Atoll Comics: Spider-Woman

Showing posts with label Spider-Woman. Show all posts

Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Deep Sequencing: Spider Bastards

Or a look at the use of girds in Spider-Woman #9 and Southern Bastards Vol. 3
by Dennis Hopeless, Javier Rodriguez, Alvaro Lopez, and Travis Lanham; as well as Jason Aaron, Jason Latour, Chris Brunner, and Jared K Fletcher, respectively.

One of the most basic units in comics storytelling is a grid: a regular collection of panels put into rows. It is sequential art distilled down to its essence, a series of sequential pictures that depict a story through time. Regular girds can be pretty interesting because of how they create a rigid, confining story space. But these comics, Spider-Woman and Southern Bastards both use artwork that use and subvert panel grids to create interesting and innovative comics. And I'd like to explore some cool examples.

There will be *SPOILERS* below for Spider-Woman #9 and Southern Bastards Vol. 3

This page incorporates a grid and uses it in some very interesting ways. The foundation of this page is a six panel grid depicting a single image of a man on his knees being menaced. Because the six panel grid is here, the comic can violate the grid to generate extra emphasis. The first panel of the page, where the man is struck in the face with a gun butt, takes advantage of this and usurps the first panel in the gird, is RED!, and is enlarged so it overlaps the gutters. This makes the panel explode off the page in a burst of violence. Then the reader moves into the six panel grid with its single large image. This is important because it stretches the moment, making the main image feel like it takes six-comic-time units instead of one. The gridification of this image is also important because it splits the central of the page into a top and lower half. This means that when the reader encounters the text and character in the heart of the page, the kneeling man is constrained in the bottom middle panel below the horizontal divide. This makes him feel trapped, powerless, and cowed. It's a really smart use of the constricting aspects of a grid. Finally the final read panel, the red panel in the centre right, is jammed over the gird in a way that breaks the pattern. This makes this panel feel unexpected, impactful, and cruel as the depicted gut shot. This is a fantastic page.

I'm also pretty impressed how this page uses its grid elements. While this page is not as strictly a regular panel grid, it does have four grid like panels in the bottom left corner. Here a henchman, partially responsible for beating the kid in the bed into a comma is trying to talk out his guilt. What I love here is how as the guy talks and talks and talks and trails off into inanity the lowest panels of the grid get cut off by the bottom of the page. It's the panels trailing off visually as the character trails off in the story. Which is great stuff.

This page here also uses a grid in a spectacularly complicated way. Superficially this page is a regular twenty panel grid, where the story is played out in a linear, simple way. But this page is anything but simple or linear! Instead this page is more like a series of interlocking linear comic strips that are layered onto a grid to weave together three interlocking narratives. The top row of panels show Spider-Woman kicking a Wendigo out of a window. This top row carries around the corner and down the page showing a comic strip of the Wendigo falling, startling a Mountie, and fleeing into the beautiful Canadian wilderness. Meanwhile the first panel in the top row also leads smoothly into the second row of panels which present a slightly out of kilter replay of the top row of panels with a narrative focus on Spider-Woman. This creates a sense of chaos and flurry of activity over these first few moments, but also helps split the Wendigo and Spider-Woman narratives. Much of the third row of panels focuses on Spider-Woman seeing the Wendigo escape. The left corner of the page subverts the grid, and has two overlaid panels that show the startled Mountie and skier as Spider-Woman appears and steels their weapon and skis. Put all together the page shows a chaotic fight, the Wendigo escape, Spider-Woman pursue, and bystanders react in a way that shows simultaneous action in an easy reading way. This is a pretty incredible page.

Previously:

Spider-Woman #8: storytelling roundup

Spider-Woman #3: page motifs and meta-transit
Spider-Woman #1 (again): crowd scene

Spider-Woman #10: page turns and tangents

Spider-Woman #9: page turns and splash pages

Spider-Woman #8: turning down the background
Spider-Woman #7: the brilliance of the inset panel
Spider-Woman #6: Guided chaos and multiple reading paths
Spider-Woman #5: Character Design and composition

Southern Bastards Use of Red
Southern Bastard Faces
Southern Bastards Vol. 1
Southern Bastards Vol. 2

Wednesday, 15 June 2016

Sussing Spider-Woman #8

Or a look at some of the great storytelling moments in Spider-Woman #8
by Dennis Hopeless, Javier Rodriguez, Alvaro Lopez, Travis Lanham; Marvel Comics

I write about Spider-Woman and the role of eye-guiding in composition more than I probably should. I fear it's starting to get boring and repetitive! But the thing is, Spider-Woman continues to showcase some really innovative compositions that use eye-guiding and colours to generate really clever storytelling. And I think some of it is worth talking about. So hopefully you can bear with me and we can unpack what's cool about Spider-Woman #8.

