Among the graphic novels I've read this morning was Jeff Lemire's Lost Dogs. Lemire has recently been getting rave reviews for The Underwater Welder, which I read yesterday and am thinking the reviews might've hindered my appreciation of it because I preferred this story.
Lost Dogs has a story that reminded me a bit of the film Gladiator but the setting is Edwardian or Victorian. The thick ink brushstrokes have a kinetic energy and I really liked the minimal colour palette too.
The foreword by Timothy Callahan has stimulated a bit of thought for me. He cites Steven Soderbergh as saying "audiences will put up with poor picture quality as long as the sound is clear, but a crisp picture and problematic audio will turn off even the most eager viewers."
As an audio nut who hopes to work on video productions this pleases me but it was employed to suggest that for comics, the role of lettering "can help even the most chaotic sequence of images seem readable" and Lemire goes on to write that the lettering was redone for this re-release of Lost Dogs.
It's something of an issue in the sketchbook diary I've been keeping because my handwriting is usually sloppily inscribed and then the speech bubbles often clip the words too.
Seems keeping this diary is becoming a great way to appreciate the work that goes into creating a comic. When I started reading Kochalka's sketchbook diaries I was often critical of how uninteresting some of the panels were to me, but now I've started my own I know that some days just don't provide interesting material.
And I'm also realising the necessity for activity in the panels I sketch because my most recent entry has a series of scribbles showing my head while I relayed some thoughts I'd been having. Maybe I need to keep a diary and a sketchbook diary?
Lost Dogs
Among the graphic novels I've read this morning was Jeff Lemire's Lost Dogs. Lemire has recently been getting rave reviews for The Underwater Welder, which I read yesterday and am thinking the reviews might've hindered my appreciation of it because I preferred this story.
Lost Dogs has a story that reminded me a bit of the film Gladiator but the setting is Edwardian or Victorian. The thick ink brushstrokes have a kinetic energy and I really liked the minimal colour palette too.
The foreword by Timothy Callahan has stimulated a bit of thought for me. He cites Steven Soderbergh as saying "audiences will put up with poor picture quality as long as the sound is clear, but a crisp picture and problematic audio will turn off even the most eager viewers."
As an audio nut who hopes to work on video productions this pleases me but it was employed to suggest that for comics, the role of lettering "can help even the most chaotic sequence of images seem readable" and Lemire goes on to write that the lettering was redone for this re-release of Lost Dogs.
It's something of an issue in the sketchbook diary I've been keeping because my handwriting is usually sloppily inscribed and then the speech bubbles often clip the words too.
Seems keeping this diary is becoming a great way to appreciate the work that goes into creating a comic. When I started reading Kochalka's sketchbook diaries I was often critical of how uninteresting some of the panels were to me, but now I've started my own I know that some days just don't provide interesting material.
And I'm also realising the necessity for activity in the panels I sketch because my most recent entry has a series of scribbles showing my head while I relayed some thoughts I'd been having. Maybe I need to keep a diary and a sketchbook diary?
