Review of The Desolation of Smaug

This is an older post I never forgot to post and thought it would be appropriate to post so I’m doing just that. Enjoy. 

It’s December, and for some, that means decking the halls with lots of holly. For others, it means wielding ice stalactites like spear, defending oneself from the horde of Christmas carolers.

Plastered to my face as I gorge on overpriced popcorn is a huge, happy, gormless grin. That’s because for me, December means Hobbit season.

I went to the theatre alone, partly because I didn’t want my friends’ laymen understanding of the story to disrupt my popcorn eating and movie watching, but mostly to formulate my own, unbiased opinion on the film.

Like the first Hobbit film, I watched no trailers, read no articles or reviews and sat in my seat completely virgin to Peter Jackson’s rendition of the story. And like the first Hobbit film, I loved it.

Peter Jackson hasn’t let me down. In many ways he is a surgeon, dissecting the episodic nature of The Hobbit, by J.R.R Tolkien, and reconstructing it into the classic three-part trilogy. I explain it to my friends like this —Think of Star Wars, in Return of the Jedi (the first movie), nothing that crucial happens. *Cough, Deathstar, cough* In The Empire Strikes Back, SHIT GOES DOWN. It’s widely considered the best Star Wars film to date. The final movie, A New Hope, has everything resolved and wrapped-up nicely. Classic trilogy.

The Hobbit seems to be going in this direction and I don’t have a problem with it.

As for the story, It’s a decent enough adaption of the book. Although, I think Tolkien would have a thing or two to say about the skittles-vomit color palette. But that’s okay, sprinkle in some lore, a dash of elvish, add one or two giant spiders and let sit for 3 hours.

You need to go into The Hobbit expecting a loose translation of the story, or else you’re setting yourself up for failure.

As long as it’s Tolkienian at heart that’s all that matters. Middle-Earth is grand, teeming with dirt-caked goblins and everlasting elves. But even grand is an understatement. A poet laureate would have a tough time penning Middle-Earth’s beauty. The Hobbit is another 3-hour window into this magical world. 

Maus means a lot.

Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is a personal narrative about his father’s trials as a Jew in Poland during the Second World War.

My father, a writer, has a room that is wall to ceiling books in his house. I have fond memories of spending my Saturdays in his library, reading whatever my stubby little hands could pull off the first shelf. He didn’t own any graphic novels, except for both volumes of Maus.

You see, my father’s father, my grandfather, was the only surviving member of his family to escape.  I think my dad felt a little like Spiegelman in this sense. That was the last time I had read Maus and I haven’t picked it up since, so it was pretty intense to read it some years later and have a better understanding of what happened.

Art does a visceral job at recounting his Father’s time in Poland. As someone who grew up hearing a lot of first, and second hand survivor stories, what’s in his graphic novel is pretty accurate to how they are told. I couldn’t help but notice some parallels between Vladek’s stories and my grandfather’s story. My great grandfather was the owner of a metal working factory in Poland, he bribed and persuaded Nazis to let my grandfather and his brothers go.

Neither of his brothers survived the war. My grandfather’s older brother, a violinist who would be on Polish radio stations before the war, had his hands broken and his violin shattered.

They ended up only having enough money to smuggle one to Britain. My grandfather found out later his brothers died in a death camp. There’s a lot more to the story, but the point of this blog post is to talk about how good a job Art did at reciting his father’s story through a graphic novel.

Maus is hard to read, but I think it’s crucial to read, for anyone interested in not having something like this happen again, to help curb racism, to understand a horrific moment in history. 

Tin Tin and the start of long form comics

Recently I read Tin Tin for class and I really enjoy how are class is basically going through graphic novels in a sort of chronological order. Tin Tin, by Herge is, at least for me, the first time comics seem to be made for long for and to start to become graphic novels. Earlier in the semester we read works by Winsor Mcay and George Herriman and while these works were good, each story seemed to end at the end of the page. (Even Little Nemo in Slumberland.)  

Tin Tin breaks that rule by becoming a long form comic. I think that this gives cartoonists more freedom to develop their stories and characters. I only read three volumes of Tin Tin, which encompass the first compilation of the Tin Tin stories, and I grew fond of Tin Tin and his Maltese/terrier Snowy. (I found it hilarious that Snowy was sentient and only Tin Tin could understand him.)

