stacyswarpacifist-blog

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Bibliography

Russell, B. and Haldane, J. (1950). Am I an atheist or an agnostic?. 5th ed. Girard, Kan.: E. Haldeman-Julius.

Blackmail or war. (1932). 4th ed. Harmandsworth: Penguin Books Limited.

Orwell, G. and Molina, M. (2008). 1984. Mexico: Editorail Lectorum.

Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. 3rd ed. Novato, Calif.: New World Library.

A Clockwork Orange. (1971). [film] England: Home Warner Video.

Filmed in Supermarionation. (2014). [DVD] England: Network Distributing Ltd.

McCarthy, H. (2013). The art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga. 1st ed. Lewes: Ilex.

Mateu-Mestre, M. (2016). Framed Perspective Vol.1. 1st ed. China: Designstudio Press.

Manga: the pre-history of Japanese Comics. (2006). 1st ed. PIE.

Wednesday Comics. (2010). 1st ed. New York: DC Comics.

2000AD Script Book. (2016). 1st ed. Oxford: Rebellion.

Shifting Art Styles in Comics | Strip Panel Naked. (2017). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFpaAT1nDng [Accessed 12 Sep. 2017].

Darwyn Cooke's Three Panel Grid | The New Frontier | Strip Panel Naked. (2017). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niD_Pv1Iu80&t=117s [Accessed 12 Sep. 2017].

Smith, M.J., Duncan, R. and Duncan, Y. (eds.) (2011) Critical approaches to comics: Theories and methods. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Taylor, P.M. (1992) War and the media: Propaganda and persuasion in the gulf war. Manchester: Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin’s Press.

Beaverbrook, L. (1942) Spirit of the Soviet Union: anti-nazi cartoons and posters. First edn. Great Britain: Love & Malcomson Ltd.

Jowett, G.S. and O’Donnell, V. (2006) Propaganda and persuasion. 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Alaniz, J. (2010) Komiks: Comic art in Russia. United States: University Press of Mississippi.

Gunston, B. (1983) An illustrated guide to spy planes and electronic warfare aircraft. First edn. London: Salamander Books Ltd.

Wheeler, B. (1985) An illustrated guide to modern american fighters and attack aircraft. First edn. London: Salamander Books Ltd.

Gunston, B. (1984) An illustrated guide to future fighters and combat aircraft. First edn. London: Salamander Books Ltd

Gunston, B. (1983) An illustrated guide to modern airborne missles. First edn. London: Salamander Books Ltd.

Gunston, B. (1983) An illustrated guide to nato fighters and attack aircraft. First edn. London: Salamander Books Ltd.

Schaeffer, L. and Barreti, A. (2016) Goldtiger: the poseidon complex. First edn. London: Rebellion.

Siuyi Wong, W. (2002) hong kong comics: a history of manhua. First edn. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

ILYA (2014) The mammoth book of cult comics. Edited by ILYA. First edn. Great Britain: Robinson.

Ware, C. (2010) The acme novelty library number 20. First edn. New York: Drawn and Quarterly.

Mason, R. (2017). Theresa May criticises university 'safe spaces' for shutting down debate. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/14/theresa-may-criticises-university-safe-spaces-for-shutting-down-debate [Accessed 6 Jan. 2017].

Welsh, K. (2016, May 23). Universities have always been a safe space for straight, white men - “censorship” just evens the playing field. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/universities-have-always-been-a-safe-space-for-straight-white-me/

Safe space policy update (2017) Available at: https://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/eusapolicy/internal/safespaceupdate/ (Accessed: 10 January 2017).

2016, K. (2016) KCLSU safe space policy. Available at: https://www.kclsu.org/safespace/ (Accessed: 10 January 2017).

