Monday, November 8, 2010

Brian Fies-- word and image


Brian Fies is a comic book artist and graphic novelist, and some of his works include Mom’s Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? Comics are juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, according to McCloud. In Brian Fies’ work, he uses clear, simple, and concise words in order to communicate the storyline in the best way possible in conjunction with the drawings and images he portrays. Like the clarity of the words, the drawings too are simple and clear. The best way to quickly communicate the story and symbolism of the story is to do so without any unnecessary details. Brian Fies orders the drawings and images in sequences that make the reader’s mind and eye translate them into meaning. There are sequences in the comics that have images and no words because the images can communicate the idea without the help of words. However, words are just as essential to the comic as are images. Brian Fies’ process for designing his comics is to create the script first, then look for opportunities where pictures and images can carry a load (as in, content and storyline). When he begins creating the comics, he writes the words first because it is most important for the order of the words to lead the eye through the page, and then he puts in the drawings. It is important to have an editing eye in order to eliminate the extraneous. It is all about simplification.
photo credit: http://markc1.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/cancer_comic.jpg

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