Analysing ComicsSHANNON LEWIS

Superman – Soul Search chapeter 2 by Jerry Ordway and Dennis Janke 1990DC ComicsLarge title at top that sketches out, separating it’s self from the illustration

Includes speech bubblesMakes people to read on

Busy dangerous scene which is from the story inside the comicColours help portray the mood as well – Red, orange and yellows.

Includes labels and names of companies

Includes main character

Deadpool – 008 by Duggan Lolli RedmondMarvel

Title at top and clearLike Superman the word is three dimensional and elongated

Includes main character on front cover

Kept background busy by filling it up with bees even though there is no setting

Unlike Superman it doesn’t show part of the story in the cover but does show a character who is included in the volume.

Clearly shows the emotion of the character through facial expression

Makai Ouji Devils and Realist – Volume 1 by Utako Dukihiro and Madoka Takadono

Main character in large

Focuses more on decoration rather than trying to hint what’s happening in the story

Has connections in the imagery to do with the theme of the story, for instance the devils pentagram because of its supernatural characters, and old English writing as it is set in Victorian Britain.

Character poses and looks directly at viewerNot part of a scene like Superman and Deadpool

Keeps the background clean with only slight boarders and silhouetted flowers

Blue Exorcist – Volume 1 by Kazue Kato

Title down the side with a haze on it.

White clean background like Makai OujiFocus on character

Includes character and you get to see them in colour

Again the character poses

Includes the small details of clothingVery precise

Use of thought bubbles so you see a characters point of view

Lots of dark exaggerated shadows – relates to the lighting of the setting which is made up of fire.

Uses shadows to show another characters that’s not in the scene: makes it more suspicious and dangerous, allows you to show someone in a small frame

Clothing reacts to scene: cape is rippedMakes it a bit more believable

With the body language and facial expression here you can see that Superman is using all his strength – makes it believable

Uses colour and lines to show form and tone. Block colour to show basic tone and then black lines for small tones: wrinkles and lines on face

Extreme close up on face to show expression of eyes clearly.Shows signs of thinking, planning or can also show suspicion or being suspicious.

Shows shape of hair though many lines Making it dark in places where it folds and doesn’t get hit by the light source the artist is using.

Reflect light on certain features of the face such as nose and cheeks. Also showing the shape of these features

Having loads of characters (even though they may or may not be important) makes the scene more dramatic in this sense as you can see peoples reactions to what’s happening and relate to it more.

When characters shout the speech bubbles are jiggered to help get across to the audience that the person is shouting

Typically in text you just write it in capitals but in comics the text is always in capitals.

With fire it gives the characters and objects a orange glow as it is the main light source

Making objects react to each other to make it believable for the audience. Even though it is clearly a drawing.

They tried to make the female character seductive through her clothing and curvy figure.But also made her rather scary through her wild hair, tensed up hand, evil grin and flames surrounding her whole body

Speech bubbles that link up to each other: makes a pause but they are still speaking.

Through using a lot of reflective tones on the skirt you can tell that it is possibly a shiny material.

Whereas the top has no tonal change so it’s a soft material.

Again the setting lighting affects the lighting and tone on characters and objects, so pink in this frame.

Like the Superman comic the women in this frame are curvy and made seductive

However it is different as these women are clearly for a strip club whereas the woman in the Superman comic is a villain.

The women faces are more smoother compared to the male faces when it comes to tone.

High angle view (looking up) at the character showing who is in power of these scene.

Full page dedicated to the final “to be continued” frame.Single large frame highlights the cliff hanger, allowing you to see the characters clearer compared to the smaller frames

Full body shot showing entire costumeEven includes details on the sole of the shoe

Lots of mid tone shadows to show slight creases and reflections.Also helps show the facial expressions through small reflections around the eyes as the mask limits it.Deadpool needs to show facial expressions as he is meant to be a funny character.

Monotone frame – makes scene dramatic with contrasting tones next to each other and facial expression.

Includes lines on hair – including small details even though there’s a lot of block colour

Small highlights on car window to make it clearer that it’s a car – would light even touch that?

Smaller frame on a large frame – seeing it from another angleYou get the see the characters facial expression

Villain has a pointy jaw whereas the protagonist has a square jaw You see this in the Superman comic as well

Makes the villain look more evil because of its sharp shaped face

Looking down at the scene allows you to see more – also makes it appear as though the characters are being watched

Because Deadpool is wearing a mask it makes it harder to show facial expressions – to fix this issue they used small shadows and light reflections on the black part of the mask and also changes the shape and exaggerates the eyes

When exaggerating on an emotion they simplify the face a bit more. For instance in the top image they removed the nose and iris and pupil. By removing features you would think it would make it a lot harder to show an extreme emotion but to make it work the artist has added shadow on the T-zone of the face and pointed the eyebrows down. The character also got sharp teeth to help portray that he is angry.

In this frame he changes from angry to sulky and to show this they made him ‘chibi’ – another manga form of drawing characters where they are smaller and more plump

*with all manga you read right to left*

The character overlaps onto other frames – linking frames together

Use of dots on face like Roy Lichtenstein, however it doesn’t cover whole face, only where there is a shadow

Decorative background a bit like a wall paper – taking you away from the scene, character is in his own head

Not all thought bubbles have bubbles leading from the character

Words describing sounds – helps reader visualise better

Close ups make things more dramatic and makes the audience understand how things are going on - for instance here the floor breaks apart is from the character stomping his foot

Uses dashes to show speed and movement – audience gets a feel of how quick things are happeningAlso can show explosions

Fish eye appearance to show disturbance

The see through writing makes scene behind it slightly lighter – making it stand out a bit clearer as it isn’t washed out by the detail in the background

Scene being ripped apart – follows the curved movement

The Japanese writing that says noises is large and covers most of the scene

When clothing has a tartan or checked pattern on it they don’t think about how it would like on real clothing – they just paste the pattern on the character.Is it because it’s quicker?

Smaller dots on the face to show shadows

Dark shadow on the hair – makes the writing stand out a lot clearer.

Sweat drops and sharp vertical lines to help exaggerate the emotion – nerves, angry, embarassed

Goes into lots of detail, keeping the scene busy. A lot to look at and you always see something new when you look at it

Embellished outfit – they have to know exactly what it looks like to make it workCloser to reality compared to something plain

Scene shot so you know where characters areAlso sometimes it is labelled to make it even clearer

You can leave blank spaces between frames, yet they join together with a characters head or speech bubble that comes out of the frame

Separating yet bringing together

To show the emotion ‘sad’ in manga they make the eyes larger with white circles to represent tears. The eyebrows are also tilted.All exaggerating and clearly showing the emotion.

Cheeks are blushed as people tend to go blotchy when crying

When sad the speech bubbles become wobbly to suggest a shaky voice

Characters close together in close up frame – see the back of head of one, shows that they are reacting to each other

Quick glimpse of memory – doesn’t show whole scene as they clearly want to show it’s a memory.So just character and speech on a white background

Just a page that shows the entire city in amazing detail.So much going on and it all works togetherHow long would this of taken to design?Was it drawn bigger first and then shrunk down?

Mixture of old and new, so they thought of history of place

Include bridges and roads so you can see how people would enter the city

Analysing these comics was extremely useful for me and I now feel very confident with my project and how I’m going to do it. I particularly like how in comics they use close ups to show the extreme emotions clearly. Another feature I liked was having a very busy scene, specially designing an entire town. However this isn’t my focus and something like that would take ages to plan to get it right and successful.