep seated fears visually, and is a handy trope to rattle a readers psyche just that bit deeper.

This is a rather clever typographic interpretation using just the word to evoke thoughts of an insect without even illustrating one. The font alone conjures up a feeling of the bohemian, which is fitting given that Kafka himself was from Prague and this anchors the timeline for the setting. Functionally it makes you work a little to read it, as the word is obviously split into five syllables, yet here those same syllables aren’t laid out as they should be : there’s been some fudging to make the word work as an image and i think it’s brilliant.

I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but there’s an added depth to this as it feels like a Rorschach test which adds a further unnerving element to the whole thing. This example falls into the typographic category firmly and it uses very appropriate choices to tap into the emotional and metaphysical aspects of the theme and story.

This is an entirely different take on the descriptive elements of the story and is likely to derive from the opening sentence and literal translation from the German language version where Gregor is described as having transformed into a monstrous vermin (ungeheuren Ungeziefer). Most translations however assume the vermin to be a bug or insect of some kind.

I don’t particularly like this treatment as I find it’s pretty misleading and it doesn’t feature any of the story arcs or key elements from the actual story, so I think as a cover it fails, but with regard to it being a different take on the transformed Gregor I think it’s unusual. As far as an accompanying cover, I think it looks like a clumsy juxtaposition of a stock photograph and somebody else’s image, so worthy of an inclusion for an example of how not to approach things.

This is an example of simplicity, nothing is hinted whatsoever about the story : in fact, a closer drill into the image silhouette hints more at flora rather than the fauna based metamorphosis of the tale. I think what makes this work to a degree is that it has more of a Rorschach test feel which visually has the ability to let imagination fill in the blanks from mere suggestions of abstract shapes. I’m not sure what the yellow background is trying to convey really as it’s a positive warm colour which doesn’t fit with the mood of the story at all, although it provides a stark contrast colour for the blot test appearance (why not use white instead?) There’s a hint of an insectoid face at the bottom centre of the pattern which reinforces the idea and theme of the story quite literally and the spikey, leg like tendrils reinforce the insect motif. Quite an abstract treatment here.

A fairly surreal approach to Gregor and Grete here, the illustrator has chosen to portray the transformed protagonist as something other than a cockroach which seems to have mostly been the popular choice of insect to go with. Grete is portrayed playing her violin while Gregor looks on. This has a bit of a feel of the work of dark fantasy artist Brom, probably in no doubt due to the pallid white skin. As a cover I think this works well enough to describe one main scenario later in the story, it doesn’t include much of the other main elements to convey the emotional or thematic motifs in the text, so in that respect I’d say it’s superficially representative.

Conclusion

During the researching of images for this point, I noticed with the exception of Typographic treatments that practically all of the illustrations featured Gregor post metamorphosis : there were several examples which showed the transformation in a human / bug hybrid approach, generally with the head of Franz Kafka himself as Gregor, a cultural nod to the author (he did have a distinctive look with that intense stare). This also adds the to darkly comic humour in the tale as well as featuring what is purported to be the author himself as the actual subject of the story.

I think it’s reasonable to expect a treatment of a short story by Kafka (or any other author) to include the overarching elements of the story somewhere, or a vignetted scene as an excerpted illustration : the vagueness as to what is portrayed through the illustration is likely to be the decision of a higher creative involved in the process such as an art or creative director.

With the exception of a few examples, nearly all the illustrations I’ve seen have delivered at least the premise for the story, giving away that the metamorphosis involves a transformation into a cockroach or similar insect : the aspect which changes is how subtly this has been revealed. As it’s an absurdly grotesque dissociation in a normal everyday setting, it provides a very rich seam of opportunity for darkly surreal portrayals in a variety of styles and practically anything works.

I discovered what looked like a half decent film adaptation starring Maureen Lipman which looked interesting from the trailer. Determining framing from theatre and TV / Film adaptations is a very different thing from illustration as you’re moving from what is a self contained snapshot that delivers the strongest or most relevant supporting aspects from a text into mediums which evolve in realtime and are therefore fluid in the way they deliver narrative. Most of the hard work of a viewer’s imagination being sparked by seeing an accompanying image through illustration is removed by a director making choices for them : that’s not to detract from moving image mediums as they’re obviously crafts in their own right.

