FOR WHOM THE BELLS

(PP. 1 & 2)

It's hard to believe that it's our first Anniversary of this whole ArmzRace shindig. In many ways it's kind of a mixed blessing. On the positive side, I have 12+ new pages of comic art, which is pretty cool. On the down side, it hardly seems like much output for a full year of my life. I do feel like I've learned a lot. To wit: I have much better control over a brush with inking my work-something I knew nothing about a year ago. That's not to say that I've mastered it by any means: I look at professional work, and I wonder how I could possibly get to that level of control. But then I sit down to work, and I feel like some things come more easily than they did the first time around. I also know that it is possible for me to be disciplined and to crank stuff out on a semi-regular basis. I've also learned (or been reminded of) some things that are less than satisfying. Like, it takes an inordinate amount of will to get started on these things. I still don't understand why it is such an uphill battle to get myself to sit down and just work, especially since once I start, I generally work fairly steadily until I get done. The problem is that discipline is a difficult thing to maintain; it's not like you get disciplined once and then it just sticks. Somehow I seem to have gotten just enough discipline to meet my (modest) goals, but I'm still not persistent enough to have turned these actions into habits. I will say that I am absolutely convinced that the time factor (i.e., putting out at least one page a month) is absolutely critical to my continuing this endeavor. Real or imaginary, that deadline has often been the single factor that has gotten me off my ass to work. Obviously, there are no consequences if I never draw another line. Instead, it seems that imaginary guilt is my taskmaster. Perhaps I'm a sick puppy, but I can't knock my muse-even if she is just the manifestation of some deep-seated self-loathing.

In ritual celebration of this landmark, I thought that I might do another "Medical Mishaps" comic. I had really intended to make this one similar in tone to the original cartoon about swallowing the quarter, but somehow it just didn't come out that way. It was different, I think, for several reasons. I have been a bit depressed and stressed out lately for various reasons, and I think my frame of mind contributed to (or detracted from?) my tone in this comic. Instead of light-hearted, it stops just short of serious. Hopefully, that doesn't make it too dull (or worse, uninteresting)-although it may be too soon to tell since this is only the first couple of pages.

Secondly, I was struggling to come up with the right style of art for this piece. I'm still searching for that area between cartoon and realism. I want to base my art on the real world (i.e., I want things to be recognizable as real people, places, etc.), without completely resorting to a generic cartoon shorthand for everything. I want enough realism to have some three-dimensionality in my artwork, but enough cartoonish-ness to have flexibility and pliability in my characters' and objects features so that I can exaggerate a mood. Maybe that's too tall an order, but I'm still groping for it.
In any case, I spent some more time trying to come up with a self-caricature. Self-portraits are a pretty difficult task, I think, because it is partly biased by one's self image, and partly by years of seeing a mirror-image rather than a true image of oneself. In any case, as will hopefully become clear over the next few pages, this story is largely about self-image; so in a way, it was important to spend a little time deciding how to portray myself. I still think that I don't quite have it, but I feel like I'm getting closer.

As to the tone of the piece, it may lighten up somewhat as my mood does, but there is also something appropriate about this piece not being too comedic, since it does represent a fairly serious event that took place-at least it seemed serious at the time.
While the artwork is still far from where I want it to be, I feel that I'm on the right track with the levels of black and white that I'm trying to achieve. That is, I think I'm much closer to the balance that I want on a page. However, I still overdo the number of lines that I put in any drawing. I just never feel like I've communicated enough information, so I make line after line on the page, and after awhile, it's too many. Partly, that's an attempt to find a shade between black and white. Some artists pull it off pretty well; I'm still experimenting.

Page 1: While there are still too many lines on my face, I generally like the way that the main panel came out. The "pain" around my ear seems unclear, but I was afraid to put more lines or too much white. Overall, I'm happy with the general plan of having one large panel with a few smaller panels. However, I keep telling myself that I really need to go to the simple 6-panel grid before I try this fancy stuff. My face is not terribly consistent in this page, but it seems more consistent that it usually is for me. I'm really not happy with the third panel.

Page 2: The main frame really became too crowded. I think that I could have put less stuff in it and still communicated the same feel. The pillow, for example, gets lost; and the swirls around my head got too cutesy to be effectively communicative. The amount of black feels right to me, but I really did a poor job of showing you the bed. The second panel actually turned out somewhat like I intended it to, but in the finished page it seems a little out of place graphically. Similarly, 3 and 4 are close to what I wanted, but I think they could be done more simply.

