Comic+Creation


 * // __Assignment 2: Comic Creation__ //**

“Paper Bag Princess” is a heroic story based a super hero named Macho Libre who finds himself, like most superheroes, rescuing a damsel in distress. The story begins when Macho Libre is enjoying a regular day in the city when he hears a high pitched scream. His ears immediately perk up as he is compelled to find this young woman and help her survive. Macho Libre flies as fast as he can towards the loud screaming noise and finds his damsel in distress with a paper bag over her head at the gun point of two thugs. Watching from the top of a building, Macho Libre plans his form of attack, he flies down to the damsel and fights off the two thugs, killing them on the spot. After the deed is done, he looks at the woman he had saved, she is a beautiful woman, and he becomes instantly attracted to her figure. Nervous and excited Macho Libre prepares to take off the paper bag and give his new found love a kiss. Macho Libre whips off the paper bag to find a terrifying surprise, his new found love was not beautiful at all, but she was ugly with buck teeth, glasses, and freckles.
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This is a comedic story where the superhero is deceived by a woman’s figure to find himself extremely disappointed in his damsel in distress. I chose this story because I feel it presents a mockery of the traditional superhero comic, this is because as much as Macho Libre carried out his role as a traditional superhero, the ending was not the usual clichéd ending of happily ever after.

In McCloud’s //__Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art__//, he strongly emphasizes the ideology of “less is more,” and how it is crucial for “the mastery of any medium involves using minimal design elements.” In the creation of “Paper Bag Princess” I focused on McCloud’s surrounding ideology of the importance of simplicity in my comic creation. I incorporated various image and framing elements mention by McCloud in his graphic novel //__Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art__//, including: types of moment changes between frames, the use of lines, and the use of colour. With the right combination of these design elements it becomes crucial to find a balance between them all to create a successful comic.
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In traditional western superhero comics, a majority of them strongly rely on various types of moment changes between frames to convey various elements of the story, particularly to show action sequences. I used a lot of Subject-to-Subject movement changes, which tends to have a degree of reader involvement necessary to render these transitions meaningful. This means that readers must use past knowledge to fill in the gaps between subjects for a sense of closure between frame transitions. A majority of superhero comics tend to rely on the assumption that all readers have read other superhero stories in order to understand the types of moment changes between slides and what happens in the “gutters” of the comic. In my comic I wanted to emphasize the action sequences with characters but without using too much detail on character movements, which is why I focused a lot on using Subject-to-Subject movement changes.

McCloud states in his graphic novel //__Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art__//, “all lines carry expressive potential, characterizing their subject in some way.” In my comic “Paper Bag Princess” I focused on McCloud’s ideology of simplicity by incorporating strong, simple and bold lines using very gentle curves, to convey a feeling of youth and innocence. This creates a more pleasant and easy read, which surrounds the comedic theme of the story. I also used lines to create visual symbols to convey character movements particularly in action sequences. It provides a sense of physical motion in from the characters in the story as opposed to completely relying on movement between motion frames.

According to McCloud the use of colours can set the tone and emotion for all mediums, in which the author is trying to convey to the reader. “Costumed heroes were often represented in bright, primary colours and fought in a bright primary world.” I used a lot of bold colours such as red, and yellow to emphasize strength which is evident to be dominant in the colour scheme of the comic. Simple flat colours often tend to take on more significance as the world becomes a playground of shapes and space. The use of colours tend to attract readers more easily than a black and white comic and the bright bold colours tend to reflect the overall theme of the story. I wanted to create a warm harmonious reading experience to reflect the mood of my narrative.

By incorporating several of McCloud’s simplistic design elements of successful comics to “Paper Bag Princess,” I was able to produce a short, simple comic that is also effective in the reading experience. Being able to induce the reader to successfully understand the plot and idea of your comic can be a great challenge for any author. But by applying McCloud’s ideology that “less is more” it becomes easier to create a comic that is both successful and simple. Design elements such as types of movement changes, lines and the use of colour can all contribute to successfully implementing McCloud’s concept of simplicity to the creation of a comic.