As far as stories go, The Metamorphosis was a great one to pick for a research point, the story is darkly tragic and also absurdly comical in it’s ridiculous premise : yet it’s also a touching and tragic comment on the very real subjects of isolation and alienation, from the author’s point of view his relationship with his overbearing father and his own perception of how he believes the world at large views him.

Image references:

https://hairygreeneyeball3.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-metamorphosis-franz-kafka-famous.html

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/227089/the-metamorphosis-1915-from-franz-kafka-dreams-diaries-and-fragments

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/metamorphosis-217

https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/The-Metamorphosis/Franz-Kafka/Enriched-Classics/9781416599685

https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2015/january/metamorphosis-franz-kafka

https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9798732898705

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451553/metamorphosis-by-kafka-franz/9780241573730

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Metamorphosis-Norton-Critical-Editions-2015-07-30/dp/B01FKU3D0I

Research Point : Typography

This research point looks at the relationship between type and image. I’ll start this by saying I know little about graphic design : I often wish i’d taken it as an elective module on level one, as even a basic understanding would be helpful. I’ve opted for a few Udemy courses to cover the basics regarding layout, text and fonts, colour relationships and meanings etc. which will hopefully put me in a better place when it comes to making decisions regarding type at least.

When applying type to support an illustration, i generally stick to a two is enough rule instead of cluttering with lots of confusing fonts, although i’m pretty sure as with all rules there are going to be times when this could be broken (thinking of zines particularly here, especially punk or underground themed varieties). There have definitely been times when I wish I could have augmented an illustration with some appropriately custom type, either hand drawn or otherwise, but unfortunately as I don`t particularly know what rules govern font and type choices really, i’ve more often than not felt my way through creating anything intuitively which perhaps isn’t going to be the best approach.

Back to the research point, here are some examples which i’ve chosen.

This is a fine book cover by Jaime Zollars. This design has been considered from the outset with space for the title, author and volume text, the main font used for the author and title fits the feel of the supporting illustration really well : even without knowing what the book is about, the title is appealing immediately and it evokes a fantastical feel. The decision to cut out to the background beneath gives the whole cover a sort of Victorian magic lantern feel through the foreground being in silhouette.

Here’s another example by Jaime Zollars, a popular book! This is an example of what appears to be an integrated typeface : created to compliment the final cover, but not necessarily applied as part of the illustration. It’s a great match however, I suspect it has probably been created separately by either the artist or a graphic designer and tweaked digitally to match the surrounding colours. I wonder what happens if the book is translated into German? (Tom’s Mitternachtsgarten) : maybe the title is universal.. I love how the type appears to be part of the illustration though, it’s a very sympathetic match and works perfectly, the diffused moonlight behind provides the perfect vignette for the text to stand out. The author text uses a serif font to convey a feeling of trust and solidity, in the context of this cover it likely says the book is an evergreen favourite for children.

I couldn’t get enough of these pulpy American horror comics when I was growing up, I’ve collected a few of the rarer examples of these Warren Publishing magazines. They featured instantly recognizable brand titles such as Creepy, Eerie, 1984 and Vampirella. Each magazine had incredibly tight turnarounds and deadlines for artists and the stories and art were of an incredibly high standard. Sometimes the covers were great…other times, not so much. The covers in particular always felt somewhat chaotic with regard to the layout and often you could see that the logo text would be clumsily blocking out a key part of the illustration. The Creepy cover here on the left feels like it could have either been a conscious decision to make the antagonist’s head pop dynamically or simply a compromise rather than making a clumsy tangent / fused edge with the other character’s foot with the bottom of the page. The Eerie cover in the centre has a block of text in the upper right side which looks decidedly crow-barred in and it creates a nasty tangent with the building in the background. The 1984 cover is just terrible : the main character’s hat is protruding so far into the title it reads as 1934. Both the Creepy and Eerie magazines used a similar body text for paragraphs which rarely seemed consisted and would change clumsily across each issue. The later 1984 magazine at least unified this with a more modern looking sans serif font which had a more sympathetic feel to the Sci-fi nature of the publication. I get the impression much of the design layout process could have resulted that way through miscommunication perhaps between the art director / layout and design department and the cover illustrator. Given the tight deadlines it was probably easy to see why this could happen. Still, in a way it contributes to the overall lurid and pulpy appeal and these are vintage magazines now after all and a great part of how these kinds of magazines look and feel has become a pop culture iconic trope which many illustrators seek to impart in their work.

