Comic books and graphic novels are now almost synonym words. They have once again captured the public imagination. Comics are not just for kids any more and they've definitely broken out into the larger culture.
But sadly speaking, many of us have very popular misconceptions about comics and believes writing comics is easy. After all, a look at a comic book page shows that most of the heavy lifting is done by the art. This misconception goes hand-in-hand with another, namely, that all comic book writers do is write the words that go into the word balloons. Both assumptions are dead wrong. The fact of the matter is that as a comic book writer, you are responsible for everything that goes on the page, just as if you were writing in prose. The artist is your partner, not your substitute. Think of writing a comic book as a collaboration with another writer, one to whom you must give very good instructions!
Comic book writing is just as challenging, interesting, difficult, and rewarding as writing a play, a poem, a novel, or a movie. But just as those media have certain rules that proceed from their forms, so, too, do comics. When someone write a comic book, he or she needs to think visually and then need to communicate those visuals in such a way as to spark the artist's imagination to present them the way you see them.
Few months back, I came across with David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, a Graphic Novel. It was a fantastic book. An absolutely incredible piece of visual communication and one of the smartest and most rewarding graphic novels of the recent time. A pull-out-all-the-stops package that’s funny, poignant and deep, with panels of thoughtfully shaded images that form a visual novel, a paper movie, and finally, an existential meditation on things that matter to us: religion, art, science, love and memory.”
I greatly enjoyed this book. In fact some of the episodes I've reread multiple times and each time I got a new appreciation for some of the details. It's an enjoyable existential journey through the life of Asterios Polyp, a complex and very realistically rendered human character. He's not there to be the hero or villain, he is presented, quite realistically, as a typical human with foibles, faults, ego and jealously.
The Story:
Asterios, the young “paper architect” was named because none of his designs, however award-winning, have never been built. He meets and falls in love with a vulnerable, hopeful girl named Hana, whom he marries. But we also have the “present” of the comic, Asterios aiming to rebuild his life away from everything he’s know, and maybe try to learn something.
Asterios himself is an impressively dislikeable person. He is smart and inventive but he’s also hugely egotistical, self-confident and stubborn. It’s obvious that Asterios is of higher than usual intelligence, as evidenced through his childhood love of reading and curiosity about the way things work.
A well-discussed element of the graphic novel is its duality. Asterios is obsessed with opposites and frequently undermines others with reductive reasoning. The journey of the graphic novel sees Asterios learnt to see things as spheres, or continuum, as opposed to equals and opposites, which allows him a more “rounded” view of life.
But sadly speaking, many of us have very popular misconceptions about comics and believes writing comics is easy. After all, a look at a comic book page shows that most of the heavy lifting is done by the art. This misconception goes hand-in-hand with another, namely, that all comic book writers do is write the words that go into the word balloons. Both assumptions are dead wrong. The fact of the matter is that as a comic book writer, you are responsible for everything that goes on the page, just as if you were writing in prose. The artist is your partner, not your substitute. Think of writing a comic book as a collaboration with another writer, one to whom you must give very good instructions!
Comic book writing is just as challenging, interesting, difficult, and rewarding as writing a play, a poem, a novel, or a movie. But just as those media have certain rules that proceed from their forms, so, too, do comics. When someone write a comic book, he or she needs to think visually and then need to communicate those visuals in such a way as to spark the artist's imagination to present them the way you see them.
Few months back, I came across with David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, a Graphic Novel. It was a fantastic book. An absolutely incredible piece of visual communication and one of the smartest and most rewarding graphic novels of the recent time. A pull-out-all-the-stops package that’s funny, poignant and deep, with panels of thoughtfully shaded images that form a visual novel, a paper movie, and finally, an existential meditation on things that matter to us: religion, art, science, love and memory.”
I greatly enjoyed this book. In fact some of the episodes I've reread multiple times and each time I got a new appreciation for some of the details. It's an enjoyable existential journey through the life of Asterios Polyp, a complex and very realistically rendered human character. He's not there to be the hero or villain, he is presented, quite realistically, as a typical human with foibles, faults, ego and jealously.
The Story:
Asterios, the young “paper architect” was named because none of his designs, however award-winning, have never been built. He meets and falls in love with a vulnerable, hopeful girl named Hana, whom he marries. But we also have the “present” of the comic, Asterios aiming to rebuild his life away from everything he’s know, and maybe try to learn something.
Asterios himself is an impressively dislikeable person. He is smart and inventive but he’s also hugely egotistical, self-confident and stubborn. It’s obvious that Asterios is of higher than usual intelligence, as evidenced through his childhood love of reading and curiosity about the way things work.
A well-discussed element of the graphic novel is its duality. Asterios is obsessed with opposites and frequently undermines others with reductive reasoning. The journey of the graphic novel sees Asterios learnt to see things as spheres, or continuum, as opposed to equals and opposites, which allows him a more “rounded” view of life.
Read here one of the excerpts from "Asterios Polyp" - it was originally published in July, 2009.
Asterios Polyp
(Size: 6 MB)
কুন্তলদা একদম ঠিক বলেছেন আমারও অনেক চেনাযানা মানুশ অবাক হয়ে প্রশ্ন করেন তুমি কমিকস পরো ??
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