HM Government. Retrieved January 10, 2017, from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/539683/55469_Cm_9310_Web_Accessible_v0.11.pdf

Browne, D. (2016, September 2). Politicising empathy: On safe spaces, mental health, and chicago Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/david-browne2/politicising-empathy-on-s_b_11823368.html

Cairns, G. (2016, May 6). Safe spaces are not about political correctness - they’re about dealing with people who tell you what to think Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/gus-cairns/safe-spaces_b_9848700.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/oliver-norgrove/safe-spaces-university_b_9630176.html

Intellectual Property Office. (2013, March 15). Parody and pastiche. Retrieved January 10, 2017, from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/parody-and-pastiche

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Upon researching used of colour and composition in comics on youtube, I came across the channel “Strip Panel Naked”. This channel ended up being an incredible resource for comics commentary and reflection. I found the episodes “Shifting art styles in comics” and “Darwyn Cooke's Three Panel Grid”

the first video, “Shifting art styles in comics” demonstrates the effective use of this technique, one example they pull from is the Batman story 'The black love story' where artist J.H Williams renders each antagonist in a different way to reflect the era and background of those characters. This is especially effective, allowing the visuals to suggest a narrative rather than having to devote prose and exposition to the concept, acting as a somewhat 'silent exposition', I used a similar technique during the introduction to Pacifist Part 1, where the introduction section (set one year in the future) is rendered and coloured differently from the rest of the narrative, suggesting a world thats changed in a grim and lifeless way. The narrator of 'Strip Panel Naked' relates this technique in film to the used of applying traditional animation into films like 'who framed roger rabbit' or 'space jam' claiming 'they exist on a different plain'

Another comic that uses this technique is referred to in the video is 'Goodnight Punpun' by Japanese creator Inio Asano. 'Goodnight Punpun' uses this technique frequently with the title character, who is rendered in a form of a child’s drawing of a bird against relatively naturalistic surroundings, this instantly communicates how the character is viewed by others and their prosonality against the world they inhabit. Asano does a similar approach to the character 'God' in the same book whom is depicted as a photograph of a man with an afro, which also reflects their standing in the world they inhabit.

The second video, focusing on the late Darwyn Cooke's habitual use of the three panel grid in his work 'DC: The New Frontier', noting that it's effectiveness hinges on it's raw simplicity, working as so; First Panel is the status quo, the second panel acts as the question and the third and final panel acts as an answer. These panel structure also works well as introduction; first panel 'Where?' second panel 'Who?' and third panel 'What?'. The video also notes that because the panels are all 'wide screen format' they don’t have any other panels competing for dominance on the same row, allowing each panel to be viewed with the same significance as each other. This particular panel structure can be seen on the first page of Pacifist Part 1 for this very reason, it works as a strong and simple introduction for the reader.

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The improved artwork for the introduction section of the comic, I felt that the sequence would benefit form another use of mid-tone, to help bring out the compositions better. I used a high quality scan of a distressed mono-printed texture, this distressed texture helps sell the suggestion of a dystopian world.

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After the short 50 copy original print run I plan to produce a kickstarter campaign for Pacifist's first major 500 copy print run, featuring updated artwork and a new cover. I re-designed the cover to give a more sinister impression opposed to the original cover that was drawn to give an impression of melancholy or regret.

I made the decision to purposely keep the designs similar, as to imply that the second print run will act as an improved “remixed” version of the original. I also feel, with the addition of the text boxes, this cover feels slightly more genuine towards the aesthetic of silver age comics

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Salamander's Illustrated guides to aircraft were used to get visual reference and information when deciding the designs for the aircraft featured in the comic, before I decided that international recovery were to use aircraft that resemble cheap toys, to suggest an innocents and non-aggression

to counter this the International Prevention aircraft, long with all being the same model, are heavily based on the german spy plane “Horten 2-29”

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This Illustrated guide to commonwealth infantry served as initial inspiration for the International Prevention uniforms, I was visually interested in the livery and regalia associated with military uniforms and this text works as a good resource

I was especially taken by the uniforms of the Duke of Cumberland's riflemen from 1803

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The Attack on Titan Anthology collects various stories by creative teams known for their work in the American comics scene, I found this book especially interesting because of it's key concept; western creators taking on the themes and characters of an eastern comic and giving fresh spins on the work.

From a marketing angle, this book works on two levels, one as a showcase of modern talent and ideas, and again as a way to introduce the Attack on Titan series to potential new readers

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From the same author as Framed Ink comes a specialised guide on using perspective to create dynamic, cinematic storytelling. The text takes a more technical look at perspective and composition than Mateu-Mestre's previous work “Framed Ink” although, through it's more technical gaze, I learnt more about laying out my perspective grids well and when to use certain compositions.