The series of unfortunate events books by Lemony Snicket have a lovely consistent design, which adds to their collectibility appeal. The colour coded spines mean each tale can be instantly selected on sight without the need to read the title, always a nice touch in a series : plus they look great on a busy bookshelf. There’s a spiky shape language to the consistent background image (which looks like a silhouetted mansion orangery) which sets the theme up well, and this is continued onto the spine, it’s a very slick design and it reflects the anachronistic feel. The spine colour is cleverly coloured to match the overall tone of the illustration too, (or vice versa) this isn’t an accident. Each title illustration is designed to fit within the predetermined layout which gives a nice solid consistency, with some of the illustrations bursting out of frame to add dynamism. The main series font is a clever nod to Lemony Snicket’s battered typewriter which features within the stories and is made reference to, the worn and slightly chaotic look gives the books a feel of ominous foreboding. The use of a script or brush type font adds a touch of light hearted elegance which counters the more serious looking title and let’s the reader know it’s light hearted too.

Conclusion

From what I observed during the course of this research point into typography and it’s relationship with illustration, I would conclude that this kind of consideration between type and image is more of an important aspect to visual communication than ever, particularly with books being such a saturated market place. The competition for book covers to grab an audience’s attention has never been more fierce and there are many trains of thought when it comes to the end product. There still seems to be a split between stock photography montages and bespoke illustration, with the former being almost exclusively confined to fiction novels aimed at the adult readership. Contrasted with younger and teen audience material which is almost exclusively illustrated and there exists a hugely demanding market for graphic design and illustration skill sets. I found it deeply interesting to see how good design principles compliment illustration and just looking at how fonts work together on a cover for example has given me a fresh view on how considered these aspects really are.

Image references:

https://www.svslearn.com/news/2018/3/19/book-cover-art

https://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/creepy/2

https://www.slabcitycomics.com/products/1984-no-5

https://eu-clubs-kids.scholastic.co.uk/products/A-Series-of-Unfortunate-Events-number-7-The-Vile-Village-Lemony-Snicket-9781405266109

Research Point : Children’s fiction

Occasionally when an illustrator gets the first shot at providing imagery for a Children’s work of fiction, they land on something very unique which defines that text going forward in an audience’s visual mind.

The research exercise cited examples such as Winnie the pooh, The Gruffalo and Little Red Riding Hood as examples where an author has written a text and the first illustrator to have accompanied these with images has defined an enduring visual association with that work.

Alice in Wonderland

One of the first examples which sprang to mind here was Alice in Wonderland by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll. This is a classic Victorian literary whimsical tale published in 1865 which has proven so enduring and endearing that it’s never been out of print since it was created. Although Lewis Carroll was the first to create illustrations for his own tale of fancy, John Tenniel was the first artist to create illustrations for the book in the form of 42 wood engravings.

Although Tenniel’s illustrations will forever be associated with Alice in Wonderland and they are much more than just a mere embellishment of Lewis Carroll’s own drawings, it seems only right to say that Carroll’s original creations were very fitting in their own right, coming straight from the author’s imagination alongside the text and they beautifully convey the nonsensical world and it’s inhabitants. Tenniel captured really apt passages of text from the story and compressed them into great vignettes which summed up the accompanying text really well and succeeded in pulling children’s literature of the time away from being didactic and morally loaded into full on fantasy and folly for it’s own sake.

