Reading Comics / Comics Vocabulary — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00hi everyone welcome to our segment on
2. 0:05reading comics and comics vocabulary
3. 0:13what we're doing today is I'll be using
4. 0:16this whiteboard which by the way is just
5. 0:18a website called whiteboard calm to show
6. 0:21you a few things about how we can use
7. 0:23comics the possibilities for comics and
8. 0:26also get into our initial discussion
9. 0:31about comics vocabulary so you can watch
10. 0:34this either before or after you read the
11. 0:37MacLeod piece the chapter on reading
12. 0:41comics but make sure that you do read
13. 0:43them a cloud piece as there's likely to
14. 0:46be material on a quiz from that so what
15. 0:50I'm doing now is just drawing a couple
16. 0:52of panels and I'm going to show you how
17. 0:56easy it is to tell a story in comics
18. 0:59form you really don't need any
19. 1:02particular level of artistic talent of
20. 1:05course the more artistic or the more
21. 1:07talent you have potentially the better
22. 1:09your storytelling can be but really
23. 1:12there's a lot of good stuff out there
24. 1:14hyperbole and a half is a good example
25. 1:16of art that is really secondary to the
26. 1:21storytelling hyperbole is spelled hy p
27. 1:24er bol e me write that right here
28. 1:29hyperbole and a half you can look that
29. 1:33up you can google it and see some really
30. 1:35dynamic comics happening but you can use
31. 1:37stick figures you can use dots or rocks
32. 1:40you can use pretty much anything as long
33. 1:43as you have a story in mind but you
34. 1:46would like to tell so I'm going to show
35. 1:48you a quick example of that and what I'm
36. 1:52doing here is just doing two really
37. 1:56quick like what I call rocks but they're
38. 2:03really kind of spots let's let's pretend
39. 2:08like that's round but it's
40. 2:13from the edge there so you can only see
41. 2:15part of it okay so there's that one bit
42. 2:18and then the next bit we're going to
43. 2:20create a little bit of creating some
44. 2:31dialogue here we'll talk about what the
45. 2:40parts are in just a few minutes and then
46. 2:43we'll do one over here the little clicks
47. 2:51that you hear are the clicks of the of
48. 2:56the mousepad
49. 2:56as I'm drawing this okay Davida alright
50. 3:01so if I were to ask you what exactly are
51. 3:05these figures here we really don't know
52. 3:08I mean you can use your imagination are
53. 3:10they rocks are the dots are they
54. 3:12monsters of some kind I'm just being
55. 3:15drawn a little bit more here and it
56. 3:18doesn't really matter but we can say
57. 3:19that they're entities of some sort and
58. 3:21they can speak apparently so
59. 3:25in the first panel we have first rock
60. 3:27saying hello and then in the second
61. 3:30panel we get a response hi an
62. 3:33enthusiastic response right because we
63. 3:35see the exclamation point so if I were
64. 3:38to ask you what is the story here or
65. 3:41what is the beginning of the story you
66. 3:43might say well there's a meeting of some
67. 3:46sort there's one rock comes to meet
68. 3:50anybody and there is no one else in
69. 3:54immediate sight but then the second rock
70. 3:58comes in and it's closed up right
71. 4:00because the The Rock won't we can argue
72. 4:03that it's either close up that the rock
73. 4:05seems a lot closer or it's a much bigger
74. 4:08rock or spot so this is a meeting and we
75. 4:12don't know what kind of meeting we don't
76. 4:13have any any any other information I
77. 4:16mean is this the first date is this a
78. 4:20meeting of the Chess Club who knows but
79. 4:23you can see the beginning of a story
80. 4:26with
81. 4:27credibly simple art so the other thing
82. 4:30we can do and if you haven't read the
83. 4:33bit on in our module about iconography
84. 4:36you might want to pause this and then go
85. 4:39read that and then come back because
86. 4:40we're going to talk about that for just
87. 4:42a moment but we can use iconography to
88. 4:44tell stories as well so this is my
89. 4:47favorite story of iconography or what we
90. 4:51might call representations so what we
91. 4:54see here are two triangles and if I were
92. 4:57to ask you okay so which triangle is the
