Comm 343 - Graphic Novel Influences

For my second and third graphic novels that I read for class, I chose Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" and "The Walking Dead" by Robert Kirkman. Both of these novels gave me inspiration for my own graphic novel in different ways.

"Watchmen" was interesting because it utilized single colors as a way to color the comic. I've been struggling with how to color my own work, how to do it quickly but in a way that doesn't take away from the overall quality of the work.

Here, we see Rorschach colored pink. He takes up the majority of the panel and all the focus is on him. This is a simple way to draw attention to the main character without having to make the coloring overly complicated.

In other cases, the characters themselves were absent from the panels although there was dialogue. This helped set the scene and gave the readers the ability to understand setting before getting into the action.

As seen in the first part, the illustrator and author also worked with the speech bubbles so that someone who is unstable, like Rorschach, has speech bubbles that are also unstable.

The second novel I read, "The Walking Dead," had a lot of detail and interesting design work that influenced my work. Although mine certainly isn't as detailed, I could see the importance of detail work, especially when attempting to make the scene look gritty or busy.

The illustrator also worked a lot with perspective, which is something I hope to bring into my own work.

This graphic novel, as well as others I've read, are sure to fill up all the blank space unless it is deliberately left blank. In some cases, less is more, but having a lot of empty space for no reason can be distracting. "The Walking Dead" used space really well.

Even moments like this where Carl shoots Shane and Shane only takes up a third of the panel, the illustrator adds blood exploding out as well as action words behind.