Helping to show when the most necessary use of advanced perspectives like three point perspective in down shots and giving the impression of different camera lenses. The text features an extensive chapter showing how to emulate camera lenses within illustration, from fish eye lenses to wide angles.

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A resource that I found myself consulting frequently was Marcos Mateu-Mestre's Framed Ink. The book acts as a masterclass in visual storytelling, despite only have one chapter devoted to comics as a storytelling medium, the text speaks to all aspects of the visual storytelling art form.

The text outlines strong fundamentals to consider when constructing a scenes composition, a large focus is on what you want to say through your scene, showing who is the dominant force within your story, and how composition is just as a powerful storytelling element as prose or sequence.

I mostly used this source when I was unaware of what composition I should use, by acting as a catalogue of possible choices, I can take influence from the book and work it into my comic  

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During this project I made a point to look into the disposable nature of the comic book medium opposed to what people consider “Graphic Novels” , after looking into Weekly Shonen jump and the concept of disposable comics in Japanese culture I looked deeper into this context and found Osamu Tezuka.

Osamu Tezuka is known world wide for his slew of characters, the most renowned being Astro-Boy, but many others including; Black Jack, Kimba the white lion and Buku Bukk. What makes Tezuka's characters interesting compared to other Japanese comics characters is what gets referred to as “the Star System” which is a result of Tezuka treating his characters as if they were the stars of the Hollywood screen, bouncing off of the concept that Charlie Chaplin's “United Artists” introduced in 1919. Traditionally the term “Star System” in Hollywood refers to a system where the creative choices and success were made by the staring actors rather than other roles.

Tezuka's “Star System” paved the way for individual characters as Intellectual Property, showing his characters and the “working fees” applicable for using that character. The remarkable spect of this system is that Tezuka crafted this far before he reached the heights of popularity he did later on in his career, re-using his comic-relief character Hyotantsugi in multiple projects cemented Tezuka as an innovator of the comics industry.

Another interest concept I stumbled upon when studying Tezuka was the “Red Books” in Japan. Red Books or “Akahon” were cheap, disposable comic volumes distributed during the post WW2 recession, known for their low quality paper and lurid red ink used for their covers. During this time Tezuka's work started to go mainstream with this, disposable, mass market comics medium, which were primarily produced cheaply in Osaka based printing presses. An interesting result of the cheap labour and materials was the process in which the artwork was transferred to the zinc metal printing plates. Craftsman would trace the original artwork via transfer paper onto the zinc, although the craftsmen changed from issue to issue resulting in the finished print's aesthetic varying wilding between each instalment.

During the time the red books were in print, Japan was under American occupation, and with the occupation came censorship over the media at large, including comic media. Most of the censorship that was enforced upon the Japanese was to limit Japanese militarism and to promote American style democratic politics, content that was classified as inappropriate were anything critical of the allied forces, any sexual intimacy between occupying forces and Japanese women, and any mention of starvation, the black market or Japanese nationalism. This was coupled with censorship of American media that was entering the country, with US produced films being edited to remove any suggestion of social unrest in the US. Comics, along with children's media was censored less, mostly being censored post publication, this effected the Japanese comics of the day, having far less Japanese historical and samurai tales because they may inspire some form of militarism.

Because of this heavy censorship during the occupation, Tezuka's work started to favour more detective style themes and modern settings, leading to work like his seminal take on Fritz Lang's 1920's science-fiction master piece “Metropolis” giving the comic a social context relevant to his 1949 audience.

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When starting this project one of the skills that I wanted to improve on was my approach to lettering. I found “The DC Comics Guise to Colouring and Lettering” a good resource to start with, the book features an overview on all areas of lettering, the most useful I found were the two sections on Working with Scripts and Art, and Balloon Placement.

Working with scripts and art helps with formatting, specifically working with different edge bleeds and working within the safe area denoted on most comic pages, or intentionally breaking that rule for a specific effect. Balloon placement is a subject I was more confident with, although the chapter concerning this in the book did act as a good refresher for the conventions of that part of the art-form, the chapter devotes a lot of the first part to explaining to novice practitioners the conventions of speech balloons, read up to down, left to right ect. Although it does shed light on some interesting techniques revolving around placing a balloon over two panel boarders, suggesting the conversation is interrupted and continued in the following panel.

