Saturday, November 15, 2008

Holy Graphic Novels, Batman!

Lisa Chellman posted about a comics workshop she attended at her library (lucky!). It featured someone talking about the process of writing comics, and as I read her notes, I thought, "My, my, how intriguing! This is certainly something to keep in mind as I read graphic novels!" (Apparently my inner thoughts are those of a grandma. Next, I will bake mental cookies.)

Now, current graphic novels have diverged from the kind of 22-page comic books that this guy writes, but many of the things he says regarding the storytelling (dialogue-wise and artistically) still have weight in GNs. Go take a look.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link. I went and visited Lisa. It's a great post.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the plug, Maureen! Yeah, writing for DC, Russell definitely comes from the mass-market end of the business. The way an independent author/illustrator of GNS would operate would probably be quite a bit different on various dimensions: no page restrictions, not necessarily needing to write out scripts, etc. I'd be interested to read about the process from the perspective of someone who does both writing and illustrating GNs.

Kimbra Kasch said...

My two boys (21 and 24) are working on a graphic novel together and they have an online comic they do together. And one of the comics has Superman fighting Batman. It's like they said, Superman has superhuman strength Batman has some cool gadgets - who do you think would win?

Bibliovore said...

Cari--Thanks for joining us!

Lisa--That's true, isn't it? Comic books are much more a group effort, whereas GNs tend to be a one-or-two-person brainchild.

Kim--Superman vs. Batman? No contest, Batman would win because he knows how to cheat. Superman may be super-strong, but he couldn't fight dirty in a pig wallow.