Research publication pt.1
Lily-Rose Beardshaw s0807613
“Storytelling and Innovation: The visual 'voice' in comics”
Introduction
An investigation into the visual “voice” that is communicated through visual language in narrative illustration and in particular comic book art, which is my area of interest. The objective of the research is to examine how style, tone, pacing, media, linework, point of view, colour, scale, and the relationship between text and images are manipulated to provoke responses in an audience, as well as the gulf between intent and reception. Responses will draw on narrative aspects of visual media, including but not limited to illustration - such as fine art, film and photography, for example - as well as the narrative ‘voice’ found in non-visual storytelling such as in fiction, poetry and music. Do collaboration, time constraints and pandering to mass appeal dilute the auteurship of the visual narrative voice or create something different altogether?
The investigation will be conducted via a sketchbook journal that collates research sources and analysis, integrated with original work in a way that is nebulous and organic. The work produced will take the form of experiments in storytelling and the visual narrative ‘voice’ through the medium of comic strip art. Material drawn from life, experiences and memories will make up the subject of narration - the intent here is more journalistic than autobiographical - but the main focus will be the range of ways in which the medium may be exploited, and to what effect. What is the purpose of comics? The restraints, limits and flaws? How can the medium reinforce or subvert identities and ideologies? What are the consequences of working in a format that carries the prestige of neither art nor literature, but is both? These questions should inform and support the major project and my practice, which is comics-based, with a grounding in a wider context of illustration.
At the outset, the investigation embarked on a misguidedly writing-based trajectory, borne from a misunderstanding of the nature of “Research Publication/Experiment” as a task. The “visual essay” initially imagined to be required has remained a kind of sketchbook journal, but with greater emphasis on visual response and analysis than writing. Revising intentions for the outcome of the project, (-initially schemes of an anthology of a handful of graphic short fictions which showcased a range of different styles, techniques and themes-) work of a purely exploratory nature was initiated, with no fixed outcome in mind other than to research, analyse and develop innovation of storytelling within the comics tradition, but also drawing on a wider range of artistic and narrative sources. The work is also informed by lectures and seminars attended throughout the course of study on the subjects of illustration, animation, graphic novels as well as gender in comics. The most successful experiments would serve as the body of work that could be described as finished pieces. The content of the art is also journalistic, so that rather than inventing fictions, the original work produced would be a more direct response to the culture surrounding the narrator. It would also help to maintain a visual focus within the work, considering the temptation to stray into a more verbal framework for an investigation that must be academic in its line of inquiry.
“Storytelling and Innovation: The visual 'voice' in comics”
Introduction
An investigation into the visual “voice” that is communicated through visual language in narrative illustration and in particular comic book art, which is my area of interest. The objective of the research is to examine how style, tone, pacing, media, linework, point of view, colour, scale, and the relationship between text and images are manipulated to provoke responses in an audience, as well as the gulf between intent and reception. Responses will draw on narrative aspects of visual media, including but not limited to illustration - such as fine art, film and photography, for example - as well as the narrative ‘voice’ found in non-visual storytelling such as in fiction, poetry and music. Do collaboration, time constraints and pandering to mass appeal dilute the auteurship of the visual narrative voice or create something different altogether?
The investigation will be conducted via a sketchbook journal that collates research sources and analysis, integrated with original work in a way that is nebulous and organic. The work produced will take the form of experiments in storytelling and the visual narrative ‘voice’ through the medium of comic strip art. Material drawn from life, experiences and memories will make up the subject of narration - the intent here is more journalistic than autobiographical - but the main focus will be the range of ways in which the medium may be exploited, and to what effect. What is the purpose of comics? The restraints, limits and flaws? How can the medium reinforce or subvert identities and ideologies? What are the consequences of working in a format that carries the prestige of neither art nor literature, but is both? These questions should inform and support the major project and my practice, which is comics-based, with a grounding in a wider context of illustration.
At the outset, the investigation embarked on a misguidedly writing-based trajectory, borne from a misunderstanding of the nature of “Research Publication/Experiment” as a task. The “visual essay” initially imagined to be required has remained a kind of sketchbook journal, but with greater emphasis on visual response and analysis than writing. Revising intentions for the outcome of the project, (-initially schemes of an anthology of a handful of graphic short fictions which showcased a range of different styles, techniques and themes-) work of a purely exploratory nature was initiated, with no fixed outcome in mind other than to research, analyse and develop innovation of storytelling within the comics tradition, but also drawing on a wider range of artistic and narrative sources. The work is also informed by lectures and seminars attended throughout the course of study on the subjects of illustration, animation, graphic novels as well as gender in comics. The most successful experiments would serve as the body of work that could be described as finished pieces. The content of the art is also journalistic, so that rather than inventing fictions, the original work produced would be a more direct response to the culture surrounding the narrator. It would also help to maintain a visual focus within the work, considering the temptation to stray into a more verbal framework for an investigation that must be academic in its line of inquiry.