McCloud
is of the opinion that color use in comics helps keep track of characters
because some comics use the same colors for characters continuously. Regarding
costumes, the author says, “…costume colors remained exactly the same, panel
after panel, they came to symbolize characters in the mind of the reader”
(McClouds 188). Some comic artists have preference colors and they use these
colors throughout their art. These colors carry certain themes that the comic
artist aims to pass across every time he or she releases a piece of comic art.
This
comic by Jim Davis illustrates the use of color to keep track of characters. As
seen, the light blue color is attributed to the mother; the purple-green color
is attributed to the daughter while the yellow color is attributed to the
doggie. This helps the reader know who is speaking without having to recognize
their faces. It also relieves the artist of the stress of having to include the
entire body of the character. As seen in the three instances, only the lower
body of the mother appears to match up with the heights of the daughter and the
doggie. If the artist were to include the entire height of the mother, the
image proportion would be unrealistic considering that the available space is
also limited. Ideally, the mother would assume the same height as the daughter
and the doggie or the heights of the daughter and the doggie would be
suppressed highly to the extent of being invisible. In commercial papers, for
instance, comics are allowed limited space, which prompts artists to maximize
the use of space to pass on their message in the correct way. Color has turned
out to be of great help in this regard.
Works
Cited
McCloud, Scott. Understanding
Comics: the Invisible Art. New York City: HarperCollins Publishers Inc,
1994. Print.
TvTorpes. "Depending
on the Artist." 2 March 2016. Web.
Ahmad, the way you approached this blog was a little different than mine but you did a really good job at explaining your opinion on the blog. The way you explain the use of color by the artist to make it easier on them is a great point. I did not look at it that way before you pointed it out. The use of color to make the author have to illustrate more lets the author focus more on the message he is trying to get across and makes the comic better to read. Good job I really enjoyed seeing your approach on this blog.
ReplyDeleteAhmad, I think that you did a superb job on this blog! I thought that the way you brought up that comics follow a pattern of using the same colors for a character is actually a really important part of what comic authors and/or artists do. I had not thought about this part of a comic to be important before now. In fact I had no actually paid much attention to it because it was just normal to have a character in the same colors for a whole comic strip. By you pointing it it helped me realize that there, in fact, is always a purpose as to why things are colored or done in certain ways when it comes to writing. I thought that it was also interesting that you brought up the size of the characters. I guess that I always interpreted the characters to be different sizes than each other, but when you pointed out that they will leave off parts of the characters body in order to make it seem as though they were taller it was a part of comics that I had never thought of before. Overall good work on your blog!
ReplyDeleteAhmad, I think you always understood the instructions very well and produced awesome blogs. Also, for this blog I think you did the good job once more. First you cited McCloud, and stated the thesis. Then, you explained your pictures. It looks your explanations are really clear and detailed. Your works make your picture fits McCloud’s definitions well. You explained the colors of each characters, it is the way that let the readers remember the characters better, just like McCloud said, it is a iconic power. Colorful comics may sometimes lessen the expressions, but they always make the comics more vivid and make more sense. As a whole, nice done.
ReplyDeleteAhmed, you picked an interesting quote from McCloud to focus on. At that moment he is explaining the history of superhero costumes in color comics more than setting up a guideline of how color works in comics. Still, the continuity of color is an important part of a comic. Do review your MLA cheat sheet. Your citation for the Garfield comics is incorrect. First and foremost, you should begin with Jim Davis' name.
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