93. 5:00baby triangle and which one is the mama
94. 5:03I'm sure you would say well this one is
95. 5:05more likely the baby because it's
96. 5:07smaller and this one is the mama right
97. 5:10absolutely true if you think about it
98. 5:12we're looking at triangles we aren't
99. 5:15really looking at a baby and the mama
100. 5:17we're looking at two shapes we're
101. 5:20looking at two red triangles and that's
102. 5:23it and yet we can easily easily ascribe
103. 5:27meaning to them with our imagination
104. 5:30right and then this is the second panel
105. 5:36so now we see the baby triangle is we
106. 5:40could say oh cuddling up or leaning
107. 5:42leaning against the mama triangle and
108. 5:45you can create a story out of this you
109. 5:48can create a story out of putting these
110. 5:51two triangles closer together and having
111. 5:54one leaning into the other if we were in
112. 5:56a face-to-face class we might get an R I
113. 6:00think some kind of a emotive sound after
114. 6:04I draw this so I want to point to this
115. 6:06because again these are just triangles
116. 6:10they aren't really a baby and a mama or
117. 6:13a child and a father let's say they are
118. 6:17they're just triangles but we can read
119. 6:20meaning into them and that's one of the
120. 6:23things that makes comics incredibly
121. 6:25dynamic now in this next bit what I want
122. 6:29to show you is how we read comics and
123. 6:33how they kind of work I mean it's fairly
124. 6:36self-explanatory when you're looking at
125. 6:39it
126. 6:40but there are some important things that
127. 6:42I want you to note in terms of the
128. 6:46possibility of comics so I'm just going
129. 6:50to do a little bit of drawing here and
130. 6:58do this blue and again using very simple
131. 7:05lines and then you can you can sort of
132. 7:09read and understand the narrative that's
133. 7:13happening here okay and then we're just
134. 7:21gonna add this last bit and nice and big
135. 7:26here and then I'll ask you to the
136. 7:30question so this is a fairly easy
137. 7:32narrative to read and what's happening
138. 7:37is we have three panels here we always
139. 7:40read comics from left to right and
140. 7:45you're going to start with this first
141. 7:47panel and say well I'm not entirely sure
142. 7:49what that is maybe it's some kind of a
143. 7:52flower figure but it's time to get to
144. 7:55the second panel it's clear okay this is
145. 7:57probably a flower it looks a little bit
146. 8:00bigger now it has a bud on it this this
147. 8:03is rain and then by the final panel we
148. 8:07see that it's a large flower so clearly
149. 8:10it started as a little bit of a stem and
150. 8:12then it grew and now it's a full flower
151. 8:16so what's happened between the first
152. 8:18panel and the third panel is that time
153. 8:21has passed right we haven't had to draw
154. 8:25thirty five panels in between to get
155. 8:28that there's a passage of time so we
156. 8:31have this sequence that happens and our
157. 8:34minds because humans are incredibly
158. 8:37smart and and we are kind of born with
159. 8:41our automatic cognitive processes our
160. 8:43brains fill this in for us so we can
161. 8:48tell stories in sequential art without
162. 8:51having actual motion and without
163. 8:54having to document every single
164. 8:56microsecond of what's going on and
165. 8:59that's pretty fantastic so let's get to
166. 9:03some vocabulary of comics the boxes as
167. 9:07I've already mentioned I've been using
168. 9:08the term this box is called a panel and
169. 9:13we want to start using instead of
170. 9:15calling in a box you want to always call
171. 9:18these panels and the thing about panels
172. 9:21is they can come in any shape and any
173. 9:24size so this is a panel this is a panel
174. 9:29this is another panel let's say you
175. 9:33could make two panels to take up this
176. 9:36space here right we can do all kinds of
177. 9:38things even this space here if there was
178. 9:41some kind of a drawing or maybe if it
179. 9:43was just black because we can use that
180. 9:45to represent silence that is also a
181. 9:48panel and then the next thing is panels
182. 9:53are usually but not always made up of
183. 9:57borders so the edges of a panel are
