CRITIQUES & COMICS
Dean-lo discussed approaches for critical reviews for comics in his blog a few days back. Here's my personal approach.

Though I don't normally do this with comics, when forced to come up with constructive criticism, I break my analysis down like this: Story & Storytelling.

STORY
- Plot
- Characters
- Theme


It ALWAYS starts with the story for me. This is why I started collecting Sandman at Issue #3, and hunted down back issues immediately (they were still on the shelf, mwa-ha-ha). I was convinced that despite my interest in the stories, the types of stories being told, and the way that they were told... Sandman was doomed to extinction. Then by issue #7, I was shocked that I couldn't buy it because I HAD TO WAIT FOR THE RE-ORDERS. Other people were buying it, enough to cut into MY COPIES!

KHAAAAN!! <--- Star Trek: Wrath of Khan reference.

It's because if this that I believe that having strong stories is key to the growth of the industry, MORE than "cool art" with lots of T&A. Just look at the sales of Sandman...

However, the story has to be told well. That leads me to...

STORYTELLING
- Images (Quality of Art, Artistic Idiom, Panel-to-Panel Transitions)
- Words (Quality of Scripting, Placement and Balloon / Caption Choice, Script Flow)


IMAGES. Can a comic book be done WITHOUT any words? Sure, I've seen it done (ignoring the necessity of having some words in the art itself, such as the words on a billboard sign, or a spray-painted epithet on an inner-city brick wall). Most of the time, they have to rely on cop-outs like someone writing a letter that you read over your shoulder... or lots of action without 'sound effects'.

Quality of Art. To be done WELL, art basics should be satisfied - line quality, perspective, proportion, body language, facial expressions, panel composition, etc. Perspective and proportion problems plague many amateur efforts. Body language and facial expression problems can sometime distract you from the story. It's like a

Artistic Idiom. Hyper-realistic art? Minimalist art? Cartoony Art? Richly detailed backgrounds, or stark abstract backgrounds? Wide cinematic panels, or borderless pages? All these can be employed to tell the story and emphasize the conflict of the storyline, and reinforce the underlying tone of the storytelling. Sometimes it's a polished, cohesive whole. Sometimes it's a mish-mash of techniques that serve to dazzle... but ultimately come across as disjointed and gimmicky.

Panel-to-panel Transitions Also referred to as page composition, this is the SEQUENTIAL aspect of SEQUENTIAL art... another funky term for comics, coined by Will Eisner (I believe). The choice of panels (wide, narrow, short, tall, bordered or borderless) and transitions (moment-to-moment, subject-to-subject, action-to-action, etc.) also serves to control the pacing of scenes and helps to reinforce tone and theme. The worst examples of this leave me scratching my head, thinking "who is this character talking, and how did he end up there?" or "which panel do I read next?" The best examples slide effortlessly through the story.

WORDS. The other half of the powerful Images & Words combination of comics. They communicate what pictures would be hard pressed to do. Dialogue. Internal monologues. It's like the sound portion of a movie, except that you can use captions and thought balloons, and a variety of other techniques to things like establish setting, add depth to character, or move scenes forward.

Quality of Scripting. Word choice, an ear for speech patterns and dialogue. Awareness of grammar rules (even if you have to break them, you gotta know 'em) and spelling. Appropriate use of vocabulary. There's nothing like a caption or word balloon that perfectly complements a panel or series of panels. And there's nothing like having that effect marred by the misuse of "your" or "you're". KHAAAAN!!!

Balloon Choice & Placement. Choosing not have captions. Choosing to use thought balloons. There's a wide variety of tools that you can choose, or not choose to tell your story. These choices will also impact the tone and overall narrative flow of the story. The placement is also key. Sometimes a critical image is obscured or crowded out because of too many words, or because the balloon placement leads to being read out of sequence. Done well, you can almost "hear" the narrator, characters, and surroundings in a powerful sequence.

Script Flow. Sometimes, choosing all the options leads to a jumble. It's like having the narrator and the characters speeches and thoughts all happening at once, or in a confusing sequence. Sometimes it seems like the words are at war with the images, instead of acting in concert to deliver the overall storyline and enhance the storytelling experience.

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