Deep Sequencing: Subcutaneous Storytelling

Or a look at how attention tagging is used in COPRA Round 2
by Michel Fiffe

COPRA is a remarkable comic on a lot of levels. The story is action packed fun with an emphasis on totally radical action. The artwork has a distinct style that frequently veers into the territory of experimental storytelling or feats of surreal imagery. It's also a comic that very deliberately teaches its audience without using explicit coaching: it shows in very clear yet subtle rather than directly telling. Which results in a really interesting and surprising experience and some very cool storytelling.

I'd like to showcase my favourite example of this from COPRA: Round 2.

There will be *SPOILERS* for COPRA Vol. 2.

First though, I just want to take a moment to emphasize how stylish and bold COPRA is. The page shown above is part of an ongoing battle between COPRA and a kind of four horseman of the apocalypse type team of villains. The two panels shown here are part of the jagged snapshots of a battle montage that sweeps between combatants in a really organic but very chaotic feeling way. What I especially love about this sequence is how the superspeedster villain is represented in COPRA: he is depicted as a pencil sketch blur made out of a number of poses in a chain with varying degrees of incomplete erasure. This instantly gives the character a sense of speed: that he is too quick to properly render, ink, and colour by the "camera" of the artists hand. Which goes to sell this character as being super fast without the audience ever being explicitly told this. Which is a really cool character design and an example of the show, don't tell mentality of COPRA.

An even better example of COPRA visually teaching the audience is the above selection. This collection of panels tell a sub narrative where the sketchiest of the COPRA agents removes a device implanted in his arm, secrets it on his target, and then tricks his boss/handler into activating the device, which is a bomb, blowing up the captured target. What's especially cool about this sequence is that none of this is explicitly explained to the audience and the events here are spread out, a panel here or there, over several chapters/issues of COPRA Round Two. In many ways, this story is just a little background element in a chaotic, action packed comic. And yet, I found my attention immediately drawn to the events. Which for me came down to the red boxes which overlay the explosive device and things related to it: COPRA visually tags this storyline in a way that is very eye catching. Which does a whole bunch of interesting things simultaneously. It instantly grabs attention and highlights that this subplot is significant in some way and provides a symbol that alerts the reader that the image they are looking at is part of this subplot. It also allows for a certain amount of ambiguity to the events: the reader is never *told* what is going on and therefore the events are somewhat mysterious which helps make the explosive finish to the subplot so satisfying. This is some higher level, brilliant comics.

COPRA is really must read comics.

Previously:

COPRA Round One

Deep Sequencing: The exotic comics of COPRA
Deep Sequencing: Using the margins

Deep Sequencing: Marginal Dimensions

Or a look at how the gutter colours are used in storytelling in COPRA Vol. 2
by Michel Fiffe

COPRA is a pretty awesome comic. It tells the story of a bizarre team of government mercenaries sent on surreal suicide missions. It is just about as complete a comics experience as I read: the stories are action packed celebration of superhero comics brought to life in an extremely stylish, surreally unique way. COPRA is a comic you should be reading.

COPRA is also a comic that shows a fantastic attention to detail and uses some basic page elements as storytelling tools.

There will be *SPOILERS* for COPRA Vol. 2 below.

COPRA does the big things really, really well. Like in this above sequence that sees one of the COPRA team pursuing Dy Dy, a brain in a jar villain and crime boss, flying inside a building. Eventually the pair approach a grating to outside the building where Dy Dy pulls a jackmove and swoops upward, leaving the pursuing COPRA member to blast through the gate and outside the building. The way this sequence is encoded is really kind of ingenious: Dy Dy's upward motion is expressed in a "J" shaped panel that translates the fiends motion into the vertical and unexpectedly against the grain of the page flow. It's a panel that is easy to follow and quick to read, and yet surprising feeling with its convention violations. Then we track down from the top of the page to the next panel where we see the COPRA agent crashing into the grate in a simple, sudden panel. It's a great feat of storytelling and a good example of the kind of exciting, clear, and smart comics to be found in COPRA. 

But this kind of obviously good comics only shows one level of the smart storytelling in COPRA.

COPRA is also a comic with exquisite attention to detail. One of the ways this scrupulous approach to comics manifests in COPRA is how margins are used as active storytelling elements. The default margin colour in COPRA is white, with coloured panels floating on a white page background. This situation denotes that the portrayed events take place in the default world of COPRA and are, in some way, normal. The opening chapter of COPRA, in contrast, has all black panel gutters. The story is a quiet retrospective that examines the battered COPRA team as they bury one of their own. The black gutters on the page help sell the sobriety and grief of the chapter. COPRA Volume 2 also takes place in two alternate dimensions: a dystopian warscape reality and a psychedelic, demon-infested prison reality. Both of these alternate dimensions get their own gutter colour: every page in the dystopian world has a bright green background colour while every page in the prison plane has a hot pink page colour. This gives each of these dimensions a unique visual identity and, when compared to the white gutters of the default reality, provide these dimensions an exotic, alternate feel. It also goes a long way to helping readers keep the various worlds of the story straight without being explicitly told where things are happening. Which is a simple seeming choice that works really effectively in the comic.

Which is a great example of the really smart storytelling in COPRA.

Previously:

COPRA Round One
COPRA Round Two

Deep Sequencing: The exotic comics of COPRA

So I Read COPRA: Round 2

A 250 word (or less) review of COPRA Volume 2
by Michael Fiffe; Bergen Street Press

This is part of an ongoing story. To read about the beginning of it go here.

