Only in a World of Sequential Art

24 frames-a-second? No, I prefer thinking in panels-per-page myself. More flexible.

Poetry or Prose? No, I can choose between romantic or constructivist, photo-realistic or cartoony, impressionist or classical as I build my story (or afterward). More variety that way.

"I really think comics are more fun when they play to their strengths, and do the things that movies can’t do, and go to places in the imagination where movies can’t go. Let’s take up the type of storytelling that movies daren’t do, you know? Why are we conforming to Hollywood storytelling styles and losing sales when we can do anything? ... Comics begin with a guy, with a pencil and an imagination, or a guy at his word processor, and after that anything can happen. And so rarely does."
~ Grant Morrison interview in Comic Foundry, final issue, Spring 2oo9 (& readable here)

Comics are not 'movies on paper'. Nor are comics 'visual literature'. Those statements aren't strictly speaking wrong, they are close to the truth-- a version of it. But comics are something else entirely and to limit them by what other media can't do is... just limiting.

Josh's recent post about investigating form and a recent conversation with comicsmith Jason Little at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival has got my brain flowing with old academic thoughts. "More academic than usual," I hear the multitudes scream? Yes, more academic than usual.

Can you imagine the distinct world of the comics medium?

the opening pages of the Luna Brothers' "Girls" #1
Image: A young man in the throws of orgasmic physical pleasure. Image: A young woman lays with her clothes in disarray. What just happened? Not what you think.The magic of comics is in the 'sequential' part of sequential art. Two images in sequence create a moment of time, but a moment made up of two frozen images can create particular illusions other mediums can't. A momentary trick that makes the status of the Lunas' main character painfully obvious. The second panel is a close-up. He holds a pornographic magazine and not a woman's love, as he wishes he did.

the faux-prose at the end of "Watchmen" #1-11 and "Superman: Earth One" and probably thousands of places
Whenever a comic visually displays something with text in the fictional world in such a way that it can be read as if it were actually prose, something unique has happened. A film that zooms in so close that the viewer can read some text on the screen would be awkward and slow the film's pace to horrible effect. (It was common in the 1940s, sure, but it was awkward.)

In a comic, the reader can stop to read the text as if it were prose, give it a quick scan, or choose not to read it at all and simply accept it as another two-dimensional prop existing in the world of the comic (at peril of missing out on part of the story, of course).

the typewriter sound effects in Jason Lutes' "Berlin" #3
The "tak" "takketa" "takka" sounds coming from Kurt Severing's typewriter transform suddenly into snippets of words being pounded out by the writers across the street, at least in Severing's imagination. All in typewriter font.

Environmental onomonopeia becomes a representation of a character's perception of the world in the very image of the environmental element's effects on paper! Or something like that. Either way, it's beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the moment where musical notes in the air become birds in flight.

the entirety of Jason Little's "Jack's Luck Runs Out"
The WHOLE THING is drawn in an imitation of the classic playing-card illustration style, everything from the characters and their props in the foreground to the environment of Las Vegas in the background.


The same stiff poses, the same blank stares from your game of 52 pick-up, but now in the service of a disturbing narrative about vacuous gamblers, show girls, con-men and the spiteful things they do.

the 'thought balloon-storm cloud' in Brendan Leach's "Pterodactyl Hunters in the Gilded City"
As a young man walks the streets of New York City circa 1904 turning over and over in his mind the current events of his life (like we all do) snippets of the last conversation he took part in dance around his head, mixed up like a tiny abstract poem surrounded by rough, uneven, random lines.


Comics can use any visual art styles or tools, any design elements, any written languages, and any typographic fonts the creator chooses! These examples I've given are only a fraction of the tricks and experiments out there that could only have been done in a comic.

Can you imagine the world of sequential art? A world where time exists frozen forever in snap shots, yet feels animated in sequence? A world where text can be read like prose, but the story can be told in bold visuals like film? A world that moves without motion and speaks without sound.

I can, and it is so damn beautiful.

~ @JonGorga

Bee in My Bonnet!

"bee in... The Ramble" from MySpace/Dark Horse

There was a unique and unusual pleasure to be had in hearing the comicsmith, Jason Little, read this comic out loud with accompanying music and a projection of the comic panel-by-panel to a small crowd at one of R. Sikoryak's (@RSikoryak) Carousel nights a few months back. Now the masses can be exposed to it as well since it has been published on "MySpace Dark Horse Presents". The experience of hearing this comic read that night (and then having it divorced from that experience on the web) was particularly surreal for reasons that will become clear over the course of this review.

Right from the start "The Ramble" is a hilarious tale of two friends meeting-up in the Big Apple's world-famous Metropolitan Museum of Art for a... uh... unique tour. Oh man. You've really got to click the link at the top of this post and read it yourself to fully appreciate this. THERE ARE NO WORDS.

Speaking of there 'being no words,' one of the most fun elements of the comic is explored after they leave the MET, occasional pictographs in place of words. An element that starts out playful like this:










and this:


And later, after a few sausage jokes, crescendos into something brilliant, painful, awkward, and hilarious:



And that's the tip of the iceberg.

There's a sequence of photographs inter-spliced with drawings during a tour of statues and another one during a film [above], four panels in silhouette during a discussion about burlesque, and there's a panel in '3-D' color-separation style while talking about 3-D. A character attempts to better read the text in another panel by grabbing the panel borders! The piece does take Bee and friends through the part of Central Park called the Ramble and all over New York City, but really it's a ramble through different art mediums and styles Little finds interesting. (On his blog, Little refers to this as the practice of "putting it all in there". Which says everything.)

Actually, as far as Jason Little's career in comics, the whole piece is just the tip of the iceberg.

I first became aware of Jason Little (@Beecomix) several years ago when I suddenly found myself in possession of a copy of "Jack's Luck Runs Out" from Top Shelf Productions, a marvelous/crazy comic that's like a Tarantino action-movie but with a playing-card visual style set in the world capital of entertainment: Las Vegas. I first became aware of his rotund reoccurring character Bee, a little over a year ago when I discovered "bee in... Motel Art Improvement Service" on Act-I-Vate.com [Unfortunately, that link now only goes to a 10-page excerpt. Fortunately, that means that a collected print edition from Dark Horse is in the works!] a webcomic about sexual discovery and... a whole lot of other crazy things.

I had the pleasure of meeting the man himself a few months ago at the Carousel event at which he read "bee in... The Ramble" and his personal style is as warmly whimsical as his comics. The surreality of the story for me is that after a sequence in which Bee and her friend get thrown out of a silent movie for the above antics, they arrive at a Carousel event where a sequential self-portrait of Little himself reads the first half of the comic we were hearing! Reading this later on the web broke the 'this comic could be now' feeling, but added an exotic feeling of cluing you into this weird gathering of comicsmiths. Add to this, the fact that it's the last comic in the last issue of "MySpace Dark Horse Presents" and that's mighty strange right?

THE LONG AND SHORTBOX OF IT?
The humor in the character interactions can be a bit 'precious' at times and the draftsmanship has a few uneven moments, but in the end the jokes are great, the art is smooth, plus it's colored fantastically, and the play with art medium and art-styles more than makes up for any faults anywhere else.

Really, all of Jason Little's work I've encountered so far is worth reading. Look him up at Beekeeper Cartoon Amusements' website.

~ @JonGorga