Alice in Wonderland 1897

I have a modern reprint version of Alice in Wonderland with these Tenniel illustrations and they’re very much of their time : I think this is what makes them not only endearing, stylistically they seal the story firmly in the Victorian period and are almost a comfortable expectation with the style of nonsensical prose presented in the book. There’s a huge amount of familiarity here with these images, outside of Disney’s sugar coated treatment these are perhaps still the first illustrations which spring to mind when Alice in Wonderland is mentioned : the fact that as a text it still continues to inspire endlessly even now and many visual interpretations are heavily based on Tenniel’s designs proves how well it’s prevailed into pop culture.

Charlotte’s Web

An evergreen favourite of times past, (who doesn’t remember reading this at some point during their formative years at school?) Charlotte’s Web by E.B.White is a tale of innocence and friendship with an undertone of impending peril. The lovely illustrations by Garth Williams are another example of visual memory being associated first with a story. These remind me of  E. H. Shepard’s illustrations for A.A.Milne’s Winnie the Pooh a little, although not quite as loose and scratchy, they have a similar quality : perhaps just by virtue of them being executed in pen & ink, or maybe it’s the anthropomorphic qualities. I can remember reading this at a very early age at school and poring over the drawings : granted I had that preoccupation with every book I ever read as a youngster that had accompanying illustrations, but this was definitely one which stayed with me. Another fine example of an illustrator hitting the golden zone with careful choices of text passage to condense into imagery. It’s interesting when reading about Garth Williams choices how he states he tried to get inside the author’s mind when he was creating ideas for illustrations to see what they might be imagining as they wrote.. quite an abstract thought process, yet one which is employed by any artist or illustrator who endeavours to capture a snapshot of something in their mind’s eye. Storyboard artists develop a heightened ability for this, comic artists too : it’s the very thing that can make or break a visual narrative and a highly evocative and intriguing set of thought processes. I believe in the case of Charlotte’s web, there’s familiarity here as with Alice in Wonderland : they’re so intrinsically linked in popular culture it’s almost hard to imagine mention of the story without conjuring up the illustrations to mind and vice versa.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Although not initially illustrated by Quentin Blake, it was perhaps his accompanying illustrations which set the tone for the modern memory of Roald Dahl’s darkly humorous series featuring Charlie Bucket and the Wonka empire. The first edition was illustrated by Joseph Schindelman, and although these are fine illustrations in their own right, in my opinion they don`t convey the characters of the story very well. The rendering style is rather nostalgic and vintage, yet doesn’t seem to impart the whimsical nature of the Wonka world in the same way as Blake’s illustrations do.

It was Quentin Blake’s character designs which defined the character’s physical look and neuroses, much of which carried straight through into the 1971 movie version, and even on into Tim Burton’s version from 2005. For all it’s modern matting and visual effects, the 1971 version is still the better version I believe, there were lots of visual discrepancies in the 2005 version which ruined the continuity somewhat and Willy Wonka wasn’t old enough to be passing on a factory : neither did he have the same eccentricities as Gene Wilder’s much more light hearted and comedic character. I think the casting was much better in the original, possibly proving that Tim Burton’s nepotic bias for including the same stars in many of his productions doesn’t always pan out.

I must be one of the few people in the world who isn’t in awe of Quentin Blake’s illustrations : i’m making no apology for it though, his just isn’t a style I was ever endeared to very much, but with regard to the pairing with Roald Dahl’s eccentric and fanciful stories I think his work is a perfect match and I couldn’t imagine opening up a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book and not seeing Blake’s drawings dancing across the pages.

Conclusion

Looking over several examples while researching this point, I believe it can be assumed that there’s a strong correlation between the illustrations in a children’s fiction book setting the visual memory for a tale, possibly proving that recall based on particular illustrations accompanying a text is often simpler than trying to remember what a story was about. (a picture tells a thousand words). Along with the recall, it’s a particular accompanying illustrator that will be the one which comes to mind. If anyone mentioned Alice in Wonderland to me for example, I would immediately remember Tenniel’s illustrations even though i’ve seen many other illustrators give the story a treatment. Harry Potter’s first four books are the same, they will always bring to mind the same covers, incidental illustrations etc. I don’t think you even need to be able to break down visual memory association to know that there’s definitely a huge amount of power in illustrative association with particular texts.

