The Killers
by Ernest Hemingway
Narrative Rough Sketch of first scene
Narrative Structures
instructor: John Brumfield
I can't draw. But I still tried.
Who knew that comics could be so educational? Narrative Structures was a class about just that...narrative structures. We studied how narrative structures were executed in political theory articles, corporate advertisements and various graphic novels through the beginning of the first half of the term. Sprinkled in between were discussions about plays and films that we were encouraged to view to supplement our understanding of a good delivery of a concept.
For this particular assignment, I was asked to do a rough sketch (in the form of a graphic novel), of a scene from The Killers by Ernest Hemingway. Since I usually resort to stick figure scribbles, it was actually a bit of a tough assignment for me, but I enjoyed having to get away from the computer and back to drawing basics again. My hands can work a mouse, but they are rusty with the pencil.
When creating a graphic set of illustrations, I had to consider the look of the characters, the demeanor, the atmosphere and the visual flow of the scene. I also had to look at cropping and panned out views. As fun and whimsical as graphic novels seem, there's a lot of planning involved in order to deliver the story properly to an audience. We were asked to look at graphic novels such as:
. Maus by Art Spiegelman
. Black Sad by Juan Diaz–Canales
. Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
. The Metamorphosis by Peter Kuper and Franz Kafka
Having to go through this exercise made me realize the elements that go into a convincing presentation. Who knew that understanding graphic novels would serve as an example of how one might deliver a campaign or perhaps...even a thesis?
