CCT300+Comic+Creation

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 * __ Plot: __**

This short comic strip is intended to be part of a Rock band magazine. With each publication, "Metal Head" magazine would take pictures of a metal band playing live, and turn it into a small comic strip. Its purpose is to produce a short strip of how the concert went, with some pictures to go along. Since the magazine is aimed at “metal heads”, the audience is expected to know who the band members are. This month’s publication entails Metallica’s concert in Toronto. This six-page comic strip shows various pictures of Metallica during the concert, starting off with the fans cheering, and the set up of the arena. The next few pages simply show the band members doing with they do best, with a few humorous remarks, which I made up for the sake of comic relief. The final page shows the band applauding the audience and finally waving goodbye. The comments on the pictures were kept to a minimal level in order for the viewer to enjoy the picture of the actual event.

All the images in this comic strip were taken by me, since I attended the concert on October 27th, 2009.

Since the comic was self-made (ergo, not so professional), minimal analysis can be extracted from it. The analysis will circulate the panel-to-panel changes that McCloud talked about, the relation between images and words, and finally, the impact of colour on a comic's success.
 * __ Analysis: __**

McCloud devoted an entire chapter to accentuate the importance of panel-to-panel changes. While he talked about several kinds of changes, I will be focusing on the three that I happened to use in my comic. The first one I stumbled upon was the aspect-to-aspect transition (p.g 70). Although McCloud did state it was a rare transition used in Western comics, I sought the Japanese essence of this transition. What I intended to do in the first page was create the scenery for the viewer. I used three pictures which were in no way related to each other, however by adding words to the pictures; I elaborated on the scenery and allowed the viewer to comprehend where this is all leading to. I articulated the image with a statement that had nothing to do with image (first page, first picture). This combination is what McCloud referred to as a "parallel" combination (p.g 154). The image was of the lightings of the arena, before the concert initiated. Combining this particular image with a welcoming statement works hand in hand; it masks the audience (p.g 43) into the commencement of this occurrence. The majority of the comic incorporated the scene-to-scene transition (p.g 71). This is due to the fact that this comic serves as both a montage and a comic strip. The viewer would like to see all the band members playing at different times of the concert. Finally, I sought to use the moment-to-moment transition (p.g 70). I found it very unique because I had a series of images that fit well together to create a harmonic transition. The series of images laid in the beginning of page four convey this transition.

Along with pictures, words have a very strong impact on how the message is conveyed to the viewer. The alchemy (p.g 73) of this combo, as McCloud referrers to it, is significant and pivotal in comics. I did touch on this earlier, when I referred to how I integrated the aspect-to-aspect transition along with the parallel image and words combination. More examples are obvious in the comic, where a lot of the picture have no words tagged to them, since they are picture specific (p.g 153) and do not require much word emphasis. I also did use duo specific (p.g 153) combinations in the image of the pyrotechnics and the word "boom" (page 3), and in the last two images on the final page. Although they were self-explanatory, I felt that adding words would work just as strongly as the images do. Additive combination (p.g 154) was used on the fifth page (far right picture), where the lead singer has stopped playing and is announcing that they are about to play their last song. This combination is used to elaborate the situation furthermore, and explain to the viewer exactly what is going on.

Finally, I will touch on the importance of colour in this comic. Although a lot of comics started off as black and white, most of them have now shifted towards a more colour oriented chic. This comic strip was made to show the audience what the show was like, with all the emotions, themes and colours that were present at the time. McCloud states that colours objectify their subjects (p.g 189). With colour, we become more aware of the physical entity present upon us. He also stated that colour could be used to define a mood. I used that technique in the third page of my comic (3rd picture on the right). The blue/grey colour was added to convey a state of absent mindedness. This is affirmed with the speech bubble which clasps this absent mindedness concept, by entailing the guitarist's thoughts; it adds more depth to the image (p.g 190). McCloud finally describes colour as a preferable option that is more attractive, more real (p.g 192), an option that sets a new aura for the comic life. It eradicates what is obscure, and allows a more lively flow of life and limitless thoughts and interpretations.

With all this mentioned, I can conclude by stating that with McCloud's thorough and bone-deep examination of comics, a lot of opportunities to create comics were made available. After studying his work, I managed to produce a comic strip which I can personally analyze and explain meticulously.