I think what Herge is doing is he’s picking up on what the readers want. Comic readers are getting older and there are more and more comic readers coming about around the time that Tin Tin is created so he’s responding to that by creating long form comics.

Other publishers are doing the same thing around this time like EZ comics, but I decided to read Tin Tin for this week because it’s one of those comics I’ve “always wanted to read but never got around to it.” You know, the indefinitely postponed kind. (The great thing about this class is that it gets me to read things that are on my list but would take me much longer a time to actually get around to.)

I think with Tin Tin, you start to see the blueprints of the graphic novel being set. At least that’s how I feel. These long form comics really paved the way for works like A Contract with God, Blankets, and others.

Blankets by Craig Thompson

Blankets by Craig Thompson, it’s a raw graphic novel that really shines as a confessional tale. When I picked it up I realized I couldn’t put it down. Graphic narratives like Maus and Blankets were designed to be read in one sitting. I haven’t read many graphic novels but I do think that Blankets is one of the best I have read and it’s easy to see why.

Unlike other graphic novels, Blankets is very cinematic in terms of flow and storytelling. I couldn’t help but think I was watching a movie while reading through it. Thompson had flawless transition from one panel to the next throughout the entire graphic novel. He also chose not to go in a strictly chronological order, instead opting to make points when he saw it best fit. I think this mechanism enhanced the story and made it feel more real.

Craig gives this book life by pouring his own into it. You learn more than you’d ever want to know about Craig and his relationship with those whom are in his life, and the change of relationships that comes with time.

I grew most attached to his relationship with Raina and her family. I think this idea of first love is something everyone understands. It’s a rite of passage and part of life. He makes it so relatable, and being able to understand his isolation, being able to see the rise and fall of his first love, gives this book life.

From a craftsman’s standpoint this book is pure eye-candy. I cannot fathom how long it took to create most of these illustrations. I’m not sure if there’s a version in color, but I’d like to get my hands on a copy if there is. Mine is in black and white and I’m still blown away by its detail.

You can tell that Craig Thompson poured his heart into the novel, and I believe that’s what makes him an innovate artist. He’s brave enough to let the world see him be vulnerable. Giving the uncut version of his life to complete strangers. There’s nothing braver and more liberating than that. 

Some of the Cool Stuff in Little Nemo

Little Nemo, by Winsor McCay, is an influential series of comics that helped cultivate the medium into what it is today. It’s dynamic use of color, panel arrangement, and story arc is among the most groundbreaking of the early Twentieth Century. McCay was a visionary who understood that some stories are best told through a graphic narrative.

I’ll ask you —What constitutes a great work of art or piece of literature? Is it a writer’s ability to tell a story that’s themes and ideas will always be contemporary, or an artist’s ability to combine flawless craft with brilliant ideas. I don’t know, and we can leave that to the professionals. What I do know is that Little Nemo certainly is great, (at least in my mind) here's why.

His artistic style is something to behold. I think, most notably, is the architecture he imagines in Slumberland and his vibrant use of color. This combination makes his world so vivid and real. When you combine this with his cartoony characters, you start to see first hand what Scott McCloud was talking about in, Understanding Comics. Creating a realized world and more cartoony characters helps put the reader into the characters shoes, making for a more absorbing narrative/story. I think Winsor McCay did this on a more subconscious level, but he executed it clearly, and that’s what matters.

Another thing that stood out in Winsor McCay’s, Little Nemo was the story’s persuading sense of flow. I attribute this to panel arrangement and dialog. (Winsor numbered his panels, which I found to be unnecessary, but after reading some other comics of around the same time I believe it was just a contemporary, stylistic addition.)  I am a total scrub, noobie-doobie when it comes to graphic narratives, which is why I’m invested in learning more about it, and I found the panels easy to read and I never felt interrupted or taken out of the narrative. The only time I was ever broken out of the narrative was on the very last panel when Nemo would wake up. (These were rewarding to read.)

