Since I have now begun my adaption of Girt By Sea into a comic I am daunted by the possibility that the finished graphic product may run to more than 15 pages.
While for a comic it is a tad over written -- wordy -- I am surprized how the material bends to cartoonish mode.
Words and story are maleable.
As I work through this exercise the challenge is either gonna make or break me.
I'm doing it via improvising as I go so the consequent melange is sure to be interesting.
The irony is that I suspect 'my style' is rather quickly developing. How would I describe it? 'Stylized graffiti' may suit. Why it may seem that the form is similar to Terry Gilliam's Monty Python graphics, I reckon that's far too 'neat' for me. If I cut out, I'm keen that you can see the scissor line. My cut outs are gonna be rough cut outs. My panels are not gonna be pretend real or pseudo animation
Black board scribbles without chalk. Everything that fits between the panel walls.
I'm working from/with a 12-panel template with a standard size for each panel. That formats the story telling.
Black background -- a sort of black light theatre approach -- with subdued tones generally, but offset by occasional strong colours, especially red.
Being a webcomic I think the blackness suits the platform.
What I'm seeing when I browse my output is my years of cabaret, street theatre, mask performance and puppetry spewing over 'the page' -- albeit the web page.
Another element I had in mind was a puppet video web series project I was enamoured with a few years back -- The Rag Show. The two puppeteers -- Tim Lagasse and Jim Napolitano --used a lot of cut out figures to present their short, often political,skits.
..and the Erwin Piscator production of The Good Soldier Schweik produced in 1928 Berlin. The original cartoons in the original Czech satirical novel were tuned into life size figue cut outs in similar mode to what John Heartfield did here:
These theatrical references may seem weird but then, I make this stuff come together by 'performing' for the camera. I shoot myself with puppets in colour pencil style and then integrate the photographs into the comic panels.
Too easy.
