Story-Megan Lloyd

IDEA STAGE:


Idea: [Comes from cloud-gazing] Civilization/cities in the sky, treated like living on the ocean.

Idea 2: [I wanted a new take on zombies] Hacks. Human/machine combinations programmed for combat. When the human host dies, the machine keeps on going, adapts, builds on to itself.


1. The world is recovering from a war fueled by science gone mad. 2. Lucia is a government operative charged with tracking down, neutralizing, and destroying Hacks. 3. She confronts a target she's been hunting for weeks. 4. Their fight ends in a draw and the thing escapes rather than destroying her. 5. Lucia realizes the human component of the hack is the man she used to love.


STAGE 3: Panels



STAGE 4: Beta Comic

Response--MEKA

1. Analyze: (a) Milieu primary
They’re trying to escape a giant mecha! Inside of a gigantic machine there are two tiny, insignificant humans going through corridors and escape hatches, down ladders, through hallways, trying to get out.

2. Rating: PG-13 There is language (although in French) and some brief nudity. The nudity is brief and covered up (they’re burning their clothes to get a signal through to the outside). There’s action adventure violence, mainly men against machines.

3. Springboard:
Being able to tell a small story within a big world. He's worked hard on his backstory and solidly developed everything. Like everyone else has mentioned, he obviously has a great knowledge of mechanical structure. However, he's also got a background in military organizations and procedures.

4. Apply:
Small story within a big world--theres so much history that isn't touched on. He doesn't bother talking about who's fighting or why--most of the setting outside the Mecha isn't even discussed. I'm not sure I'd like to live in this brave new world of his.

Making Comics-Meka -Megan Lloyd

This book was in French. (Still is in French) I took a year of french in te 7th grade which was little to no help. However, it turns out body language is universal. These two pilots are stranded inside the Mecha with no hope of rescue. Although they've been angry with one another and fighting, his body language shows that he really does need her--care about her.

Why use words when you can get the job done with a look?

Jake Parker

I really enjoy taking classes from Jake! He's got loads of industry experience and is always willing to pass on tips or critiques.

The lecture was very well organized. I'm glad we have that link to that presentation so we can have that great reference. It was interesting to see the way he planned out word bubbles as a way to draw the eye. They tell the story with word, yes, but they also are part of the illustration.

Intensity vs. Clarity was interesting to look at in this comic.

Nearly every page of this comic is stuffed with detail. There's very little breathing space--everything is filled up to the brim. The page I selected shows one of the rare blank backgrounds. The consistency in the linework and level of detail made this moment (when Nausicaa has successfully pulled off her rescue) really seem like a quiet, emotional scene. Contrast that with the war and violence throughout the rest of the novel, having the intensity cut way back for these two pages was an effective example of storytelling.

1. Analyze: Event - Primary

The Milieu is primary to this graphic novel. Many of the characters are flat and straightforward with one or two defining traits. Like a Miyazaki film, it’s the setting that’s truly fantastic. So much detail goes into every page and panel.

2. Rating: PG

No language or nudity. Since this is a war story, there is a great deal of violence. However, much of it is with monsters and there isn’t much detail put into the dead humans. It’s a Miyazaki movie in a novel!

3. Springboard:

Like man of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, unique aviation is a theme. He’s loved airplanes since he was a child—his father and uncle owned Miyazaki Airplane during World War II and made rudders for planes. Hayao studied and drew planes for years.

My grandfather worked on planes during World War II (We have some great stories from his work on Winston Churchill’s plane…but that’s another story) My family has a bunch of his plane models and plans in our basement. I went down and studied them this past weekend. I was surprised to find all the similarities, actually.

4. Apply:

No matter how fantastic your setting is, it has to have a basis in reality. You want new and exciting flora? Study real botany. If you want some sort of doomsday machine or crazy contraption, it’s important to know how boring, everyday mechanics work. Everything amazing comes from something real!

Making Comics-Yossel

Yossel is an illustrated narrative, an fictional memoir of a boy artist trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. The book is ment to be his life drawings, observational sketches of things he sees, hears about, learns. This means that most of the book is subject to subject. For example, on page 24, the narration reads like someone telling a story aloud with the sort of things we'd picture in our heads if reading it like a prose novel. The sketching style is rough and loose, like Yossel is drawing from memory.

Yossel

1. Analyze: (b) Rising Action– “primary”
The entire book drives us towards the climax--The Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Yossel begins his story at the end, showing us the group hiding in the sewers, then jumps back in time to detail what led them there. He shows the barbarism of the Nazi's, both in the ghettos and the concentration camps, through his illustrations. The story throws image after image at us, showing everything the Jews went through, in order to clearly show why the Jews in the Ghetto had every right to rise up against their oppressors. The climax, wrap up, and conclusion are very breif. This story is about the evil acts that led to the uprising, rather than the rebellion itself.

2. Rating: (PG-13)
This is some pretty heavy material. It goes through the Holocaust with incredible detail, illustrating just how savage the German Nazi's were in their attempt to de-humanize their victims. Most of the nudity and violence is heavily stylized and the sexual aspect of the concentration camps are alluded to rather then clearly depicted.

3. Springboard: Yossel is a history book. The author has very detailed knowledge of the Ghettos and concentration camps. He knows details about the lives of the prisoners that come from hard study and first hand accounts. I've read other source material on the Holocaust and have been through the museum in D.C. so I was familiar with most of the material. However, I had never put two and two together and realized that the Germans made prisoners in the camp dispose of the bodies killed in the gas chambers. Thousands of bodies per day were loaded into the crematoriums by other Jews.

4. Application: I've considered having a character in my story who kept sketchbooks like diaries. This book is a great example of that--illustrated text rather than having the story told through pictures.

Wow--Abominable!

A Backwards comic from "The Abominable Charles Christopher", an online comic found HERE: http://www.abominable.cc/

Syllabus--To have hoards of screaming fans.

Kidding. Well, mostly.

I want to start out in story in the industry. From there, I'd like to work my way up to an elite creative role, eventually direct. I'd like to be the sort of movie maker that geeks and nerds are fans of (a la Peter Jackson and Joss Whedon). I feel that when you create a story for the sake of telling a really good story instead of following an industry moneymaking blueprint that the emotional reaction from the audience will be much greater. (And when you can manipulate people's emotions, you can encourage them to spend more money anyway. Just saying)

Out of the top twenty box office grossing films for the US (unadjusted for inflation) 9 are based off of books or graphic novels (I'm counting Passion of the Christ, since it's based off the Bible and makes my stats look more impressive) That's nearly half. If you keep reading down the list, you'll find the Harry Potter films, assorted sequels to superhero films, and (sorry, but it goes on the list) The Twilight "Saga". (rolls eyes)

I want to have a thorough understanding of the comic book industry. I've had my finger on the pulse of prose book-to-film adaptions for years. I've developed a great appreciation for the screenwriters and movie makers who try to stay faithful to the already famous stories while still trying to compensate for the large portion of the audience with no previous emotional attachments.

If I want to be the film maker who adapts these well known stories, with scads of material dating back decades, then my grasp of how to tell stories needs to be top notch. Since comic books are basically "pure story" (everything HAS to contribute) I feel this class will make me up my game.

(p.s. Also, whatever job I have in the industry, I wanna do a webcomic on the side. Just saying.)

Best Coolest + Megan Lloyd

http://thirdchildart.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-coolest.html