I think my biggest concern at this point is story movement. A lot happens in just these two pages, and I'm not sure that I've done a very good job of transitioning from panel to panel. Specifically, I want to say more so that the story is not too abrupt when the reader moves through the panels; but at the same time I don't want to have a text-laden comic. For example, in the transition from page 1 to 2, I go from mild interest in my condition to outright panic. Is this too abrupt? Do I need more time? More text? It seems to me that this might be corrected by a simple text change: "it really started to freak me out" should become something like: "over the next few days, things got worse, and it really started to freak me out." I don't know that the amount of information that I need to convey warrants a page in between or even a whole panel (because I don't want to bore the reader with too many details), but I don't want to be text heavy either. I feel like I already tell too much rather than just show it.
On a related note, story movement may be abrupt because I have a tendency to do one-panel summaries rather than linger in a scene. I go from pain to eating to looking in the mirror to sleeping to calling to doctor's office all in a short space. Is it even clear that I've gone to the doctor and he's examining me in 2:3?

More next month. I've already sketched out about half of p. 3.

PPS. 3 & 4

In this month's episode our hero finds the source of his ailment; but is knowledge enough?

I'm still not terribly happy with the layout of these pages. I feel like it's pretty slapped together, even though I did put some thought into it. I tried to keep with the basic structure of the layout: one large panel over two smaller ones. I couldn't keep it up by page four, though. I just wasn't able to make it work.

I'm still struggling with the whole problem of "show me, don't tell me." I don't want to put too much information into narration captions, but I don't think that the story warrants stretching out the plot. It feels to me as if I'm jumping from panel to panel without any real smooth transition. It feels like I'm saying: "here's a picture," "and now here's another." It just isn't flowing the way that I want it to flow. Part of the problem was that I just jumped into the story without really plotting/sketching the whole thing out. I have finally sat down and done some rough page layouts, but the whole thing feels stilted.

On the positive side, I am pretty happy with the black/white balance. The basic compositional elements are there, even if I don't think that they have come across as I intended.

I've found that the images that work best are the ones that I really sketch out first, using myself as a model. A lot of times I just rush it, and do it from my head-which winds up looking warped or strange. The "me" on the bottom of page four I think turned out pretty good. I drew the upper image from a mirror, but it's a difficult angle to pull off, and the face really looks misaligned (more so than it should).

Even though I like the amount of black, it's pretty clear to me that my lack of backgrounds can really hinder my storytelling. The hospital room on page two, while not great, I feel really helps to "place" the story. Similarly, the party background on page four-while also not great-really helps to add some better depth to the scene that the two figures alone wouldn't carry. I've been looking more closely at comics, and it's very clear to me which artists put some thought into backgrounds, and which ones seem to avoid them altogether. Some of the mid-eighties spidey comics are terrible; there are not backgrounds to speak of, and they don't even use blacks like me to cover it up!

I do like the big head on page three, although it didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped. Generally speaking, I like my pencil sketches better, but when I try to ink them, they lose a lot of the qualities that made them interesting. It's a strange battle; I want to have high contrast in my images, but my sketches tend to rely on a lot of grey scale. So I'm left trying to get a medium tone with ink, which leads me to lots of lines that don't always work or shadows that are just a little too dark to be understood as shadows. I'm still searching for the happy medium.


PPS. 5 TO 7

I finally finished this beast.

Here are just some thoughts on this piece:

I was trying to have a layout across the 7 pages that followed a certain pattern. There's a big "panel" that starts the page and occupies most of the page, and then a couple of smaller panels that finish off the basic idea of the page. I didn't want to make every page have exactly the same look, but I did want for it to have an overall pattern. Although it wasn't completely planned, you can see how the panels go from strict (p.1) to a little "broken up" (p. 2 and 3) to more staggered (p. 4) to almost without panels (p. 5) and back to regular (pps. 6 and 7). I didn't plan out the "arc" as a whole, but sort of dreamt it up as I drew page to page.

This arc is also in the "mirror" aspect of the piece. Obviously, this comic has a lot to do with self-image and how I see myself. So mirrors, glasses, screens, and windows are in the piece-although, admittedly, this aspect was somewhat subconscious on my part. I spent a lot of time looking at mirrors and pictures of myself. Clearly, I still have a lot to learn about self-portraiture; but on the up side, this was much stronger than the self-portraits seen in That Terrible Pain. You can also see the mirror aspect in the similarity between the 1st and last page. I think that if I had known how long this story was going to be I would have planned it out better, and some of these aspects would have come across more strongly. For example, I would have tried to make a little more use of the blacks to convey mood.

