Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Page 48 of Lynda Barry’s graphic novel “What It Is”

Throughout Lynda Barry’s graphic novel What It Is there you can see many different forms of layers. On page 48 of her graphic novel you can see the form of layering known as Cut and Paste. Throughout this page you can see that many of the text has been cut out from other books or papers and pasted on to this page. The images along the right side of the page also seem to be pasted onto the page. As well as the upside down dog and the peanut ant and cow.It is important that Barry used this type of layering because it follows the theme/topic of the page, which is “Follow A Wandering Mind”. These images and text have been layered on top of one another to create a type of collage throughout the page. Which makes the page much more interesting to the reader, because their eyes go to different parts of the page. However, in Craig Thompson’s

Page 88 of Craig Thompson’s comic “Goodbye Chunky Rice”

comic Goodbye Chunky Rice you can see a less intense form of layering. On page 88 of Thompson’s comic you can see that he uses a form of Temporal Layers. On this page you can see that each panel of the comic is a layer. However, in the top  panels you can see that the three panels along the left side of the  page have been layered on top of the big panel (background) that takes up most of the page.The layering makes it seem like the three side panels are part of the bigger panel. At the bottom of this page you can also see that the left panel is layered on top of the right panel because parts of the bird’s body hover over the next panel, while he is looking at what is going on. I feel like the layering used throughout this page makes it easier for the readers to understand and for the story to be told because the individual panels becomes an entire picture.

Page 30 from Lynda Barry’s graphic novel, What It Is

In their book Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips define layers as “simultaneous, overlapping components of an image or sequence” (141). I completely agree with this definition because it is well-written and I think that overlapping is one of the most important aspects when creating layers. Overlapping is when an object has different layers and those layers are shown by one layer that is laying over the top of another, essentially covering up a percentage of the bottom layer. Cut and Paste and Mixing Media are two kinds of layering that Lynda Barry uses in her graphic novel, What It Is. This is a very unique style of art and it used on almost every page of Lynda’s book. For example, on page 30, she has several layers of images that are stacked on top of each other. Some of these images are paintings or drawings, some are printed cutouts, and some are even real digital photos taken from a camera. Barry also layers her text across the images in a variety of different ways, whether it be cutouts of printed text, hand-drawn text, or stylized text over the images. Her creative cut and paste method as well as her use of mixing media is what makes her work so unique.

Page 4 from Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel, David Boring

Layers are very important when it comes to adding depth to an image. As a designer, you want to create variation within your work so it doesn’t all look the same and so that different parts or layers stand out more than others. If some layers are deeper in the background than others, it can provide a three-dimensional effect and help the layers stand out more or appear as if they are in front of the other layers. A good example of this is shown in Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel, David Boring. As you can see in the majority of the frames, there are objects that are placed in front of others to add depth to the image. The frame in the bottom left corner shows a tree that is well in front of a house to make it appear as if the house is farther back. The tree layer is overlapping the layer of the house within the picture.

The Walking Dead By: Robert Kirkman, Issue 158, Page 9

Texture allow illustrators to clue the reader into the nature of things within the world they are creating. Texture can refer to the type of paper the final product is being printed on, or more likely, it refers to the physical manipulation of surface details within the illustrations. Take the picture above as an example. The dead truly appear to be alive, not because they are simply walking upright, but due to the textured details littered throughout the illustrator’s work.

The zombies’ clothes have been ripped and torn. They are dirty, and their skin is rotting and decaying before our very eyes. Overall, they look rough. This further emboldens the theme of a lost world present throughout the series. Essentially, these rough creatures are bringing about an end to the character’s previously finely tuned, polished, and luxurious lifestyles. The humans struggling to survive as pale and smooth in comparison to the rough and darkened dead.

The reader can even easily identify the types of materials characters are wearing. For example, in the third smaller panel, we can see a man wearing a leather jacket over a white t-shirt. The picture is small, yet texture is the only thing needed to truly make the image identifiable.

More textures appear throughout the page, Each blade of grass adds to the page in the same way that each whisker adds to the face of the bearded hero in the third small panel. Texture makes the world feel authentic and alive.

Page 21 from Lynda Barry’s graphic novel, What It Is

In Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips describe texture as the “tactile grain of surfaces and substances” (69). I like this definition because when I think about texture, what comes to mind is the individual grains of a particular surface that help define that texture. Those individual grains can be smooth, rough, soft, sharp, and a variety of other different textures. Different textures can be used to give us an understanding of how something feels or how it differs in appearance from something else. In her graphic novel, What It Is, Lynda Barry discusses her life and how she came to find herself as both a writer and an artist, or in other terms, graphic novelist. She talks about how she wasn’t treated well in her youth and how her struggles helped her become who she is today. There is no doubt that Lynda Barry’s work is very creative and many of the concepts she uses are difficult to understand. On page 21 of her book, she uses several different textures while telling her story. There are birds that have a more smooth, watercolor paint texture and then there’s another bird that is drawn with a lot greater detail. Lines, colors, and different shades help define a feathery texture on the bird. Lynda also uses a good amount of texture in her text. Some of the text that is on this page is drawn in marker with thicker lines, while some other pieces of text are drawn in pencil or pen. At the bottom of the page, she even uses a typed out font that looks like it has come out of a book based on the tan, grainy, book-like texture that the text is laying on. According to Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips, texture can be either physical or virtual. Artists can take pictures of physical objects with unique textures and then attempt to recreate that picture digitally, or virtually, with some sort of editing software like Adobe.