There will, as always, be *SPOILERS*.

What I like about this sequence is what a nice, clear example of eye guiding composition it is. In the final three panels of the page the reader is drawn down, quickly up, and pulled back down again along the vectors of the motion. This sells the depicted action and creates a sense of drama to the moment. It's effective and works because of some really smart underlying storytelling.

This sequence is also nice in that it showcases a lot of basic elements that create the effect. The composition has narrow, tall panels that pull the storytelling into the vertical. The red, and particularly the black of Tiger Shark's gloves and Spider-Woman's pants and sleeves create tangent lines that steer the eye through the light/blue panels. Lettering is placed before and after motions so that you read narration, have the sudden appearance of Tiger Shark's arm, encounter more text, and then nothing until the cleverly oriented "SPLASH" onomatopoeia. This gives the panels a slow-fast-slow-fast rhythm which captures the arm-thrust, snag, capsize actions being depicted. Despite its apparent simplicity, this sequence is constructed of many storytelling elements working in concert.

These pages are worth looking at for a couple separate reasons.

The first is that it has a very complex fight scene that reads very well and also takes advantage of black costume elements as eye-guides. I've previously discussed what a smart, smart character design Spider-Woman's costume is from a storytelling perspective. The crux of my argument is that the black limbs naturally stand out on a coloured page and can be used to steer readers and frame action. In the fight scene on the left page the first panel uses the central body stripe of Tiger Shark's costume to pull you into the large, central panel. This panel depicts a snarling, chaotic dogfight between characters that uses a combination of the combatants costumes to lead the reader through the visual noise. In particular Spider-Woman's black legs and arms play a key role in providing visual cues on where the reader is supposed to turn their eyes to navigate the page. It's worth noting that the colouring here plays a huge role in this effect since Spider-Woman's limbs are the only true, 100% black elements in the panel. The black elements in Tiger Shark's costume have received a treatment of highlights that make them blue/grey which lessons their visual weight and allows Spider-Woman's limbs to stand out more. It's a really adept intersection of composition and colour.

(I can't help but wonder how much this of this power move results from having a penciller/colourist working on Spider-Woman.)

This composition is also pretty interesting in how it uses the left-to-right page transition. The action being depicted here is Tiger Shark snagging Spider-Woman's ankle and swinging her bodily into what looks like a trophy rack. What is cool is this action starts on the bottom panel of the left page and finishes in the top panel of the right page. What this does is take advantage of the very long carriage return when switching pages to create the sensation of Spider-Woman being swung. This is a super clever choice because the reader's eyes swing along the longest axis of the page and get drawn into the final drawing of the motion. This creates a huge amount of momentum both from utilizing reading motion and for how the motion carries through multiple panels to create weight. It is great stuff.

Another sequence that I think is worth taking a longer look at is the one where Spider-Woman has a conversation with her babysitter Roger. The concept of this sequence is that Roger calls Spider-Woman who is fighting Tiger Shark and giant squid monsters asking about random baby things. It's a fun section of the comic that uses the juxtaposition of trivial parental crap and titanic superheroics for yuks (and maybe to make a point about how parenting takes over your life). To make this juxtaposition work better Roger and baby are drawn over the superheroics in the same grand panel despite calling from another location. The aspect of this sequence that I think is worth paying attention to is how the colouring is used to distinguish that Roger-and-baby and Spider-Woman are in distinct from one another. This is accomplished by giving Roger-and-baby their own colouring: a flat, orange-tinged colouring with even lighting. This stands in contrast to the rest of the panel which is dark and shiny with rain, and is filled with highlights and shadows cast from a variety of light sources. The two colour palettes are so incompatible that it is immediately obvious that they are belong in different settings. Which is means that a colouring choice here is responsible for ket narrative information.