5) I like the panel-less aspect of this page, although it doesn't work as well as I had hoped, partly because I was trying to cram a lot of different ideas on one page. The warped image that appears through the glasses doesn't quite work for me. I liked the idea, but it just doesn't look right.

6) I really liked this page in pencils. Once I started laying down the blacks, it kind of didn't look as good (a common problem). In particular, I think that I would either have more darkness or a lot less. Once I started putting shadows in, it just didn't look right, which is why it looks like I've got a really hairy chest. It's supposed to be only a shadow.

7) The last page is a "negative" reflection of the first in that it not only mimics the layout, but it shows a darker figure on a white background. This was deliberate. I wanted a brighter page that symbolized that all was well, but to still have deep shadows-especially on the side of the head-in order to hint that maybe it wasn't all good. I like this page, but I really struggled with how to do the shadows. I tried to make "softer" shadows by using thin lines, but I couldn't quite make it work. Overall, it came out okay, but whenever I look at it, it seems like I have raccoon eyes.

 

What People are Saying About
For Whom the Bells (p. 1)

John Sez:

Page 1 is slick.  The image at the top is a bit odd for some reason.  The first few times I viewed it (and not examining it closely), it gives an odd view, kind of hard to read, somewhat unbalanced or asymmetrical where you would expect symmetry.  Upon closer examination, there's nothing "abstract" about the way in which you are drawn.  It occurs to me that the placement of the words effectively covers the fingers; thus, it is a bit harder to read the hand as such until closer examination.  This is actually somewhat effective to the story, as it is about this Bell's Palsy (or whatever), and actually works toward setting a mood that something's off here.  It's really odd, because I don't think that was your intention.

So...to reiterate...and to actually gather my thoughts on this coherently...the image at the top was drawn in a straightforward manner and was I think intended as a straightforward depiction, but due to the placement of the word box/caption box/whatever, the hand becomes harder to read and it actually gives a kind of warped sense to the image which is very much in line with the intent of the story.  That's kind of whacked, eh?
 
Drawing yourself is a cast iron beyotch.  I think drawing yourself may be the most difficult thing that there is to draw, and here you are not only having to do it repeatedly (in ink), but you have to get across this impression of the palsy.  I think you did quite a good job of that.  The food thing was effective in conveying this numbness...lack of control in your face.
 
Having said that, I think maybe the three images aren't necessarily consistent.  The top image seems stark and dramatic.  The second panel gives the impression that you're kinda freakin' out about this palsy thing.  Maybe it's the third image doesn't carry that feeling forward...seems almost more comical.  I don't think that was your intention.  Again, I feel like a schmuck saying this kindova thing, as I doubt that I could've pulled it off.  I hate to keep quantifying everything, and I'm sure you'd rather that I didn't, but I'm trying to be critical because I think you would appreciate it, then kick myself for being critical because people who criticize typically never produce anything worthwhile.  I digress.
 
I think panels two and three may have benefitted from more detail, to contrast against the larger background image.  The use of black in the background/top image and in the lower right may have been stronger if there were background details in the lower right (because I think the top image is more powerful by retaining the solid black background).  I can see that you used the black background in the lower right to define the borders of the panel against the white shirt that it rests in front of, so this may have been trickier than it seems.  I also seem to want something behind you in the lower left...but again...could've done more harm than good I suppose.
 

I've done alot of criticism on this page...maybe I'm getting better at being critical of your work.  Overall, I think the page is actually good and effective...some of your better stuff.  Onward.

page 2 & 3
Wow.  Whew...OK...how to explain this?  I viewed the first panel, and began gearing-up to attack the first image...but it looks OK.  I wanted to say that I felt a mood shift again, with the expressive lettering and comical images.  Seems like this story wanted to be more somber...mostly due to the artwork, but again, I'll contest myself.  Were it too somber, it might have been a real downer, and might be better told with a consistently comical tone.  So...I move on.  The panel where you call the doctor is really cool.  Dark lighting...texture...shadow...I'm impressed.  And it captures the mood of the moment, when you make that fateful call.  It was the right blend of description and image to capture the moment, neither redundant.
 
The "blink for me" panel is just freaky.  Very well done.  quite odd.  Then, you're sitting in that little, second waiting room thingy next to the "Clean Living" poster (nice touch).  The poster adds that little nagging guilt/doubt that you're going through as you're moving through this ordeal.  Here, it's as though you are left waiting in this room in isolation, and you're victim to your own doubts/guilt.  Or maybe that was unintentional, but that's how I took it.
 
