Illusion of Motion

While reading the textbook section on the illusion of motion in 2-D art, I was really glad to see a page from a comic used as an example. While I haven't read that particular Marvel work, I was reminded of all the fantastic examples of motion in graphic novels in general.

I took a course a few years ago on graphic novels, and motion is an absolutely essential part of the finished work. One of the most compelling titles I read was Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa. The art style showed motion without excessive lines and shading, which I often see in a lot of manga titles (my eyes just aren't able to pick out what, exactly, is going on in some of those panels!).

Here's a great example of the use of lots of clean lines and negative space:

from Barefoot Gen #1: A Cartoon Story Of Hiroshima

Another title on the class list was Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen. I'd never seen the movie or read the novel, so it was a surprising, depressing journey all the way through. Unlike Barefoot Gen, which is all in black and white, Watchmen is overflowing with bold, vibrant colors. The image I remember most from the latter is actually an example of an image expressing stillness rather than motion. It depicts the aftermath of the destruction of New York (hopefully I don't spoil it for anyone). 

from Watchmen, chapter XI

Time stands still here. The crowd is moving, but seems to freeze when you look at it because of the bloody doomsday clock in the center of the picture. The clock in particular seems like such a stroke of genius to me; it perfectly portrays the seriousness, horror, and scope of the event. Its detail is used as the cover for chapter XII as well:

from Watchmen, chapter XII

Well, it's been much too long since my last post, so I figured I'd dive right in and talk about some of the reading. The section on color was really interesting, especially since color relationships are one of the more difficult visual concepts for me to understand. I just don't instinctively know which colors should go together in a given situation. My sister, however, knows instantly how to do this. She recently re-painted one of our bathrooms, and picked a light, pinkish orange. She then used purple as an accent color. It looks fantastic, but there's no way I would have ever thought to combine those two colors!

My first instinct is just to stick with black, white, grays, and maybe some accent color. That's a simple combination I can understand and am aesthetically drawn to for some reason. I recently bought an album from one of my favorite bands, and one of the pictures in the inside booklet uses color in this way:

From Wild Card, by ReVamp

The red of the bleeding heart really stands out, not just because it's gruesome, but because red is a very strong color, and it's made even more noticeable by its dingy grey, black, and white surroundings. It's a pretty gross image, but I like the jolt it gives on first viewing.