Photo Reference, Comic Books and Me

[dewline]

A post on Johanna's blog on a contest launched by Buddy Scalera and Penciljack.com got me thinking: One of these years, I'd like to try an experiment: create a comic using nothing but photos of real people.

Yes, it's been done for years in any number of places, but it strikes me that it takes a bit of work to do it well, much as it does with pencil, pen and ink...whether you use photo reference in composing the page layouts or not.

Not sure if I'll ever get 'round to that experiment...but it's something I'd like to see if I can do at all. Heaven knows I've got the software for it.

In the meantime, though, I've got other fish to fry...

Comments

[si-fuller.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking recently about comics that are painted or use photos, or other non-traditional art styles. When you read a traditional comic, the word balloons look basically the same as everything else in the frame, unbroken black-outlined shapes. But the further you get from the traditional look, the more out of place the word balloons look. A watercolour frame doesn't mesh well with a two dimensional white bubble with a black frame. And once you notice that, the words and the pictures don't quite connect, and it's like watching a foreign film dubbed into English.

Maybe there's another way to use speech balloons. Maybe you could make it more three-dimensional, or try less comicbook-y fonts or something. Or get rid of the balloons all together and just have the words, like advertising captions. I don't know, I just noticed the problem, not the solution.

By the way, hello to Ian, to whom I haven't spoken since I gave up on Delphi forums. He doesn't have a LJ I assume?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I suspect that whether traditional word balloons as we've known them will be either used or not on a case-by-case basis. Each creative/editorial team's going to have to make its own choices, whatever medium the original comics artwork is composed in. As it should be.

I'd certainly be interested in hearing from letterers on this one, although the debates are more likely to be held -- more likely to be in progress, perhaps -- at the forums at penciljack.com or digitalwebbing.com than on this LJ.

I'll pass your greetings on to Ian, and as far as I know, he hasn't "Livejournaled-up" yet...