Previously:

Spider-Woman #3: page motifs and meta-transit
Spider-Woman #1 (again): crowd scene

Spider-Woman #10: page turns and tangents

Spider-Woman #9: page turns and splash pages

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Sussing Spider-Woman #3

Or a look at the very clever storytelling in Spider-Woman #3
by Dennis Hopeless, Javier Rodriguez, Alvaro Lopez, Rachelle Rosenburg, and Travis Lanham

I know I write entirely too much about Spider-Woman. I was going to skip some issues, try and write about something else for a change, prove I still read other comics. But dang, Spider-Woman #3 does some interesting things that are really worth talking about.

So, I guess I'm writing another post about Spider-Woman.

There will be *SPOILERS* for Spider-Woman #3 below.

The thing that I love about Spider-Woman as a comic, both as a reader and an art wonk, is the clever way storytelling needs are incorporated into layout to create interesting, evocative sequences of comics. The above sequence, that has Spider-Woman and the other Space-Moms crawling through some sort of utility space, is a great example of this. The way the main storytelling panels on this page snake around and below setting panels instantly conveys the situation in a clear way. It also manages to capture the claustrophobia, the slow progress, and the dangerous proximity to the Skrull invaders in an effective way. It's a great storytelling solution that makes this page really fun to read.

But it's this sequence here that is the reason I have to write about this comic. The story of the issue has a very pregnant Jessica Drew go on a quest through an alien-hopsital-space-station to retrieve help. This sequence showcases Spider-Woman navigating a bizarre labyrinth that involves swimming through an aquatic ward, some sort of elaborate mechanical room, and a lovecraftian giant alien thing on the way. What is great about this sequence is how clearly it manages to convey complex motions: despite moving in and out of the plane of the page, it is always very clear just where Jessica is going. This, I think, is due in part to character design. The heavy, black limbs of Spider-Woman's costume/outfit serve to exaggerate whatever shape Jessica's body is in, which allows the creative team to turn her silhouette into guiding tangent lines which can steer the readers attention. This is used to great effect throughout these pages. This sequence is also pretty great for just how weird the environments are: the aquatic ward is imaginative and fun; the machine room is chaotic, filled with odd geometries, and constructed of sound effects; and the monster room uses panel size and scale to create a yawning moment of oddity. This is great comics.

The thing that elevates this sequence from great to brilliant is this next bit. In the comic Spider-Woman navigates the alien maze, fetches the help she was looking for, and then must retrace her steps back to her point of origin. This is conveyed by having Jessica Drew run along the plane of the page across panels depicting the four zones she just finished navigating. Critically, each zone-panel has the core colour and design elements of the above sequence, so it is instantly obvious that Jessica is retracing her steps. I am also really impressed by the choice to have Jessica run along the surface of the page since it is just fourth-wall-breaking enough to be clearly a symbol representing her trip and not the literal depiction. It conveys the information of the retread in a way that hints at the larger, more difficult journey, but which also doesnt expend a lot of page space or force the reader to view recycled material. It is a gloriously smart bit of comics.

However you might feel about corporate comics or Spider-Woman as character or concept, this comic is worth reading.

Previously:
Spider-Woman #2: exciting waiting

Spider-Woman #1 (again): crowd scene

Spider-Woman #10: page turns and tangents

Spider-Woman #9: page turns and splash pages

Wednesday, 20 January 2016

Sussing Spider-Woman #2

Or a look at clever storytelling in Spider-Woman #2
by Dennis Hopeless, Javier Rodriguez, Alvaro Lopez, and Travis Lanham; Marvel Comics

Spider-Woman continues to impress me with consistently interesting storytelling. It might not be my favourite story or series concept right now, but I am always delighted by the thoughtful way the story is constructed. If you are someone who likes cerebral, playful layouts Spider-Woman is a comic you should be reading. And if you require more proof, I've got some more evidence coming at you.

There will be *SPOILERS* for Spider-Woman #2 below.

I seriously love this page. The story of the page is that Jessica Drew, who is very pregnant, is being held hostage by Skrulls. Normally, she would beat the green men to a green smear, but since she is ultimately responsible for her fetus, she is also trying to be responsible and wait for help. This page does a beautiful job conveying the conflict between Spider-Woman's fury and her delicate condition. What I love about this page is how the structure of the layout highlights and rotates around Jessica's pregnant belly: the top of half of the page hones in on the stomach while the lower half the page forms an arc with her pregnancy at the centre of it. As many images of frustration there on the page, they are always outweighed and overshadowed by the belly. It's really clever stuff.

(Also, how charming is the double panel 'KIK' 'KIK'?)

