Comic Art

In this post I want to talk more about the artistic style of comic and graphic novels rather than the content of a particular graphic novel or comic. Frist I will examine how the art style has grown and then how the art is applied in modern setting not just to comics, but to other media as well.
I want to start out by discussing panels. They are the framework of any story quite literally. A panel is the picture where something happens in a comic. They also produce the flow in a comic, the way they are arranged directs the reader’s eyes to follow the story a certain ways, or in a full page panel allow the reader to explore the page as they see fit. This also allows for a character to exist a panel, meaning they break the border this means either they are usually being more dramatic, grabbing the reader’s attention by breaking the strait lines, or it is done to break the fourth wall. The panels can also be used to manipulate they speed at which the reader reads, a longer panel will slow the reader down which a bunch of quick short small panels will speed up the reader. So panels are an effective frame work for the art to take place, but what about the art style within the panels?
Well the art style has changed quite a bit over the years, from stippling in the 50’s to the heavy inking of the grittier dramas in conjunction with cell shading, and know in the era of more webcomics we she an mixture of a flash and anime mix as well as a large number of artistic styles. The art of comics has evolved along with comics as a medium, as the writing got more sophisticated so does the art as a way to tell the story. Stippling was a bright colorful medium, which made even the darkest melodramas seem to play across a clown’s face paint. Then as comics grew into a more adult medium a new art style grew as well darker, heavier, and scarier environments were created, like in the stories of the “darkest night” character arc or the graphic novels of V for Vendetta and Watchmen. So comics began to be taken more seriously as an artistic medium. Then as the internet grew as a place for media to flourish, webcomics began to pop up these usually one page weekly comics have become a mixture of many different art styles, for a great display of many artistic style I would recommend the Gutters ( http://www.the-gutters.com/ ) it is a funny series.
The art style of comics has translated into other media as they become a more popularized medium. This is seen in super hero movies as well as movies like Scott Pilgrim which actually barrow quite heavily from comics and video games. Then video games themselves the new game Halo Reach for instance has a special effect in the forge mode that turns the entire map into a heavy black and white contrast which is called pen and ink, which makes me think of graphic novels. Comics as an artistic medium as crossed borders, and not just the ones around panels, to create an aristic approach to all media.