Required Reading - The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud

Just finished this incredible novel by Scott McCloud, of Understanding Comics fame.  Five years in the making, The Sculptor is a story about art and love and death and wonder and failure.  The main character is an artist, in whom a colossal arrogance and terrifying insecurity coexist.  He wants to make great, objectively good art, art to be remembered.  But when the most common (and probably accurate) advice that the world give us is: "create what's inside you," it's easy to despair - who of us has penetrated that labyrinth?

McCloud has a couple interviews where he discusses his comic-making process, and I think it's pretty unique - He created all his roughs on a gigantic photoshop document (which he shows on his blog page) and used that to edit and move around - this gives him incredible control over the pacing of the story.  Which moments are emphasized?  How do page turns affect them?  After spending years writing the book (literally) on how comics work in the mind of the reader, it's easy to see that every tool has been brought to bear.  It reads perfectly, easily, and emotionally.

Incredible work.

Homework - Drawing Prompts Comic

This homework assignment is taken from Jessica Abel and Matt Madden's Mastering Comics.  The drawing prompts comic is an easy and practical way to stretch your abilities, forcing yourself to make drawings that challenge your typical compositions preferred subject matter.

Begin with a page divided into 6 panels, then make a mark or two in each panel, challenging yourself to make a variety of shapes and marks.

Then Abel and Madden challenge you to develop the basic shapes into a series of thumbnails that tell a story.  My first thought was of someone falling, and that implied some sort of high precipice.  What might have caused the fall?  How might it end?  I settled on the person passing through the ground into some sort of different dimension, but I'm not to impressed with this attempt to depict it.

I left this page here, perhaps I'll revisit it for further exercises.