Image references:

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/10/original-illustrations-of-charlotte-web.html

https://wonka.fandom.com/f/t/Mike%20Teavee

https://spongebob.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000318961

https://www.slideshare.net/katelllaurelli/l2a-willy-wonka-the-finders

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Tenniel_-_Illustration_from_The_Nursery_Alice_(1890)_-_c03757_07.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_par_John_Tenniel_37.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Tenniel_-_Illustration_from_The_Nursery_Alice_(1890)_-_c06544_04.jpg

Exercise : Once upon a time

In this exercise, the aim was to produce a series of black and white images in response to a popular fairy story or folk tale.
I took a look at the classic tales here for this exercise, so after having a search around for texts based versions, I shortlisted Rapunzel, Cinderella, Hansel & Gretel and Red Riding Hood. I opted for Red Riding hood here as it’s an evergreen tale with a classic moral.

The version of Red Riding Hood I downloaded was by Leanne Guenther and It appears to have been sanitized and re-written to be a little more contemporary for younger readers, along with being condensed which suited my intention here with this exercise as there was very little editing. (by editing, I mean subjectively omitting certain passages to make the text physically fit on the page.)

To start, the first thing I did here was to take the whole story then create the most convenient break points in the text. Some of these occur naturally through paragraphing, others can be determined through creating cliff hanger breaks, much the same way as breaking down comic scripts.

After the text was broken down, it created a thumbnail sheet which would hold the text for interpretation and a set of frames in which I could scribble out a rough sketch to experiment with visual layout to marry with the text in an attempt to make the best of both in a descriptive narrative : If the picture gave a decent overview of the text passage I was off to a good start. Some needed more work than others.

This was the first block of text and thumbnails. I started trying out planes in greyscale to see how planes would work, even though the final result would be black and white, as this helps me work out levels of shading. I would abandon this later in the process, as I found I could work this aspect out as I went along anyway, which saved me time.

The nice thing about thumbnails is that you can easily squint your eyes and just see abstract shapes : if they feel strong even with your eyes half shut and it feels like you’ve struck a good balance of light and shadow at that size, then that’s often a good indicator that there’s something potentially successful in there.

In some cases, the text dictated very much what could be portrayed to an extent, so if there was interaction between two or more characters, this would necessitate the clearest depiction of the subjects, so rather than try to be over fancy with camera angles as one might do in a comic strip, the aim here is to use a simpler narrative approach without being overly fussy.

These were the resulting images after choosing from each set of thumbnails…

I went for a lino/wood cut look in the final illustrations as I felt this was sympathetic to the age of the original tale (brothers Grimm.) Adding a Vignette to the outer edge of some of the images allowed for a vintage and more traditional look, I did go for adding in some subtle shape language changes, so the trees at the start are quite benign looking and these become more gnarled and threatening as the encounter with the wolf unfolds. There was no assumption on the target age audience for this version, but I played safe and assumed it wouldn`t be a great idea to choose to show Granny being eaten by the wolf, although I’m sure I’ve seen slightly more graphic versions of this story even for younger folks.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise, it’s great fun taking a text and interpreting it into images to augment the story. My takeaways from this exercise would be, I regret not taking Graphic Design or Book Design as one of my elective modules earlier in the course, I think I would have benefitted from knowing more about either when it comes to working with text and layout.

I like working with text, but I feel I don`t know enough about how it can compliment imagery : I’d feel more brave using text in more exotic layouts which follow graphic shapes in the illustrations if I were creating something of my own or there was some suggestion from a client for instance. The result here in this exercise is that I’ve played it safe by using simple and somewhat vanilla and old fashioned layout with the text which Isn’t all that dynamic really, although it reads well enough. I tried white text against the expanses of black in each image, but I found this was dictating the illustration a little too much for my taste and it had a tendency to force the text to jump around in each image which was a little distracting and ugly in places. This is where more thought in the planning stage would have helped and I feel Graphic Design would have come in very handy.

Overall though, most enjoyable!