Text and Word Balloons

The text element of the comic medium must be taken into account when developing a good story. Whether the artist decides to create a story entirely with text or not using any text at all, the decision must be a conscious artistic choice.

In word balloons the type of text used can change the way the words are interpreted. Someone saying, “no you can’t” in a normal font has a very different impact from, “NO YOU CAN’T” or even “no you can’t”. These changes in type face and size impact how readers interpret the words being used. This gives the readers a greater sense of the character’s emotions, their personality, and the theme of the story.



Will Eisner, had an especially good instinct for the combination of textual and visual elements. Whenever he incorporated text it always matched the story he was working on.
In the Spirit, Eisner really introduced the idea of dynamic text and titles. In every issue of the Spirit the title of the comic would be incorporated into the body of the first page. It would become an element of the storytelling rather than a simple description that is observed in most comics.

When I'm working on my own comics, I admit that I have a tendency to take the easy road and use computer text, its generally faster and as most of my work is rendered on a computer with a Wacom tablet its faster than printing it out. However, I always do feel a keen sense of disappointment when I look at the finished product. The text element of a visual story must match up to the images that make up the majority of the storytelling or something becomes lost. It is the goal of comic artists to take into account all aspects of their storytelling craft and ensure that no one element will draw to much attention as to pull the audience out of the fantasy that the artist has created.

Here are some interesting pages on text and word balloons in comics.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~mfram/Pages/3036-sound.html
http://comixtalk.com/comic_theory_101_loopy_framing

Motocycles in Montana

So my dad's in town for the weekend, he drove cross country across Montana on his motorcycle. Its a lot of fun, hanging out, talking, building computers. Right now my dad's showing me some of the photographs he took with his digital camera while he was on the road. Some of them he even took while driving.

I must admit that I am not a fan of Montana, sorry, its nothing personal. But damn, it is still some really beautiful countryside. Those slightly curving hills and way off in the background the points of snow covered mountains. I'm going to see if I can't get a copy of a few of the pictures my father took. They're beautiful. His motorcycle is in the foreground which is, in of itself, a beautiful piece of equipment.

Fox

Here is a character study that I did for my Comic Book Story Telling class.

I really enjoy this character a lot. This really is a very very quick drawing of her but never the less, some of her answers to the questions are really fun.
Fox Character Study
Update: I'm sorry the link seems to be down. I'll try to get it fixed soon.

Drawing for fun

Wow. I had forgotten how much I missed drawing, just for the fun of it.

Last night I had dinner with some friends. It was a wonderful dinner, one of the best I've had in a very long time. The food was good and the company was better. We laughed and joked and as the main course was coming to a close we all pulled out sketch pads and drew each other in a round. Then we switched. It was a great experience.

Not since my early days of high school have I been able to draw with friends in a comfortable environment just for the joy of drawing. It was fascinating to me to see the differences in each piece as well, we all had such different styles.

My favorite was the drawing my boyfriend did of me, but I'm biased.

I feel inspired to draw again today, in a way I haven't been in a while. Inspiration comes and goes but sometimes you have to help it along a little. I'm absolutely going to do this again. I feel great.

sketches