I also like how the lettering in this page takes a slightly different track through the page. This creates a tension between the underlying layout structure and the flow of the writing on the page. This is done in a way that is still super easy to read, but which subtly helps build the feelings of conflict in Jessica. Smart, smart page.

The next page is also pretty great storytelling. A thing that Team Drew does really well is make effective use of nested panels, and this page is a great example of it. By placing Jessica's foot-tapping impatience into a nested-panel is makes this motion the Most Important part of the first panel. This really highlights Spider-Woman's frustration, but also sets the tapping foot as a recurring element that can then be repeated in the following panels and used as a great little visual signifier of Jessica making up her mind. It's charming as all heck and accomplished storytelling. I also love how when the foot-tapping-descision-panel arrives it leads directly into a tight little sequence that shows determination and drives the reader around the carriage return into the texting in the final panel. These are all fairly small choices, but make for such a fun efficient page of comics.

If you like wonky, smart comics, Spider-Woman is a comic you should be reading.

Previously:
Spider-Woman #1 (again): crowd scene

Spider-Woman #10: page turns and tangents

Spider-Woman #9: page turns and splash pages

Wednesday, 9 December 2015

Sussing Spider-Woman #1 (Again)

Or a look at navigating crowd scenes in Spider-Woman #1 (again)
by Dennis Hopeless, Javier Rodriguez, Alvaro Lopez, and Travis Lanham; Marvel Comics

A whole new Spider-Woman is starting! With a new #1 issue! With the same creative team! The same on-going narrative and aesthetic look! Which is really... dumb.

(Seriously, Marvel needs to tone it down a bit with the #1 parade. It's getting comically asinine and increasingly difficult to keep blog posts straight.)

Fortunately, the creative team behind the current Spider-Woman are pretty great and the on-going story continues to hit the madcap fun of the last story arch. The new wrinkle, that Jessica Drew is very pregnant, is something I generally find a bit dubious, but thought was handled with charm and a sense of humour. (The montage of her on maternity leave and maximum pregnant was pretty great and very true of my wife's recent gravid experiences.) I'm still a little worried about how this story is going to play out, but I'm willing to give the creative team a chance to win me over. They pretty much earned it.

(Also, I totally have a theory about what's happening...)

Anyway, there is a page in Spider-Woman #1 that I think is pretty interesting.

There will be *SPOILERS* for Spider-Woman #1 below.

There are a lot of competing factors at play whenever a page gets made. Events and dialogue need to be placed in the page in a way that conveys narrative. Ideally this is done in a way that is clear to the reader and is visually interesting and aesthetically pleasing. It also has to be produced in an economical way: creative teams live under a constant threat of looming deadlines. Crowd scenes, which involve many characters, lots of detail and narrative clutter, present a slew of storytelling challenges that make them hard to pull, and yet, are pretty fun when done well.

What I love about this page is how efficient it is. The page establishes that a big fun party is happening on a rooftop (with a bunch of fun cameos). The crowd scene here serves to build the feeling of a well populated party in a way that lingers so that subsequent pages can focus on smaller groups of characters while still feeling like part of a gathering. This page is also pretty great as it manages to pack in two separate strands of story advancing, fun dialogue in a way that doesn't compromise the scale of the crowd scene, or burn an entire page on an establishing shot. I also love how it captures the sense of being at a party: moving through a crowd while mingling with individuals and the fact that parties are comprised of smaller, simultaneous conversations and interactions. It's a really clever concept for a page.

This page is also constructed in a pretty interesting way on a structural basis. Each narrative stream pops out of the surrounding crowd using smartly place dialogue boxes and the colours of the pinciple characters. The white dialogue boxes and the red of Jessica Drew's dress, Spidey's costume, and Iron Man's armour creates clear visual guides against the back drop of the mostly more muted other partygoers. That said, I did find this page a little confusing to read on the first pass, since my natural instinct was to turn the corner from the Spider-persons conversation right into the Iron Man and Captain Marvel's conversation, which isn't the intended reading path. I mean, it was pretty obvious this was a mistake, and a simple thing to reorient, but a perfect page would not have this moment of ambiguity. This is part of why I found this page so interesting: it is overall really good and contains some strong technical storytelling, but in its ambition, it also introduces what I would consider a minor problem. Which I think makes this page an intriguing example of a compromise between the different storytelling forces acting on the page.

Comics are so cool guys. So cool.

