classics illustrated

[egypturnash]

So a couple of grizzled comics vets did an adaptation of the report of the governmental investigative commission on 9/11. Slate is serializing it. It's not all online - I wouldn't be surprised if the last chapter goes up on the anniversary -

I have no comment on the political undertones of things like choices of how far to push caricatures of various people. But damn, the first chapter is a really beautiful use of the medium: a sparse adaptation of the events on each of the four airplanes involved, from boarding to crashes, plays out in parallel, stacked down the page and stretching across the whole chapter. Now and then I've seen similar parallel narratives done in film, but it can easily become a complete information overload; this is a mode that comics uniquely excels at.

And oddly enough, it's a trick that's rarely used. Even when a story consists of multiple, interwoven threads. The only other example I can think of offhand is issue #4 or so of Those Annoying Post Bros., where the titular brothers split up, and one gets the top half of the pages, while the other gets the bottom. It's tough to get all the rhythms to combine and work, I suppose; to manage two separate threads to run at the same length, and recombine.

Note to self: Is there a part of Drowning City that would benefit from this bit of pyrotechnics? I don't think so; the narrative focus is very much on one character's viewpoint. It is by no means a mosaic narrative. I have parts that will use other uniquely-comics trickery. (And I should be making time to work on it. Other things pulled me away from the progress I was making in sorting it all out and making ready to start drawing. I need to just draw.)

Comments

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

I saw that comic at my store, and while it might be a good piece of work overall, a quick flip through it made me feel that the comics medium was not the way to approach this as it felt, again at the intial gaze, as if the subject were being trivialized. Especially when we're shelving the actual Commission report right next to it, and it's three times the size. So I'll take another look.

As far as pyrotechnics and special effects go, I've found that the story will call for them itself. If needed, there they are. If not, they clash like cymbals. You'll know.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Slate is doing a chapter a day through the 7th.

Good stuff.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

I'm still standing in the corner shouting "TOO SOON! TOO SOON!" at everything. Remember when Pearl Harbor came out, and everyone was all in a tizzy? Meanwhile, WTC: THE MOVIE came out and nobody cared. I remain disturbed.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

It's definitely too soon to make it into a spectacle, which the WTC movie definitely is; but it's pretty much been treated that way since it happened, car window flags and all.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

You know, when you described the day you had a snowball (http://shatterstripes.livejournal.com/464149.html), I immediately pictured it as something out of Watchmen: A close-up of the umbrella, with a spiral design, suddenly in your face, and the next panel a satellite picture of the coming storm, the isomorphism unsubtle, juxtaposed with the narration in that seemingly profound way...

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

I've got a Graphic Novel where that is used. A recent "World of Tomorrow" thing, or something that starred a character called Greycloak I think. I can tell you the name if you really care at home.

I once wrote a short story like that actually. It had the narrative of events across 2/3s of the page, and the other third had the "computer" view of the commands going through the cyborg that was participating in the action. Acquire target, arm, stand down, sort of stuff that fleshed out the 3rd person view of the scene it was involved in.

It was more fancy than functional, but still I tried.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really like it as sequential storytelling and for the light, more illustrative linework. I didn't expect to like this, and in general I try to avoid discussion of 9/11, but this was actually really good. It definitely holds up Eisner's ideal that you can actually use comics to talk about serious stuff.

I think part of what I like is that the drawing part of it, and even the storytelling part, has very little value judgement implied, compared to the way the whole thing has been presented in the press. That takes it from being a story I am supposed to feel very emotional, angry and hawkish about, to being a story about a big coordinated terrorist strike.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

The actual storytelling is (just) okay, but the art bugs me; it just looks so cheap and cheesy, like an old Classics Illustrated comic. Also, I don't know if it was a stylistic intention of the illustrator, but the whole comic has the feel of those in-flight safety brochures you're supposed to read before the plane takes off...