Albino Short Story BetaComic!

Continuation of the previous post . . .

4. Beta Comic Stage

SomeSortOfTitle - Younhee Burningham

1. Idea Stage

1. Really random “fairy tail”-ish story idea I thought of long time ago, and haven’t done anything much to,so this could be fun: Long time ago, the Peacock Witch punished the, um, “bad witch” that fed on humans. Because the Peacock Witch is the only being the “bad witch” is afraid of, the “bad witch” promises to only feed on rabbits forever. The “bad witch” then goes off to a faraway village where she slowly turns all the villagers into rabbits and eats the rabbit villagers one by one. The people secretly send off one of their young leaders that are fit enough to travel and have yet turned into a rabbit to find the Peacock Witch for help. They give the hero a peacock eye necklace that points in the direction of the Peacock Witch. The leader brings with him/her their loved one (sibling, parent, significant other, whoever) that has already turned into a rabbit with them on the journey.

2. I think I was pondering on art museums and thought ‘what if there is a hall of paintings where all the paintings are so realistically painted that it looks as though you could walk into them into a hallway? And what if one of them is actually a real hallway disguised by an art frame and all the other paintings, that leads to a some sort of a wonder-world or somethingthat a worker of the museum often sneaks out to and from to do his evil doings, and one (or a group) visitor accidentally finds it and falls into that world?’

3. DaVinci Code was how I first found out about albinism, and ever since I have been very interested and fascinated, especially in albino people. I want to make a story with albino characters. I think they could be misunderstood characters in their society, with many myths and superstitions hanging about them. I amthinking about a secret organization of albinos, where they hope to gather all the albino people together and live in peace by themselves, except some albinos do not like such idea and rebel. And maybe some of the myths may be true in this world; some could even have magical powers!

[Edited Wed June 1, 2011]

2. Story stage:

BIG PICTURE

(1) Albino girl Katie runs away from her miserable circus life and finds kind friends to maybe start a happy life with.

(2) The friends visit a museum together where a mysterious museum worker pushes Katie into an entrance of another world disguised as one of the paintings, where she discovers world of Albinos trying to live exclusively away from the normal world and its persecutions.

(3) Katie’s friends come to find her and she desires to return with them even if it means rebelling to the head Albino authorities of the world.

(4) Katie realizes she’s fighting against a bigger problem, and somehow manages to solve them.

(5) And everyone lives happily ever after,,,

SHORT STORY
(1) Being different leads

3. Appropriation & Style test AND Short story supplement stage:

[Edited June 8, 2011]

a) dominant MICE quotient: Character, or Idea - The main character struggles to find herself and to find out if she is needed in a society where she is a minority or to join in exclusive society with people of her kind.

b) Primary conflict: Prejudice/persecution for those that are different.

c) Theme: We sometimes need the differences in individuals for the benefit of society. Rather than shunning all the different people and looking down on a difference, we need to learn to appreciate and figure out how such differences can benefit the society. If we were all the same, we would only need one or two of us. It is because we are different that we need each and everyone for the benefit of society.

d) Major World rules and limitations: Albinos are magical in this story and are weaker in the sun and stronger under the moon.

4. Beta comic Stage

A thumbnail plan for beta comic pages:

[Edited June 13, 2011]

The Beta Comic is posted on the following post

Making Comics - Moving Pictures

The principle of Emotion and Facial Expression was talked about in Making comics from this read. Although the Moving Pictures has very little of this principle, (most faces drawn with very dramatic shadow and lighting), Immonen (author) does draw emotions where it seems necessary, and it actually seem to emphasize the emotion because it’s not shown often. On page 23, on the first panel we can see the lowered eyebrow representing a hint of suspicion and hint of resentment; on the third panel we see slight variation on the angle of her eyebrows denoting annoyance and confusion.

Making Comics - All-Star Superman

(These are pages 19 & 22 from the first chapter, 10 from the second)

I think All-Star Superman really nails character design principle found on page 71 ofMaking Comics. Though Clark Kent and Superman are the same person, they look different enough for the readers to know when Superman is publically performing service as Superman and when he is hiding his identity by taking a role of clumsy news reporter. The design includes costumes, posture, and even hairstyle as the “unique visual reminder of characters’ different personalities”, which convincingly fools the other characters and is even believable to the readers.

Jake Parker Response

Something that I haven't seen anyone mention yet about his presentation is the brief photoshop tip he gave about how threshold automatically puts everything in black and white. Also on pacing, detail of the artwork can also modulate pacing and more detail can slow the readers down.

Moving Pictures – Younhee Burningham

1. Analyze:

(c) Character – “primary”

The character might be the type of storytelling for Moving Pictures. The story begins with new characters whom we know almost nothing about yet, sometimes, not even their names. I think it is wanting to know who they are and trying to figure out if we like the character(s) or not is what drives the readers through the book. The story doesn’t completely explain all the characters, but we do learn by the end, enough of the personalities of most characters to attempt to understand the major characters.

2. Rating: PG-13, There is a random “f” word on page 32 that really doesn’t make sense to me as to why it was used there, I guess the bare breast on the painting, “Woman Combing Her Hair” that is in multiple frames might also contribute to the rating (forgot to note the page number), there are some references to sexual relationships but no bed scenes (83, forgot to note the other page number), and sequences of a woman getting dressed without depicting nudity on page 127-131.

