Tout Seul - Kevin Merriman

1. Analyze:

(c) Character – primary

This story is about a character in a lighthouse. After thinking things over, if the character in the lighthouse doesn't exist – nothing else in the book really happens either. All the characters you see, all the images, and the story itself all revolve around this character in the lighthouse... which I find interesting because his nickname means “all alone.”

2. Rating:

If you don't read French, I think the book gets a PG. No over-the-top violence, no nudity, no strong themes children couldn't handle..

If you do read French, I'd personally bump it up to PG-13. You'll notice a couple vulgar terms used in the beginning of the book, and VERY crude insults exchanged around pg. 200. There's also that weird creeper moment Paul mentioned around pg. 207

3. Springboard:

I looked at a couple different things, but specifically to tell this story I believe the writer had to have a good understanding of what imagination is all about.

One thing I wasn't aware of was how important imagination is in the learning process. In the visual arts department I've heard the words like “creativity” and “imagination” used enough times in an abstract sense that it's easy to forget all the cool stuff thats been researched about these things in the academic world.

4. Apply:

Words represent concepts and can carry huge weight. If I'm using words in comics, I should put a lot of thought into how I use them, and how they effect my characters (not just in dialog and plot, but conceptually... if that makes sense.) It reminds me of a quote somewhere from Mark Twain that said something to the effect that good writers should find it very difficult to write.