non fiction comics (4)

 one of the first things I noticed about the comic march is the artwork. simply put: it is extremely good. The gestures are clear and easy to read, the facial expressions relay every little bit of emotion, the camera angles are dynamic and every panel aids in the visual storytelling. Even the more comic-y elements are amazing: the way that panels are used to express space and time is extremely successful, not to mention the clever things they do with the word bubbles. They change the shapes and fonts we see in the word bubbles to express a certain voice of the person talking, making it clear how a person is delivering a certain line to make the impact of it hit harder. The style is also extremely successful too: its very very real, why still being expressive enough to have personality, but not so much that you cannot take the matters seriously; which you could imagine is extremely important for this kind of story.

I talked about this in the last entry and I am starting to think it is just an effective storytelling too when trying to talk about real life, but it is very effective that the narrative cuts between modern (2009) day John lewis telling his story and the story he is telling. This technique allows the reader to keep the perspective that this isn't a story fabricated by the author, but is the experiences of someone who (at the time) was alive.

There are also some very clever things in this narrative style they do. For example, they open on a march to set the mood for the whole story, but the first story John tells to the children is about why he could never be a chicken farmer even though he loves chickens. The real point to this story (narratively speaking) is to allow us to connect with John, see how much humanity and love he has for animals and see him in an extremely positive light right out of the gate.

I also read my friend Dahmer. This was interesting in regards to style because unlike March, it was extremely stylized. This style made the entire world and all the characters very ugly, emphasizing the gross and uncomfortable elements of what is being discussed in the story but not separating Dahmer from the other characters because at the time he wasn't a serial killer yet, just very weird.

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