Sketchbook of "Week Two"

So it isn't like I'm taking a week to do each of these; I knew I was going to be busy this semester, but fuck. Going from one post a week from almost daily? Shit. But that is neither here nor there. Single-Panel Cartoons.

So, Assignment #1, handed in! So putting this together I was thinking about comic strips (duh), and just throwing stuff going through my head recently. So we've got the EC Comics/MAD layout, a Kurtzman zoom, a three panel cause-and-effect, my "Yellow Guy" we've seen before, some kind of Clowesian male....multi-panel sequence breakdown of KRAZY KAT, and my BRAZIL head.












Exercise 2.1, write out several things on index cards: "something you overheard recently in a public place, something you said to someone earlier that day, a catch phrase or slogan, a question of some kind, and maybe an interjection". So mine are

"All the critics and stuff liked it, but it was horrible!"

"One guy is not too bad...the other...a big ol' Meh."

"I'm lovin' it."

"FAGGOT!"

"LOL"

"How do you get that ass to look so good?"

Exercise 2.2, on larger index cards, draw

"the funniest thing you can think of;













the saddest thing in the world;










something sexy;










something abstract;










something scary;










something boring or mundane;
















something you saw earlier today;










something you saw in a dream recently."











The idea then is to play around, matching up those expressions written down previously with the images and seeing what combinations pop up. So yeah, it seems the darker, more horrifying instantly becomes funnier. I have the same morbid humour Brunetti has, so my 'funny' is pretty in line with the sort of thing we've seen in SCHIZO and HAW! Abstract doesn't really go with anything at all though, does it? No subject matter denies a narrative required in comics to work I think, which is why everything worth talking to is figurative...the very nature of this medium.

We'll just skip Exercise 2.3, which involves bringing 12 objects together and linking them via a common element, then a series of eliminations to strengthen those links.

Exercise 2.4 is getting to do some of our first comic stuff: a one panel cartoon. Brunetti runs with doing a panel that encapsulates Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE, and takes us step through step with the decisions he makes. I think what kind of bungles this exercise for me is that Catcher was chosen in the first place because there exists no prexisting visual reference (no movie, no comic), but admist the very exercise we see a Brunetti illustration of the steps he took...undoing the process we're suppose to be following along with. If I were teaching someone straight from the book, I would obviously not be showing them this (not until after they had done something), but teaching yourself, it is unavoidable.

For next time: Assignment #2, which is to produce three single panel comics. I actually have these drawn, but I want to put a tad more polish on them. Next time: Four-Panel Strips.

-Jarrett