The lettering section does focus on hand lettering primarily, although does give it's own chapter on “computer lettering”, in which I was most interested in, since my experience with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop lent to that. The book didn’t lend me as much help as I once anticipated on this front as the programs the book references are far out of date by the standards of 2017, Although, had I been less experienced, the advice given will help broadly.

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The 2000 AD script book serves a good resource for getting insight into how different comic artist interpret scripts, the book features various 2000 AD scripts opposite the published artwork. The book is spearheaded by an introduction by editor Matt Smith in which he talks about the 2000 AD brand of comics, mentioning “Comics scriptwriting – especially for 2000AD – is a particularly visual form of writing in that the writer must be conscious of how what he or she is imagining is going to work on the printed page” he also comments on the difference between US comics scripts and their UK counterparts - “Generally speaking, British comic scriptwriters let the art sell the story and are less likely than their US counterparts to cram a panel with dialogue. In 2000AD in particular, it's visually arresting characters, the strange worlds and technology, that has proved integral to its success”

The book also show cases the vast differing talents that the magazine has published. One interesting difference between scriptwriters is preference over panel layout and structure, many of the older stories chronicled in the book show a more hands on approach from the writers, giving notation on size and panel composition, where as in the more modern stories we see less notes devoted to this, allowing the artists to make that decision.

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During 2009 DC comics published a broadsheet comics anthology titled Wednesday Comics. Wednesday comics was a significant departure form what DC had been doing previously, in which the usual practice of monthly books published using modern and up to date printing techniques was the norm. The biggest stand out feature of the book was the large, broadsheet format, this allowed the numerous artists involved to stretch their practice and adapt it to an older approach to serialised narrative. As the title of the book suggested, issues were put out weekly, every Wednesday which is traditionally the day stores receive new titles. Each creative team involved were given one full broadsheet page a week to fit their story into, this resulted in many creative solutions to the, now obscure, comics format.

A standout collaboration in Wednesday Comics is the creative team of Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred on the character “Metamorpho”. The team's strengths come into the forefront in this series, Gaiman in known in comic circles for his seminal work on Vertigo's Sandman which involved heady themes that centre around perception and the concept of the fictional, where as Mike Allred's artistic strengths lean on his modern take on vintage comics aesthetic and psychedelic visual concepts. Allred's artwork plays off the broadsheet, newsprint format well, giving the book a feeling of authenticity.

One double page spread of Metamorpho works especially well in the seventh instalment, where Gaiman and Allred devise a panel structure that marries the key concept of the character as well as deliver the necessary narrative. In this double page spread we see Metamorpho, accompanied by his fellow characters traversing a labyrinth of stone pillars, viewed from the audiences perspective they resemble the scientific table of elements, this fact is highlighted by the relevant symbols for the elements in bold within the characters dialog. In the narrative the title character is also refereed to as the “element man” being made of every compound in the table of elements, this spread is an example of creator synergy working at it's best, with both prose and visual aspects reinforcing the characters key concepts.

An example of a singular creator taking on a strip in the paper is Paul Pope's run on Adam Strange in: Strange Adventures. Pope bring his well known kinetic energy to the character that appears in almost every project Pope is involved with, in addition to this he adds various recurring motifs within the story to stylistically suggest the campy, dimension hopping tendencies of the character. One motif in particular stands out, the recurring use of circular panels intersecting the traditional square panel format, this appears in every page of Pope's run, this technique is used to draw the readers eye towards key moments that Pope wants to stand out as significant in the sequence, this is couples with another motif that is also frequently used. Interspersed through out the story is a repeating pattern reminiscent of 60's and 70's psychedelia art, which adds to the over all feeling of dimension traveling, pulp science-fiction the character is known for.

This repeating pattern directly influenced the arabesque lines that permeate every page of pacifist Part 1, I use the similar technique to give a background feeling of camp pulp science-fiction, as well as give the impression of CRT television scan lines.