Previously:
Spider-Woman #10: page turns and tangents

Spider-Woman #9: page turns and splash pages

Friday, 11 September 2015

Sussing Spider-Woman #10

Or I'm a sucker for the great page turn in Spider-Woman #10
by Dennis Hopeless, Natacha Bustos, Vero Gandini, and Travis Lanham; Marvel Comics

When I took a look at the last issue of Spider-Woman, I talked about how effective a good page turn can be in comics. Sure, it might be one of the oldest-tricks-in-the-comicbook, but using the physical structure of a comic to spring an unseen surprise just works. And Spider-Woman #10 has another great example of why this trick works so well.

There will be *SPOILERS* for Spider-Woman #10

The pages under consideration are these two. The first page on the left depicts Jessica Drew fighting a horde of brain ashed cowpokes and hulked out cattle. It's busy and fast and ends on a panel with a charging bovid in the background. And then there is a page turn. And suddenly there is a panel depicting Spider-Woman getting flung across the page by a collision with a cow. It's kind of funny but also an evocative and effective bit of storytelling that uses the sudden unveiling of the moment to generate comedy and action. It's a good example of a well used page turn.

The thing is though, if you dig a little deeper, these pages are actually a lot more interesting. The pages use lettering, nested panels, and the black limbs of Spider-Woman's costume to guide the eye through the pages, along arcs of motion and beams of energy, to quickly navigate the pages. It makes every moment of action feel more dynamic and interesting. These guides also really help set up the page turn, drawing attention to the charging bull on the first page and providing a hard stopping point before the page turn. Then, after the page turn, the vectors and guides of the action cause you to abruptly encounter the cow, pause to take it in and find the next guide, and then travel along the onomatopoeia and Spider-Woman's black limbs to get a real sense of her flight path and motion. Like telling a good joke or story, these pages absolutely catch the rhythm of the action and time the page-turn-punchline perfectly. This is really adept comics.

Previously:
Spider-Woman #9: page turns and splash pages
Spider-Woman #8: turning down the background
Spider-Woman #7: the brilliance of the inset panel
Spider-Woman #6: Guided chaos and multiple reading paths
Spider-Woman #5: Character Design and composition

Monday, 10 August 2015

Sussing Spider-Woman #9

Or a look at a nifty take on a classic comics move in Spider-Woman #9,
by Dennis Hopeless, Javier Rodriguez, Alvaro Lopez, Travis Lanham; Marvel Comics

Comics are storytelling machines constructed to tell stories using pictures and words. Like any machine, comics have components, discrete pieces that make the machine work. Choices that work within the comic to tell the story, but which can also be held up and examined individually. There are a pretty wide selection artwork tools and tricks that are used, but two of the most frequent and classic tools of comics storytelling are the page turn and the splash page.

The splash page, of course, is when a comic stitches two pages together into a single, huge image. The idea being that the scale of this single panel will make the depicted material jump out of the book and seem extra exciting or impactful or cool. It's a simple idea that works really well.

The page turn, also of course, is when a comic uses the quick cut between the turned page to spring a surprise on the following pages. It's effective because it's, well, surprising.

These are classic, obvious storytelling devices, that are as old as comics.

They are also kind of timeless and used really well in Spider-Woman #9

There will be *SPOILERS* for Spider-Woman #9 below.

This is a fantastic setup page. It's moody, beautifully coloured, and sets the stage for the coming action in a visually interesting way. It's the last panel though that makes the page especially interesting: the narrow panel is filled with a blurry, rushed motion that only begins on this panel and leads right into the page turn. It's an interesting choice that will pay dividends once the page is flipped...

...and we enter this amazing splash page that sees Spider-Woman smashing through a crowd of goons in an absolutely rock and roll page. What I love about this page, is that it breaks down Spider-Woman's actions into a disjointed chaos of motion that translates into a flurry of badassery. I'm also really impressed at the compromise the page strikes between visual complexity and emphasis so that the page clearly has a lot of discrete moments of action, but can still be read nearly at once, only really focusing on the rifle chop and energy blasts in the foreground. It's a big, exciting couple of pages, that when delivered surprisingly after a page turn are absolutely magical.

Which, I think, goes to show that Team Spider-Woman are good at comics and that when used properly, the oldest comics tricks can be really great.

Previously:
Spider-Woman #8: turning down the background
Spider-Woman #7: the brilliance of the inset panel
Spider-Woman #6: Guided chaos and multiple reading paths
Spider-Woman #5: Character Design and composition