Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

The alternative comic that I looked at during our time at the Collection Study Center is the mini comic called Sorry Sheets by Eroyn Franklin. For elements and design, Franklin uses repetition and different forms of lines. The lines that are used are mostly used for shape and texture. The shapes that can be seen are the shape of the main figure seen throughout the comic and of the figures hands. Lines are also used to create hair for the figure as well as the texture for the rug. The lines that are used for the hair vary in length and direction. Franklin also uses a form of implied lines for the rippling water effect. There is also a great contrast between the clean water, represented by the white color, and the water that gets mixed with blood, the black color. The contrast creates a pattern within the rippling water as well, which is a form of repetition.

The most interesting aspect in the comic however is the use of a different form of repetition; repetition of scenes. Even though it is different from the principle of repetition discussed by John Lovett, I do want to mention his words of “When the variation is missing, repetition becomes monotonous.” When I realized that the scene was being repeated and that the panels were the exact same, it made me want to go back and reread the mini comic again to get a better understanding of what was happening. After many rereads I still haven’t quite grasped exactly what message or experience Franklin was trying to convey, which in my opinion makes for a great example of asking for active participation from the readers. When it comes to closures for this mini comic. There were a lot of uses of action to action and subject to subject. which an example can be seen on the right page.

This image was the most interesting of the entire collection to me. The way the artist used color just drew me in and made me not stop looking. The deep blues contrasted with the orange of the family and the fire. The image obviously tells a story of a family seeing their house destroyed, their life destroyed. It’s a very simple idea that uses color to make one of the greatest losses of all possessions feel so much greater. The use of blue and orange and white space all together make the story feel so much stronger. As for closure and time frames, their isn’t really multiple images juxtaposed so it’s hard to find examples that would exploit that type of movement or style. In terms of design principals although this watercolor exceeds multiple categories. The direction of the smoke, the line in the windows, the contrast of the family and the house, the color of the tone of blues, the shape of the smoke using whitespace, the texture of the fire. I could go on an on about how this artist uses the elements to draw the viewer in and make them feel the devastation that this poor family is feeling. The interpretation of the comic changes as you see more and more details, looking at a stand point of these design elements and principals. Once you notice how many different pieces she used to cohesively tell this story of pain accurately and knowledgeably becomes all the more obvious when you can appreciate the thought that went into this work.

The example I decided to use from the WSU Museum Collection Study Center from the Northwest Alternative comics collection was one from Max Clotfelter. I chose this page because it the ending was unexpecting. A design element it used was lines. Some of the lines used is linear marks, alignment, and to create other elements. An example of the linear marks is on the last frame where the person moves their arms and Max Clotfelter uses linear marks to create motion. An example of Alignment lines in the comic is the frames itself to keep all the frames aligned. An example of line used to create other elements in the comic is on the edges of the frames to create a shadow effect. Another design element Max Clotfelter used in this comic the value(tone) of the comic. The way he does this is by making the room and other objects feel darker using shadows. 

Some principles of design used in the comic is gradation and dominance. Max Clotfelter uses 2 types of gradation, static and dynamic. An example of static gradation used in the comic is on frames one and two on the chairs the people in the comic sit in. An example of dynamic gradation he used in the comic is one the edges of the corners of the walls in the comic. 

A type of closure used in the comic is action-to-action closure. The way Max Clotfelter uses this is when in frame three when the person asked what the other person will decide to do. Then in the next frame the person jumps up and says both loudly. He also used an interesting time frame for the last frame. He made the last frame bigger than the other frames which makes it feel like that moment lasts longer than the other frames. 

There were a lot of unique comics that we viewed at the WSU Muesum Collection Study Center that were featured in the Northwest Alternative Comics collection. One of the pieces that resonated with me was the piece by Mita Mahato. I was drawn to the fact that the art wasn’t created with the traditional pen to paper, but cut paper, that was pasted together.

There were many aspects of design that stood out about this particular comic. The main one that I noticed was the texture. Since we viewed the original art, I could actually see the depth of the work. I liked how the different types of paper had texture and how they all came together to create a physical “bump” that created the scene. I also noticed, and thought it was interesting how the panels, which are normally what someone would draw inside, seemed to be set on top of some of the cut paper. To me, this seemed to give more of a feeling of a world being created that we were being given a window view to. Another thing that I thought added interesting texture was the use of newspaper/book paper. This paper already has writing on it which just adds another layer to the picture that people see.

I also think that Mahato used the size element in an interesting way. Most of the panels were pretty similarly sized, but what she put in each panel was interesting. To convey distance, she utilized the panels to convince the reader that something was closer or further away. When she wanted a planet to look far, she would make it smaller and fit into a smaller corner of one panel. When she wanted it to look bigger, she would actually cut it in half and frame it so that it looked like the picture had just got cut in half and separated, which was similar to a scene-to-scene cut. This was a really good example of closure in my opinion because it allowed the reader to view the picture and put them together. The fact that nothing happened between the two panels was the whole point that Mahato wanted the reader to understand.

I really liked the art and the idea behind the idea concrete. I personally really like super hero stories and this unique one seemed really interesting to. Because it is only one panel you can’t look at closure but you can still look at use of time frames. This is a large panel so you can assume it takes up an entire page causing you to spend a lot of time focusing on the panel and makes it seem like a long moment instead of just a short panel you quickly read. I think this gives the panel much more weight and strength as a standalone panel.