EM

The first art class I ever took was when I was 10 (1987), in summer camp. It was called something like How To Draw Cartoons and was taught by a cartoonist who worked for the RPI newspaper, The Rensselaer Polytechnic. I created a bunch of comics that summer… my parents favorite was about Chomper, this scary dog who bit people.

I’ve had “comic writers block” since then. I spent the rest of Elementary School, Junior High School, High School and these past 15 years drawing in a comic book style, but without the ability to create sequences of images that told a story. Crazy, right?

So yesterday I was doing my periodic checkup on submissions to the Under This Tree photo group and weeding out the images from those who didn’t get the concept. There are a bunch of photographers who do excellent work but didn’t really follow the concept. At first I blamed them for not paying attention (as many Flickr users seem to post to 1 bajillion groups to see what sticks) but then I realized that, hey, I never really explained it. So, as I am in drawing mode lately, I decided to draw a picture of the concept. I whipped up a few instruction boxes going over the steps to making a picture.

I didn’t set out to make comic and it took me by such surprise that I blurted out, “HOLY SHIT! I made a comic!”.

So how did that happen?

I realized that what made it a piece of sequential art and not just an instruction illustration was a seemingly insignificant bit: the sidewalk. The sidewalk is what ties the first panel into the third panel. In the first panel the character is walking down the sidewalk and in the second panel the character has moved from the sidewalk to the grass but the sidewalk is still visible. If the second panel were not there or did not show the sidewalk the first and third panels would not connect enough to make a story, it would be two unrelated events.*

It then occurred to me that comics are basically instructions you want to explain to the reader. Try to visualize these as comic panels:

• Walk into the kitchen from the back yard.
• Take the orange juice out of the refrigerator.
• Pour Orange Juice into glass.
• Look up at Sally who just walked in and insulted you.
• Pour glass of orange juice on Sally’s head.
• Calmly walk into living room.
• Sally has #@!*# above her head.

Bam! Instant comic. It’s easy to imagine the scene, right? There’s obviously more to making sequential art than that but the idea that I am illustrating a set of directions eluded me for twenty three years. I feel like a new person right now… like though I knew english all these years someone just told me about letters that I had never heard of.

• I’m indebted to Scott McCloud’s excellent Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art because without having read it I would surely not have made the connection. Read it if you haven’t yet.

I want to believe that all the posts on Clients From Hell are true but this one makes me doubt it:

Can you move that logo up 1/63 of an inch?

Sure, someone could be unfamiliar with inches and that an inch is typically divisible by eight. But it seems like they know enough about it – 1/63 is really, really close to 1/64. The issue is not particularly hellish, just particular, and in my experience there are people that really need to be that particular. It’s best to just treat them with the sympathy you would any other crazy person.

So perhaps someone did say something similar to this and the contributor changed it a bit to get the point across. If that is the case, the quote can be seen as grumbling and is not particularly interesting. I mean who doesn’t bitch about their job from time to time?