Comic+Creation



=__Narrative__= My comic appropriates two real-life cultural subjects: The Beatles, and the play [|//Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead//] by Tom Stoppard, which itself is a farcical behind-the-scenes take on Shakespeare's Hamlet. The characters, in order of appearance, include Ringocrantz (a.k.a. Rosencrantz), McCartenstern (a.k.a. Guildenstern), The Player, and John Lennon. The comic begins with Ringocrantz and McCartenstern attempting to have a conversation, which they then become confused and angry when the Player interrupts their nonsensical behaviour. Just when things seem to be at a standstill, John Lennon comes to save the day and resolve their bantering by uttering his most famous words: "Let it Be." //Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead// is a play that uses many different rhetorical techniques, such as [|Chiasmus]. The play's main themes are to highlight the notion of absurdity and randomness of life, "Stoppard emphasizes the randomness of the world," which includes how "the random appearances of the other characters often confuses the title characters." ([|Themes] ) It is for this reason why I chose to include the Player, to create a conflict for the characters to encounter, and to use John Lennon as the resolution to their problem. The story that occurs is an actual dialogue from the play.

=__Analysis__= Scott McCloud's //Understanding Comics// __Visual Style__ The visual style of my comic is very basic and simple because I wanted it to be sarcastically funny, without a lot of description, and for the viewer to interpret it in a way that wasn't so in-your-face. My characters are drawn using flat planes of colour, very simplistically, and without detail. McCloud states that "colours objectify their subjects" (189), so I used gray to represent the members of The Beatles, so there would be unity between them, and that the viewer could establish that connection. Gray is also a neutral colour and I wanted the viewer to decide who they wanted to be the protagonist or antagonist, so I didn't want to establish any connotations with colour based on the character. I used black, thick lines to outline the characters to make them have a cartoon/cute look. I used as little facial expressions as possible so the characters would have a pointless, confused or indifferent look on their faces to go with the theme of the play. In terms of line, Scott McCloud states that lines have an "expressionistic potential," and in the case of my comic, the lines accurately depict two characters who are not stupid but just so contemplative of the world that they forget to act and just think too much. The blank expressions on their faces say everything without revealing too much. For the rest of the colours in my comic, I again wanted to keep everything very simplified, so I chose a relatively neutral palette, making the black stand out, and using the red to differentiate the Player from The Beatles. My visual style is on the far right end of the picture plane (50-53), where instead of resembling a photo or making the image as real as possible, I chose to communicate the full meaning and little resemblance.   __Transitions__  The simplest of transitions were used to make the comic as readable as possible, since the dialogue can be a little confusing and you must follow it and even read over it to understand. Because all the characters are standing in the same room and there is only one setting throughout the entire comic, the most effective transitions to use were moment to moment. For example, through the "What and Why" dialogue exchange between Ringocrantz and McCartenstern, there are short cuts between each character, some appearing in the same frame and some single shots. This is a clear example of a “moment to moment” transition, (McCloud, 70), where these views are all happening in the span of a few minutes during the length of their exchange. In terms of transitions between panels, closure is needed for the viewer to completely understand the timing of the story and for the story to reveal itself in a timely manner. With subject-to-subject transitions, "there is a fair amount of closure necessary to render these transitions meaningful," (McCloud, 71), and for example the transition where it switches from Ringocrantz straight to The Player, it is done so from one character to another, within a single transition, enough so that the audience can understand the closure that is taking place, and so that the audience can connect the two characters together, and realize that the reaction of the character is caused by the action of the previous character. Another essential element in effective timing and audience participation is the connection between text and image. The text and dialogue is necessary because of the blank expression on the character's faces. It is needed to understand the conversation going on between the characters and to further the overall theme because the movement of lips and eyebrows can only do so much. But as much as it is needed, I also left everything very ambiguous, keeping the text the same throughout, so that the reader could derive their meaning out of the text. Every panel is a simple rectangle, with everything placed on blank white background, again to emphasize the boring and plainness of the life that the characters are existentially contemplating. Gutters are used at equal length between panels in order to engage the reader and ultimately create closure (McCloud, 66). 

=__Bibliography__= McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, Inc., 1994. Print. "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) - Memorable quotes." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 05 Nov. 2009. .