184. 10:02called borders so this is a border yes
185. 10:09here this is a border these are borders
186. 10:13this Ram that was a border and if this
187. 10:15were a panel here from if we were
188. 10:17counting this as a panel this is a
189. 10:20borderless panel that's important to
190. 10:22keep in mind the next bit that we want
191. 10:25to point to is this which i think is one
192. 10:30of the most interesting part of comics
193. 10:32and that is the space between panels the
194. 10:36space between a panel is called the
195. 10:40gutter and the gutter is really cool
196. 10:43because what happens in the gutter if
197. 10:46you look at panel one panel two and
198. 10:49panel three what happens in the space
199. 10:52between is that time passes
200. 10:58and that's just incredible if you think
201. 11:01about it there's no motion here there's
202. 11:03no actual motion but the way that our
203. 11:06brain fills in the story creates time
204. 11:10passing so keep that in mind because
205. 11:13you're gonna have a quiz on this and
206. 11:15you're gonna need to know what happens
207. 11:16in the gutter I'd like to ask that
208. 11:18question what happens in the gun time
209. 11:21passes in the gutter so they've got
210. 11:23panel borders gutter the other thing is
211. 11:28if our let's say our little flower
212. 11:31actually said something like this for
213. 11:36example and we have that little bubble
214. 11:40that is called a speech bubble or a
215. 11:43speech balloon you can call it a speech
216. 11:46bubble or a speech balloon if our flower
217. 11:51or our entity let's say something like
218. 11:57this was coming out this is sort of this
219. 12:01is supposed to look like a cloud and
220. 12:02let's say there are just words right
221. 12:04here I don't quite have enough room
222. 12:05whenever you see what looks like it
223. 12:08might be a speech bubble but it's that
224. 12:10little clouds instead of lines or
225. 12:13straight circles that is going to be a
226. 12:16thought balloon or a thought bubble
227. 12:20and then this one over here is a speech
228. 12:23bubble okay so the difference is in the
229. 12:29shape so you want to notice the shape
230. 12:31and that will help you read what's going
231. 12:33on the other one that you might see is a
232. 12:36whisper so if you were to see what looks
233. 12:40like a speech bubble but it's got broken
234. 12:44lines and often the words will appear
235. 12:46very small that is a whisper and then
236. 12:54the last one that I want to point to is
237. 12:57when you see text here this is called a
238. 13:03narrative box and usually what happens
239. 13:07in a narrative box is you get
240. 13:09information about the setting
241. 13:11there's a narrators voice that comes in
242. 13:13it's not always in a box
243. 13:15in fact sometimes you'll see narration
244. 13:19just sort of free-floating somewhere on
245. 13:22the page but you can tell that it's
246. 13:24narration usually by the typeset or just
247. 13:28by the change in the voice on that
248. 13:30particular page in that particular
249. 13:32moment the last thing that I want to
250. 13:35point you to and I think that text may
251. 13:39have disappeared so I'll just type it
252. 13:40again super briefly are the different
253. 13:43possible people working on the comic and
254. 13:46there are lots more than what I'm going
255. 13:48to tell you but these are just the main
256. 13:50ones and those are the artists the
257. 13:54writer and those may be the same person
258. 13:57the pencil or the inker the pencil or
259. 14:02puts down the pencils the inker goes
260. 14:04over the pencils to kind of put them in
261. 14:06permanently and there may be someone who
262. 14:10is working on gray tones among others
263. 14:14there are potentially tons more folks
264. 14:17working on a single comic or there may
265. 14:20be just one person working on a single
266. 14:22comics so for more about this go ahead
267. 14:26and check out the Wikipedia page on
268. 14:29comics vocabulary that is that will be
269. 14:35linked on our class site so make sure
270. 14:40you check that out and that will give
271. 14:41you a sense of other folks potentially
272. 14:44involved in the process and additional
273. 14:46vocabulary and that's it