3. Springboard: The writer of Moving Pictures would have to have historical knowledge of this specific war time at this specific area of location, which is the World War 2 and France. The story is during the wartime when the Nazis stole much of the art collections from Europe. Upon research I found out that the Nazi stole over 2,000 individual art pieces including more than 300 paintings! I also found out that Germany “began storing the artworks in salt mines and caves for protection from Allied bombing raids. These mines and caves offered the appropriate humidity and temperature conditions for artworks” (quoted in Wikipedia). I think that last sentence is a cool fact.

4. Apply: I think I want just the little of the feel that the Moving Picture had, being set during a war time though not about war at all. I would like that very faint feeling of tense and uncertainty throughout most of the story.

All-Star Superman - Younhee Burningham

1. Analyze:

(a) Milieu – “secondary”

The story begins with how Superman ended up on earth, “Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple.” (The first page of comic). And I found out from research (and also from having seen the movies) that in volume two, Superman leaves the earth at the end, *spoiler* he does really die at the end.

So the story started with our main character Superman arriving on a whole new world for him, earth, and then it ends when he can no longer remain.

I rated the element as secondary because I agree with the previous post that the comic is mainly carried on by events.

2. Rating: PG, because of the creepy dark vibe the art style gives, and some gruesome images that may be too frightening and disturbing especially for little children (like the Parasite monster on Chapter 5 page 12-19, the Chronovore on the 12^th page of the 6^th chapter, and basically the whole 7^th chapter (especially with the woman’s face is melting on page 10) and 8^th chapter (zoomed face of Zibarro on page 20), there's also Lois dressing and has a partial nudity where she is taking a shower on page 8 of the 2nd chapter.

3. Springboard: I think that the writer would need to have knowledge of some kind of godly perfect figure to know how to depict Superman. What and how would someone like him act in certain situation? I know that Superman is often described as an archetype of Jesus Christ the savior of the world, so the writer may need to know some Christ-like attributes to make sure Superman doesn’t do or say anything out of character. Upon research I found out that Superman’s Kryptonian name, which is “Kal-El”, can mean “voice of God” in a very similar word in Hebrew. I also found out that the original creators of Superman were these two Jewish (religion) men named Jerry Siegel (writer) and Joe Shuster (artist), and some supposes that their religion might have influenced Superman quite significantly, especially by Moses.

Younhee's Response to Jake Wyatt's Presentation

His presentation was very helpful and I hope he comes again for the future classes for other students as well.

Something that wasn’t covered yet in any of the previous posts is his brief Photoshop “tutorial”. He showed us how to lock transparent pixels to color the lines, and also about the Blue channels to import just the lines from a scanned in drawing. It was very short, on the side note thing, but it was a very valuable thing for me to learn and would have saved me so much time! It was also inspiring thinking about all the different ways those tips could be very useful in, and all the effects I could rather easily add to my works.

I’d like to add few quotes as I paraphrased in my sketchbook from his presentation just in case it helps the previous posts and insights:

“Illustration is essay that has relationship to existing work.”

“Illustration is comment to text that gets across information, comment that gets story across and get the readers to feel the intensity of the story.”

“The play between the words vs. pictures is what makes comic cool”

“Idea becomes worth something when it is executed, otherwise it is worthless.”

Making Comics - Solanin

This is page 14 of Solanin which demonstrates Choice of Image principle discussed in Making Comics. The choice of images on this page emphasizes the mood and emotion of smallness, of insignificance, and searching for answers, by having the character look upward, with the narrowing buildings, and a shot of the city represents the vast possibilities and the unknown. This page is found on page 14.

Solanin – Younhee Burningham

1. Analyze: (b) Idea – “primary”

I feel that the whole story was driven by the question of the point of life, more specifically, if it is possible and reasonable to pursue towards a happy, fulfilling life rather than to simply exist and survive. I wasn’t too sure if that question was answered very clearly, at least the message I got (regardless of whether I agree or disagree) was that no one really knows for sure, but we don’t have to obsess over and be unsatisfied about a mundane life as long as we have people we care about and do what is meaningful to us once in a while.

2. Rating: (R)

There is the offensive finger on page 9. Brief nudity (bear breast) on page 20, which apparently makes it an automatic R movie rating. Bed scene on page 58-59. Almost nudity on page 167. Mild language. And generally, the intended audience, it seems, are for college-aged/recent college graduates, as are the major characters, hence it may be best that young teens don’t get into the book yet.

3. Springboard: Knowledge of how forming and having a band works, and recording and concert experience that comes with it, definitely shows in Solanin. I didn’t know all the equipments that are needed in a band such as the amplifier, overdrive, chorus, delay, equalizer. I found out that those equipments are very common thing for bands among other things like Envelope follower, dynamic filter, etc. It sure is a whole another world that has many things of its own to learn about.

Syllabus-How to successfully tell stories in comics

What I hope to gain from this class would simply be this:

I want to learn about and hopefully obtain the skills that are needed to eventually creating successful comics myself.

(Whether it be through broadening my knowledge of comics and its history, whether it be improving the story development and story telling skills, whether it be familiarizing myself with all the mediums and tools that are available to enhance the story telling, I want to learn them).

As of now, from the class discussions, course description, and having read few pages from Making Comics, I feel that practice coming up with stories and applying the story telling tips shown in the text by actually drawing comics, and then finding examples of certain skills and tips we are learning in an already published work, might be the best way to achieve the goal. But that is only my current idea of how I, an amateur student, think this could be best done.

Best Coolest-Younhee

http://ripplelyfe.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-coolest-younhee.html -I am from Salt Lake