Karrie Fransman talks! pt 1; History of Visual Storytelling...

I didn't know what to expect from my first lecture at LCC, would it be long and tedious about something I didn't feel was related to my course? Well no! It turned out that our lecturer was Karrie Fransman, a graphic novelist whose book ‘The House that Groaned’ was given to me on my birthday, and I L-O-V-E. Not only that but she was so overwhelmingly passionate about what she does, that it got me all inspired and wanting to work on projects of my own.

Visual Storytelling was the topic of the lecture, and she showed us a breakdown of the history of sequential art, which originated way back when with artworks like the Trajan Column, which depicts the victory of the Roman Emperor Trajan in the Dacian wars, in a spiral format, as you travel round the column the story unfolds.

www2.bc.edu (left) and www.historyforkids.org (right)

We also looked at the Bayeux Tapestry and Marriage-a-la-mode by Hogarth (large social commentary artworks which were subsequently etched and mass distributed to the public).

Both images from Wikipedia

Looking at the actual birth of the comic and framed format, she referred to 2 key pieces, the first being 'The Yellow Kid' by artist Richard F. Outcault and was one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips. It really reflects the political views of the time and at moments depicts some pretty prejudiced and racist ideas and characters, which echoes the views around at the time. It features an bald oddball kid with a yellow nightgown and buck teeth.

http://xroads.virginia.edu

The next piece we looked at really appealed to me and I want to look at more was 'Little Nemo in Slumberland', which followed the adventures of a little boy called Nemo throughout his dreams, and used a similar top-left to bottom-right reading format to today's conventional comic layouts. It was created by american cartoonist Windsor McCay. There's an essay of 'The best of Little Nemo' written by Bill Bedard which you can read here. I really love the delicate style of the drawings and the fluid way in which the images move, allowing you eye to slide across the page. The language is also hilariously quaint too, much more stilted and formal, reflecting both the time it was written and the process of experimenting with this new way of storytelling.

www.paulgravett.com

Looking into the more recent history of visual storytelling we then learnt about the origins of Manga, with the artist Osamu Tezuka (creator of hugely popular comic Astro Boy), and the way in which the Japanese adapted Western comic art which was brought over by American soldiers in the early 20th century, creating their own style of comics which contained a different set of symbolism and visual language. A good example of this is the textures used in manga which are used as a way to communicate how a character is feeling in their heads, despite what their facial expression may say. It is a far more complex and detailed way of telling a story and has become popular all over the world since its invention.

www.japanese-arts.net

Since there was a lot of information I'm going to create a part 2 on modern Visual Storytelling :)

-Grace x