COPRA Round 2 continues the ass-kicking story of COPRA, a covert government team mercenaries and assassins, who are sent on dangerous, strange suicide missions. Following the explosive events of their last mission, this volume follows the battered COPRA team as they deal with the aftermath. In Round Two COPRA buries one of their own, goes on a suicide mission to a dystopian alternate universe, and takes down the government officials who betrayed them. COPRA remains one of the best overall comics I read. The story is pure genre comic gleeful excess providing brutal, frequently surreal action presented with superlative artwork. COPRA is also one of the most interesting comics I’ve read on a technical level: it is absolutely filled with the wonky, experimental storytelling and distinctive style that I absolutely love to look at and try to understand. It is no exaggeration when I say COPRA is one of the smartest, prettiest, and brashest comics on the stands. It is also a book you should absolutely be reading.

Word count: 168

Post by Michael Bround

Previously:

COPRA Round One

Deep Sequencing: The exotic comics of COPRA

Deep Sequencing: Consistently Outstanding, Positively Righteous Comics Awesomeness

Or some wicked cool art choices from COPRA: Round One
by Michel Fiffe; Bergen Street Press

Copra is maybe the most dynamic and unique looking Superhero comic I've read recently. It looks like nothing else, and really delivers each discrete moment in a way that optimizes the depicted action. It's a really complete, constantly exciting book. And I really want to try and convey this to you all. So here we go.

There will be *SPOILERS* for COPRA: Round One below.

COPRA right from the start has a decidedly different look than the vast majority of comics. Michel Fiffe has an expressive, minimalist style to his characters, that while detailed, have very obvious features that makes them all immediately recognizable. The comic also has this soft, pencil crayon shading style that looks beautiful and gives the comic a unique and very art-forward feeling. Even in a quiet moment like this, just at a glance, you can tell COPRA is something special.

Or take a look at this action sequence here. The woman in green shoots and eviscerates the chain-goon, clips the flammable gas tanks of the fame thrower guy, and then the sequence focuses on flame thrower guy smouldering for a moment before igniting as his gas tanks rupture. It's a wonderful (can you call panels depicting a man burning alive wonderful?) collection of images that really zoom in on the action and give it space to be as visceral, and dramatic as possible. It's also a cool sequence because in the peripheral of the immolating man the woman in green moves on to new targets and the man in the red mask hops out of the truck and is punched. These peripheral elements, seen at a remove, help convey how much chaotic action is happening around the focus of this sequence. These bakcground elements also provide critical time information: they show that while the burning man seems to take forever to burn, it is only a moment in the grand scheme of the story. This collection of panels im emblematic of the attention to detail, beauty, and moment by moment storytelling focus that makes every second of COPRA memorable.

I am always interested in how comics go about trying to depict impossible elements like magic or time travel or reality warping physics. COPRA has some really memorable sequences in this vein. Like the above selection which features parallel scenes happening in two separate dimensions linked by a portal. The layout is directly playing with this, with the page split down the middle between the prison dimension on the left and the normal world on the right. This layout is all about playing with the permeable portal barrier between the two sides and making sure that simultaneous events are portrayed in a clear way. What this layout does very effectively is break the page into two separate vertical comic strips that interact in three tiers of time so that when the cross over event between the prisoner and the #-monster happens in the lowest tier, it is very obvious what has happened. This layout is all about taking a very complicated story beat and conveying it in an instantly understandable and visually satisfying way. It is exactly what it needs to be.

Another great sequence that deals with the impossible is this page of magic. In the page the sorcerer and his apprentice have cast a spell to contain a powerful magical artifact for study. The page conveys this by creating a cage of tiny panels around the shard-artifact to imprison it. Beyond being a great symbol for the spell, it is also creates this element of depth to the page, where each panel now has three layers so that depicted objects can be in front of or behind the plane of the panel cage. Which leads to some really, really cool features like in the second panel where the sorcerer directly interacts with the cage-panels and reaches through them and out of the page. It's a really cool effect. It's also a wonderful visual representation of magic in comics: something structurally impossible and fourth wall breaking is occurring on the page much like how magic is a phenomena that violates the rules of reality. It's absolutely great comics.

And really, all of COPRA is of this quality. If you like artistically interesting comics or just totally rad superhero comics you really need to track down COPRA Round One. It is totally worth the effort.

Post by Michael Bround

Previously:
So I Read COPRA: Round One.

So I Read COPRA: Round One

Or a 250 word (or less) review of the first COPRA collection
by Michel Fiffe; Bergen Street Press

Like everyone who reads superhero comics owned by a gigantic corporation I have complicated feelings about the relationship. I love the characters and enjoy the work done by talented creators who work on my favourite titles, but at the same time the lack of endings, rotating creators, and occasionally boneheaded editorial choices of this publishing realm can be upsetting. Sometimes it feels like if only I, personally, were in control of the comics they would be better. And I think maybe Michel Fiffe had a similar feeling and independently made COPRA. COPRA started, at least, as a fan comic paying tribute to classic Jim Ostrander Suicide Squad stories and evolved to maybe be the best superhero team book I've read. The comic is about a team of renegades given purpose by COPRA, a secret black-ops organization specializing in super-powered suicide missions. Something goes wrong during an off the books mission, the team is betrayed, framed, and declared outlaw. While on the run the team must launch another suicide mission to punish the traitor and save the world. COPRA is everything I want in an action team book with memorable combat, colourful characters, and a general sense of awesomeness that is totally fun and rad. COPRA is also just a fantastic comic with a distinct style and a masterful and experimental approach to action storytelling. I am not in charge of comics, but if I was, COPRA is exactly the kind of comic I’d want to make.

Word count: 246

Post by Michael Bround