Sequential art is so often based in practical reality, the moment to moment action. I guess it's my fine art background that makes me want to bring something more into that equation...or maybe just a yearning to explore the possibilities of the medium.
How do you get that medium to explore the emotional ambiguities of poetry? The sequence becomes almost anti-story in that view, favoring the emotional to the moment focused on action alone. Much of current comic book storytelling is point to point plot driven... Mike Mignola being an exception to that...P. Craig Russell another.
Emotions rarely give regard to barriers or limits or even time. The emotional moment is a collection of triggers and often time is not even a consideration. The emotional space allows for the entrance of the lyrical, the dreadful, the exquisite. It takes several steps outside the day to day to give room to the emerging feeling.
This piece is in the same vein with some of my other strips where I've combined poetry and imagery. Another more finishied attempt at turning poetry into sequential art is here. I drew this mostly with a ball point pen and added darker areas with a sharpie.
{Ballpoint pen and Sharpie!}
2 comments:
Your observations on emotional content in art are quite apt and so eloquently expressed.
I'm a big proponent of emotional content in any art form. There's just something so compelling about it when you see it. That raw, sincere, honest expression. It's one of the things I live for.
Well thank you Sir! I blame the Hardcore critiques from my art classes in college...that and I'm a bit sensitive. Snif. First fifteen minutes of Lion King. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
I agree on the emotional content. You can give so much more through a piece of art if the emotions are there. If it has no emotive quality...then you might as well have gotten your robot to take a photo under fluorescent lighting. Blek.
Emotions also open a dialogue with the viewer. If you can get someone to feel something just by looking at a piece of art, you've touched them. Of course sometimes it is an undead finger reaching out from underneath the bed to touch them, but you know...some people need to be touched that way. LOL :-P
I'll admit that there is a certain level of emotional terrorism going on with a good bit of my work here, but if you step on over to Trail of Bread Crumbs you can see my softer side. I know that is a shameless plug there, but there is also a good bit of truth. These are my bloody bits. Those are my philosophical ones. :-)
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