There’s a lot we can extract from Little Nemo. This blog post takes a sampling of the stuff that McCay did right. We haven’t even looked at his overwhelming creativity and loveable characters. If you want something that doesn’t scratch the surface, take a look at Little Nemo. You can find it for free on the Internet. See you in Slumberland. 

Space/Time and Flow in Graphic Narratives.

Scott McCloud’s perspective on comics and seeing the world through comics is rather thought provoking. Not only does he shed light on understanding comics, but he does so in a way that makes sense for people like me, who are used to reading and understanding books, not comics.

In his books, Understanding Comics and Making Comics, Scott McCloud dropped some serious knowledge on his readers. He talked a lot about pattern recognition, East and West comics, conveying all five sense through the combined efforts of pictures/words, and of course, the relationship between time and space.

What I found most intriguing about his thoughts on comics was what he had to say about space and time. Creating this flow is difficult, and a lot of the overall success of the story depends on the seamlessness of flow. This relationship between space and time is more dramatic than a People Magazine article on Justin Bieber’s love life. Let me explain:

A lot of the relationship takes place from panel-to-panel and in the space between the panels, called “gutters.”  If the use of space is sloppy, then story can seem choppy and fragmented, or worse, the reader can get lost and their eyes will fly around the page with more reckless peril than a fart in a fan factory.

Pulling off successful use of time and space creates magic. Done correctly, a single panel can take upwards of 30 seconds, or an entire page can take just a few seconds. (Like when an artist wants to establish setting, so they show the reader multiply viewpoints of the same place. This is more common in Manga than in American comics.)

Words and art play a crucial role in creating time and space. McCloud suggests that if you want a reader to take more time on a single image, spend time drawing all 400 leaves of a tree. Create a visual treat, something that serves as more than just a backdrop to what is being said. Even though it’s just a moment in time, maybe a second or two, it can mean the difference between the reader reading the story and actually being there.

Now isn’t that something? Richness in detail creates something that’s visually understood as only taking up a few seconds! That’s pretty darn cool.

Conversely, if you have a wordier panel, or series of panels, they can help keep the story going, or get the point across that giant leaps of time have passed. (Something panel-to-panel wouldn’t be able to pull off alone.) For example, “10 years later...” or, “30 miles west…”   Or even just the conversation in panels help convey the message that the panel encompasses more than just a second or two.

There’s so much more that is discussed in Scott McClouds books, he does a great job at explaining what to keep an eye out for while you’re reading through a comic or graphic narrative. As someone who is a newbie at this medium, I found his books to be helpful in establishing a foothold  into the enticing world of comics.

The Wordless Narrative

Symbols connect us. Letters string together, creating words that go on to become sentences. However, even letterform symbols, like the English Alphabet, aren’t rudimentary. They are abstractions and thus take time to learn. A Picture as a symbol is a more innate way of communicating than a letterform. Think about the first cave drawings. They date back 40,000 years ago. What about the first written documents? A short 5,000 years ago, and that’s quite a gap.

The Arrival, by Shaun Tan is a graphic narrative that uses pictures to tell a story as opposed to words, or words and pictures. The Arrival can tell a story without using words because it speaks on behalf of emotions and ideas that are universal. In other words, it’s simple. I don’t mean dull or stupid, but simple. An astute reader can funnel down the message of the story into one sentence. “Man leaves home to create a better future for his family.”

The use of pictures-only is amplified by the fact that the man in the story can’t speak or understand the language, so the reader and protagonist are attached in that fundamental way, which is being wordless to progress.  We share his burden, and ours is trivial in comparison.

As an ad major, I have to think about telling stories with pictures all the time, especially for global brands, whose end user might not speak English. From experience, I think the core message always has to be incredibly strong and reach an emotional milestone. “Is it funny? Did I cry? Am I inspired to change myself?” Hitting emotions is the best way to tell wordless stories. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier about keeping it simple. (Here’s how you can test to see if an ad is good —Watch it with the sound turned off. If it still made you laugh, chances are it’s a simple, brilliant ad. This doesn’t always work, but it’s a good starting point.)

Keeping it simple is the way to go. Not everyone speaks English. Sometimes the best way to tell a story is emotionally, through pictures. As Doug Larson, American Cartoonist, once said, “If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.”