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Post by jayvee on Jun 22, 2006 15:49:01 GMT -5
Gaiman did it with Morpheus in SANDMAN. Marvel has done it with Iceman and the Human Torch. I'm sure DC has done it somewhere, too, but I avoid DC books like the plague.
What am I talking about, you ask...?
Stylized word balloons.
Graphic representations of a character through his or her speech.
My question is... Do stylized word balloons make a book better? Do they add to the storytelling process or are they frivolous and unnecessary? Do they function better in a black & white or color book, if either? I'm just curious why you see them sometimes and other times you don't... Does that mean you should only use them for special occasions and characters, or is there some other reasoning behind it?
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Post by nolan on Jun 22, 2006 16:28:49 GMT -5
David tackles that in his book.
Honestly, I think tis okay in moderation but I've definatley seen it taken too far.
If your character doesn't have a distinct voice then no fancy word balloon will cover that up.
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Post by DLFerguson on Jun 22, 2006 19:56:11 GMT -5
If it's being used to convey a specific charateristic of whoever is speaking, sure, run with it.
If it's being used just to give the story some extra bells and whistles, nah.
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Post by nolan on Jun 22, 2006 20:01:14 GMT -5
A writer's dialogue and visuals and an artist's art should give the feel of the story clearly enough that this wouldn't be necessary.
But it could be nice as an occasional enhancement.
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Post by DLFerguson on Jun 22, 2006 20:07:35 GMT -5
A writer's dialogue and visuals and an artist's art should give the feel of the story clearly enough that this wouldn't be necessary. But it could be nice as an occasional enhancement. And the bottom line is that it's all that it is: an enhancement...something a little extra to hopefully add to the reading experience of the illustrated story and not a detriment. Even if you have the stylized balloons or not, it still shouldn't get in the way of communciating the story ideas and themes. |
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Post by jayvee on Jun 22, 2006 23:18:25 GMT -5
One of my friends told me that it helped them identify which character was speaking faster.
That's why this conversation came up.
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marc
New Member
Posts: 4
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Post by marc on Jun 22, 2006 23:43:35 GMT -5
it really depends,
I find that it works well with characters like sandman, or more recently Michael from New Avengers
It is hard to convey voices and sounds in comics as opposed to film, since they tend not to be described, but when stylized baloons are overdone, it really takes away from the story.
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Post by FISSION MAILED on Jun 23, 2006 5:37:14 GMT -5
Preacher got by with none of those embellishments. I think it lends more to conveying supernatural personalities: Doc Manhatten from Watchmen, Sandman. I liked Destruction's (one of the Endless entities) over emboldened words.
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Post by jayvee on Jun 23, 2006 8:11:04 GMT -5
Preacher did too have them. Whenever Jesse Custer used the Voice.
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Post by FISSION MAILED on Jun 23, 2006 11:31:26 GMT -5
oops. Can't believe I looked past that. But thats the only instance of wierd typo in the whole of it when hes using the word of god.
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Post by bigmentalross on Jun 23, 2006 19:43:24 GMT -5
Preacher got by with none of those embellishments. I think it lends more to conveying supernatural personalities: Doc Manhatten from Watchmen, Sandman. I liked Destruction's (one of the Endless entities) over emboldened words. I think the truly brilliant thing about Sandman was that Death was the only one of the Endless who didn't have stylised balloons or fonts. |
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Post by FISSION MAILED on Jun 24, 2006 5:25:01 GMT -5
I don't have the book in my hand, but I remember a great moment in Ssndman: breif lives, where Deliriums words and baloon colour shades get more centered, more coherent, when she ventures to save Dream from his god-sized depression.
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