Page 3 works well next to page 2, so now I'm going with this mood that you're generating for the story.  Seems as though it started quite somber, but is now following a kind of consistent mood.  The "nervous" head image works pretty well.  It does seem quite medical and helps to get that whole "doctor" feel to this sequence.
 
The sequence where you're showing different things that could be possible causes of the palsy didn't seem right...it was cool seeing you embody those concepts in ink, but...I'm not sure what it is...seems a bit forced somehow to me.  Maybe if they were in some other format, rather than overlapping squares...I dunno.  Still, it's nice how you use a single image to try and encapsulate some big range of concepts in your strips.  I tend to be more oriented around movement...animation, and it's fun to see that you move more towards these different, unrelated images to capture whatever range of ideas that you're discussing at the time.  This series would be an example of that.
 
Overall, these two pages are really cool and the story is developing a consistent mood and good pacing.  Let's see what happens next, shall we?
Page 4 & 5
The words "how are you" worked to convey the loudness...man...you look tripped out in that first panel.  You can get away with that in this story because it's...expressionistic or something.  The drug bottle looks good, the other panels are all good here.  Story still seems consistent in tone.  You even pulled off the gooey eye in b&w.  Nice job!  The glasses are drawn nicely, and the distortion through the lens works pretty well.  Your head is far too low in the computer picture, and that keyboard...ach!  As a PC Tech, I'd be remiss in not pointing out that monitor cords are not typically spirally phone cord types, and I don't know where this particular one is headed to (obviously to define a border between images).
 
The last caption box points to the data available on other sufferers of Bell's Palsy.  Unsure if that works here.  Doesn't really hurt anything, but unneccessary, I think.
 
Overall, everything is still going quite strong here.  You're getting some nice transitional stuff, inlaid panels, inanimate objects merged with action shots and the like.  Shows quite a bit of growth, I would say.
 
Oh, and I was looking over that panel on page 3 with the different possible causes...seems fine to me now.  I can be kind of freaky about things sometimes...maybe it's really just fine, and it's like when someone says a word that suddenly doesn't sound right, or spells it and it suddenly "can't" be spelled that way.  I do that a lot.
Page 6 & 7


The sequences on 6 were done well, and 7 is really freaky (good freaky).  That's a very nice image on 7 there, but it doesn't resemble you much.  I think it was nice to wrap up the story with a portrait shot ala the opening shot, but I'm not sure what you were going for here.

Seems that some of the lettering in this whole story got a bit cramped at times.  I know nothing about lettering and typically don't even notice,  but you've given it attention in your notes and caused me to be more aware of it.  Also, the Relax, Relax didn't seem very relaxing, almost hectic, which may be bothering the meditation image, or maybe it's adding something to it.  You're tense, you're trying to relax.  It's a contradictory kind of thing, relaxation in the face of stress.  Now that I think of it, if the words were script or something, it wouldn't have worked...it would have been overkill I think.  The words are your own thoughts.  I find the picture interesting.
 
Story ends with this huge, introspective and expressive portrait and no narration to go with it, but the wrap-up occurs in the box at the bottom.  This is a very interesting technique, but maybe could've been played-up more.  The image is almost radiant, and hits when we find out that you're going to be allright.  It's almost a reborn, renewal kind of thing, where you know that you are whole again, which again, plays (for me) off of the odd sense that we get from the somewhat mirrored image which began the story.  I'd like to know what your intentions were in framing the story this way and what you felt this picture was conveying/what you were going for.
 
There's so much introspective stuff going on in this story.  You're talking about nerves in your head and your brain, which is as introspective as it gets...then you're dealing with all of the doubts and fears, the mirror shots looking at yourself (eyeglasses add to/play with this effect), your fear of others' perceptions of yourself, and meditation.  The artwork centers around self portraits, so expressive was the way to go I think.  The pacing is rather loose and somewhat comical, and it seems like this thing wanted to either get even more introspective (thus more wordy), or wanted more comedy.  I'm always too extreme about things, though (I can be, at least).  I want something to be a comedy, or a tragedy, not both.  Sometimes the greatest tragedy is the one that employs a slight amount of comedy (it's more effective in contrast), so it could be that these thoughts are bogus and the story is just fine.  It is rather consistent in tone, just seems like with the expressive portraiture and such...well...I want to hear more about what was going on in your head.  Maybe not even narrated as such, just more of a straightforward story.  Maybe you should try a story where you don't narrate it after the fact?  I'd like to see this progress and not know what was going to happen next ish :)