By the time I'm through with this, I expect you all to be much better than me. Many of you are far more artistic, and therefore can take this knowledge to much better places than I can. With everything I know, I still struggle every time.


I've talked a lot, you know some things now about basic composition and form. While I'm far from finished with those things, let's look at something I've been asked about recently.


Every illustration except for portraits need depth and every object in a depthed scene needs to observe at least rough perspective. If you move the 'camera' - the place where the picture is taken from - then you will need perspective for the 'foreshortening' of bodies and other objects in the scene.

This knowledge is pretty much invaluable in comics and is used in these two major ways:
To show an object or person in a particular light - that is to say, to make something Greater or Lesser. Show a tall building from below. Show a shy person from above. And millions of other uses to 'look down' or 'up' at a person or thing. Given all the angles one can have, there's a slew of different shades of meaning you can throw subtly on an image.

2 - To break up 'talking heads'. I'm going to talk a bit about talking heads, since it's come up.

Everybody East and West rues the talking heads. This is when a panel shows character 1's face, then the next panel shows character 2's face, then the next panel goes back basically to the first one, etc. during a conversation. While this can be effective to increase tension during an argument or quick face off of wits (or something conceptually similar), it has to be used sparingly or will make the reader start to read very quickly, perhaps too quickly for how much dialogue or information he should be absorbing.

Comics are a visual medium primarily, and the trouble with talking heads is that when the reader sees the same image over and over again, he starts to assume subconsciously there's nothing new. Comic writers and drawers have to remember that the people reading their things are primarily people off the street who are not going to notice anything clever we try to do, because our expertise leads us to try very subtle or unusual things. The average Joe does not particularly care.

Comics are no longer being written for comic afficienados who can name everybody in the industry and can trace the evolution of comics back thirty years. Just the fact that anyone really can is a testament to the bizarre nature of Western comics. The problem with the West is individuality. An artist only feels he's any good if he's 'original' this usually means going way out on a limb, usually way too far. Nobody in comics minds, though because everyone's equally familiar with the history and methods, including many of the readers. But some people can do it, others can't. This severely hampers the genre, if all there is is Indy comics and well-established corporate-owned ones. If more people could be content with being average, with a solid base of understanding the Things that Work, there would be more mainstream comics, different kinds, more to choose from and more regular people would be interested. This is why Manga have swept in, with it's (generally) lamer art and repetitive story lines I keep hearing complaints about. Yes, manga art on the whole rips the western concept of "Comics as Art" to shreds, but only in the sense of useless techniques that the really casual reader doesn't care about anyway. Comics that are readable will always be art, but Manga hide most of the art form itself from the reader, simply provoking from afar. Decent physical art is only the clothing it wears. Manga are normally very clear, and the ones that aren't are quickly tossed aside.
Of course I'll only pick the best drawn ones, or ones with a well-made story, but watching others buy comics makes me think twice about what's really important. Comics need to be less 'interesting' and more 'entertaining'. And one does that by involving the reader, not alienating him with how 'good' you are. And that's what this journal is about. If you can be inventive and do something novel WHILE being clear and mainstream, then you'll have it made. The most successful and popular succeed in this way. It's a horrendous thing to say here in the West, but being popular brings the money, and that's all that matters. Why? Because then you can do what you love without starving. Hook a fanbase then do whatever you want, and they'll love you for it.