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The panel/ composition flow that's commonly referenced as a “funnel” has the composition wide at the top of the page and the narrow into one singular moment at the bottom of the page. I use this panel flow three times in Pacifist Part 1, once on the first page, again 14 pages in (roughly in the middle of the book) and on the very last page of the book. I use these three key moments to use the funnel flow as subtextual composition, foreshadowing the act of falling from the sky, in which the titular moment in the issue (pictured in the last image). I chose these moments as they are the three key beats of the first issue, first we see the world that is presented to us, an unavoidable future that was been impacted by the plane crash. Second we see the moment the international recovery team accept themselves as international prevention, the instant reaction to the crash, and third we see the crash happen, the moment the whole book is bouncing off.

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the Speaker Scene

Various times within the finished book I use unnatural colour palettes along side natural colour, the primary use of this technique is to highlight a moment of hight tension or relevance. One example where I use two instances of unnatural colour to contrast against each other is the “public announcement scene” where the first page in the sequence uses a calm pink offset with orange, this colour combination acts to become alarming, unlike the pages preceding these, where the colour palette stays inside a restricted range, this palette uses two contrasting colours which bring attention to the action within the panels. The second page in this sequence in almost identical to the first, albeit with slight difference such as colour palette, the face of the speaker and dialogue.

The second page uses a much calmer, organic palette, staying in pastel green and blue. These natural colours not only contrast with the previous page but reflect the change in dialogue, to a more thoughtful, playful take on the speech from the first page. This sequence takes place on a page turn, this page turn from what we saw happened to what actually accrued works as a reveal, this reveal is further stressed by a lettering technique that appears on the last panel of the first page where the caption “Fantastic Mr.Stacy, I'll polish this up in post-” is ended with a hyphen, which suggests the statement isn’t finished, and will be continued on the next page.  

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Importance of Purple/ Violet in Pacifist Part 1

In some instances I draw on cultural context for colour choice, in the two opening scenes, the strongest colours used are hues and shades of Purple. Culturally, the colour purple has been associated with two things; Status, and Death. Purple is used to denote a high status in religious institutions, Priests and Bishops in Catholicism, as well as in certain strains of Buddhism high ranking monks are aloud to wear purple robes, there is also an association with achievement with links to the purple heart, the highest award given by the US military.

In Britain specifically, purple can be used in mourning, in the Victorian era people would wear black in the year following a death, then closer to when the mourning period was coming to a close the black gained a purple trim. Purple is also used for mourning in Thailand, where a widow will wear purple during her period of mourning.

I used purple through out part 1 to reference both of these symbolic meanings, mourning and death to represent the aftermath of the disaster that puts the story in motion. We first see the use of purple/ violet in the opening pages as the full bleed colour, in these pages we see the character Daphne on the run and apprehended by International Prevention in a violent manor.  The scene is re-enforced by the use of purple/ violet because of the links to authority and death reflecting the attack from international prevention in their matching uniforms on Daphne, who is depicted in casual wear.

The second most prominent use of Purple/ Violet in the book is immediately following this, where we open on Peter Stacy musing on the events of the disaster. To highlight the link between this scene and the purple/ violate symbolism, we have an authority figure, high in status, worrying about the consequences of mass death. These two scene punctuate what part one is about; Failure of Authority, which acts as the narratives true starting point.

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Visual inspiration

Through out the Pacifist Project I have has very broad visual inspiration; 1970's and 80's, Pop-art and classic science-fiction. But there are some very specific examples that have inspired this work and made me want to push the aesthetic of the comic.

One comic specifically, DareDevil: The Man Without Fear issue 280, Twilight of the Idols. Written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by John Romita Jr. Romita Jr's use of negative space within panel structure, his thick, broad use of line adds a strong contrast. Despite the issue launching in may of 1990, Romita jr's work feels very much of the high point of mainstream comics in the 80's, favouring a frequent use of line over large areas of black to denote tone and darkness. As sections of the issue are set in a snow storm giving the character

Hanna Barbarra influenced the project greatly, the visual aesthetic can be described as Thunderbirds by way of Johnny Quest. The television style animation that Johnny Quest was part of, focused on using fewer lines and reused animation cels, which is reflected in the relatively simple characters found in Pacifist.

Being highly inspired by 60's and 70's comics and television made using the issue format an obvious choice, having the focus of part one being setting up the premise rather than pushing a “one and done” style comic.