Anyway, back to perspective. It's really important for keeping interest. A reader can't see everything in a room the way a character or you can in your head. You can use perspective and angles to help the reader grasp a location, even a room and what it really looks like. It's important to ground the reader to your location so they can easily believe they're there. I've many times felt lost because not enough was shown. I'm not sure where people are talking, and sometimes therefore why. I've seen a lack of backgrounds work unnoticeably only once, and I will get to that in a post about 'omission' and why it's actually good later on. This is another thing that only works if you know how to use it.
Once the talking heads thing starts to happen, (okay, I'm not done with talking heads) you can do many things. Let's imagine a scene. It's crucial that the two characters are on a date in a dainty coffee shop. They talk. Endlessly. But it's really important, so there's nothing that can be done about it! You're certainly not going to have them walk around, and it's even worse to start doing crazy camera angles. This is a quiet, maybe romantic scene, so too many angles is disruptive. So how to do this and not get repetitive? In real life or in a movie, a static shot might be fine, the intonation of people's words, and the subtle movements of their bodies is more than enough to sustain interest when coupled with the conversation itself. However, this is very hard to do if you don't have a very bold style (such as a Film Noir look), or a gimmick that's just that interesting to look at. Like... morphing heads or something. If you're drawing in quite a realistic way, and the topic is very textured, then you might be able to get about doing very different expressions, but I find this draws too much attention to the art itself, and the reader out of the story, especially if it's done well. The reader is not supposed to notice how awesome the art is until he's done, and thinks about it. He should be engrossed before that. Thinking about how good the art is later gives him a really good, logical excuse to buy the next one. I know it works on me.

Before we totally trash talking heads and move on to how to fix it, let's give an example that does work:

Deathnote Tennis - Written by Tsugumi Ouba, drawn by Takeshi Obata

This example actually displays the example I mentioned above, that of a battle of wits:
A very interesting work, a large part of the manga Deathnote revolves around Light Yagami, known as the killer Kira and L, sometimes known as Ryuga, such as when he enrolls in Light Yagami's school. Both different shades of genius, they play a complicated game of chess with each other as L, a mysterious detective heads the investigation against the mysterious Kira whom also no one has seen, who has the power to kill people by knowing their (real) name and face. The tennis match is little more than a physical, pared-down representation of their lives for months if not years, as they dance around each other. L suspects Light as being Kira, but can't quite catch him. An even match, they wait for each other to make a mistake. This of course means that most of this boy's manga is, in fact, talking heads, so it's interesting how artist Takeshi Obata goes about all the many words Tsugumi Ouba throws at him. A true professional. Deathnote is available domestically from Tokyo Pop and is currently up to volume 7. Scanlation services have long had all of Deathnote available for download in English, and it's been quite popular!
I remember reading this scene extremely quickly. Not only did it have a bit of the talking heads thing, it was also a tennis match, and you know how quickly this must all be happening! It's okay for them, they're thinking at the same time, but for us, we have to absorb twice as fast! The conclusion is very strong though, with half a page with the words
That we should go to the taskforce headquarters together.
and
Whoever makes the first move wins.
written boldly. In this way, even if you missed half of their logic throwing, you still get the point of all that, and was cleverly done. The mood was the important element, not how they got to their conclusion. Racing along over several pages, you can feel how fast they're thinking, and the scramble they're making to one-up each other.
Also note that each page of this fast sequence allows us to take a breath and cliff hangs us just long enough to the next page to not lose the feeling of tension. Some thanks goes to the translators for preserving that.
I'm anxious to see how this can be done efficiently in the movie! I would personally try to run both audio tracks at the same time (the one in focus having a slightly louder voice) for scenes like this, since you can't stretch out time conveniently like you can in comics - but it would suck in subtitles. : \


Anyway, back to perspective. At this point, I'll only cover the uses for it. I'll do another post on perspective later. Got sidetracked. ><

Let's consider that cafe proposal. Flipping through my book, I realized that this volume of Deathnote also has just that (what were the chances?), o _ o ...minus the romantic element. >_>; I guess the chances were pretty high, given that I already said those were two ways talking heads worked, and talking heads is what this manga's all about...

L and Light Have Tea - Written by Tsugumi Ouba, drawn by Takeshi Obata
Here, Light talks for more than a page, just himself. This is such a ridiculous amount even L notices. Note how the artist changes it up. The last panel of his talking is what I call a blahblahblah!! panel. It's where a character exausts himself to the point that you sort of have L's reaction and it starts to feel like the character's just over-emphasizing his point or going blahblahblah! >:O The artist isn't afraid to point it out - it's part of the characterization. It's just one of the many things that work. Note the other panels used - why were these shots used in the order they were used? How about the angles?


Speaking of some things that work, panels, and talking heads, here's Wally Wood's 22 panels that work, courtesy Jihatsu, who found them for me:

Wally Wood

And we'll end with that. No homework for today! Homework when I finally get to perspective!