Is there a style-guide for comics?

Plot Device · Jun 20, 2007

What I'm REALLY asking is: have the various styles currently used in comics and graphic novels been boiled down to definable stylistic categories with actual labels that can be useful when chatting on the internet?

We all probably know what "manga" looks like. But what about Frank Miller's stuff? Is that of a particular style? with a specific name to it?

How about Road to Perdition? Does the look of that graphic novel have a precise name used by artists in the craft/industry?

Axler · Jun 20, 2007

The style guide for comics and manga and graphic novels is the same...a story broken down into panels.

But there are various methods of achieving the same goal.

Some people (like myself) prefer the thumbnail techinque of roughly laying out the pages for the artist, indicating perspective, characters, panel size, and dialogue balloon/caption placement.

Other writers like using the full script method, executing a fully-detailed script not unlike a screenplay.

Another technique was known as the Marvel Method, where the writer created a general overview and allowed the artists to interpret it as they wished.

I've used all three methods and they each have their strengths and drawbacks.

sunandshadow · Jun 20, 2007

If you're talking about art styles, manga is not a unified style but is composed of several related styles. The best way of identifying an art style is, as you have already hit on, naming an artist.

Plot Device · Jun 20, 2007

sunandshadow said:
If you're talking about art styles, manga is not a unified style but is composed of several related styles. The best way of identifying an art style is, as you have already hit on, naming an artist.

Has anyone compiled such a list of artists and pointed out unique styles attributable to certain artists?

sunandshadow · Jun 20, 2007

Plot Device said:
Has anyone compiled such a list of artists and pointed out unique styles attributable to certain artists?

Hmm. Not that I know of. Scott McCloud has a little triangular chart showing a range between realism, symbolism, and abstraction. The HTD Anime and Game Characters series talks about some different manga types. But really, there are a huge number of ways in which one style is slightly different from another, it's like trying to classify the whole spectrum of modern music. Proportion, types of noses, eyes, and mouths, # of fingers on hands, method of drawing hair, methods of shading, and that's just black and white, purely human characters.

wordmonkey · Jun 21, 2007

Plot Device said:
Has anyone compiled such a list of artists and pointed out unique styles attributable to certain artists?

How can you?

It isn't JUST the art. The way the writer writes, the way the publisher (big two really) require scripts, as well as the way the artist works all make for a different end result.

I've only flicked through Miller's "300" but it looks at times almost like picture-book. Yet you look at Dark Knight Returns or DK2 and he pepppers the page with mini-panels of talking heads on TV. Same artist, same writer, different styles.

I am experimenting with the "Marvel style" but I usually script in detail. I've worked with artists who take my script and stay completely true to the it. Other artists will take the page/panel layout and mix it up, change things around and give me something that is new and different.

My point is that comics are a collaboration, unless the artist and writer are one and the same, and even then the art/panel/page layout should serve the story.

Plot Device · Jun 21, 2007

sunandshadow said:
Hmm. Not that I know of. Scott McCloud has a little triangular chart showing a range between realism, symbolism, and abstraction. The HTD Anime and Game Characters series talks about some different manga types. But really, there are a huge number of ways in which one style is slightly different from another, it's like trying to classify the whole spectrum of modern music. Proportion, types of noses, eyes, and mouths, # of fingers on hands, method of drawing hair, methods of shading, and that's just black and white, purely human characters.

I have Scott McCloud's book. And I think I recall that exact chart you mentioned.

Here's what I'm driving at:

This is an example of art that is distinctly Medieval
http://www.aegis-rising.com/medieval_art.jpg

This is more of a Rennaissance work
http://webpages.csus.edu/~sac40428/images/Romeo.jpg

This is a 20th Century work
http://www.thecityreview.com/matpic13.jpg

These are all styles that can be instantly recognized. Entire college classes are taught about them. Degree programs are bourne from them.

Do comics have a classification to them?

Axler · Jun 21, 2007

Well, you have your cartoony style. often known as "bigfoot":

Bill Watterson

Your ultra-realistic, exceptionally detailed style:

Hal Foster

And your combo (the most common and most popular):

Jack Kirby

Will Eisner

Milton Caniff

Comics are considered a form of illustration...not fine art. Storytelling ability is ranked just as high as the artist's ability to render people, places and things.

So, no...except for an individual's subjective perception, there are no cut and dried classifications to different styles of comic art.

AzBobby · Jun 21, 2007

Yeah, it's a lot easier to cite comic styles by artist name rather than to attempt style categories.

At long last, I'm reading the Dark Night Returns sequel (although the original sounds like a sequel title huh?) and I'm pretty sure Frank Miller's bigfoot approach is far more silly and, well, bigfootier than the first time around. But I guess the story itself is a couple notches sillier, so it all fits fine. While Miller's style varies slightly project to project, it's certainly recognizable in most cases since the 80s. Others probably drew their superhero characters in the same ballpark before him, but as he would be the most famous example, citing his general style by his name seems practical to me. Just as it's easy to say Bone is drawn in the Walt Kelly fashion (taking no props from Jeff Smith) and figure others discussing the subject will readily understand.

Cartooning and comics as we know them are only a little over a century old, so we can't expect academic categories for them much beyond the cult.

sunandshadow · Jun 21, 2007

What I'm curious about is, what do you need categories for? If you're an artist, you have to study everything, mix and match bits to create your own style, and then you should let your work speak for itself rather than trying to describe it. If you want to hire an artist, you just link to a few examples of one or more styles you like.

Plot Device · Jun 21, 2007

Axler
AzBobby

--many thanks. Both of your posts were very helpful.

sunandshadow

--I am contemplating placing a gig advertisement (unpaid--I'm poor

) for a collaborative artist to illustrate my current script (at the moment it's a completed screenplay, so I would need to rework it as a comic script with panel designations, etc). I want to try and nail a particular style in the ad. But I don't know how to describe the style.

I suppose I need to haul myself off to Mid-Town Comics (oh rats! I'm not living in Manhattan anymore!--guess I gotta find a comics store near me and pray it has a broad selection) and start perusing the stacks to try and find the style I am thinking of. But if I do that, I might (because I'm not that well-versed in the whole comic/graphic novel scene) inadvertantly focus upon an obscure work that others don't necesarilly know about on a broad scale. So if I say in my ad something like "leaning heavilly toward the style of Benjamin Jarowski," and nobody knows who the heck Benjamin Jarowski is, then I just wasted an ad and made myself look like a fool. So I'd rather do some research ahead of time as far as how to word this ad.

sunandshadow · Jun 21, 2007

Google image Search, it is your friend. Find a scan or three exemplifying your desired style and link to them in your ad. Pictures communicate best to artists.

Plot Device · Jun 21, 2007

sunandshadow said:
Google image Search, it is your friend. Find a scan or three exemplifying your desired style and link to them in your ad. Pictures communicate best to artists.

What search criteria should I use to engage this search?

Plot Device · Jun 22, 2007

There's a ho-o-o-ole
.... in the bucket,
Dear Liza,
Dear Liza.
There's a ho-o-o-ole
.... in the bucket,
Dear Liza,
A hole!

sunandshadow · Jun 22, 2007

http://images.google.com/
If you remember a series having art that you liked, search for the name of the series. Ditto fir a particular character or a particular artist.

Plot Device · Jun 22, 2007

sunandshadow said:
http://images.google.com/
If you remember a series having art that you liked, search for the name of the series. Ditto fir a particular character or a particular artist.

I'll take a trip to the comic store this weekend.

small axe · Jun 23, 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury: Manga ...

And with that, the Prosecution rests.

Axler · Jun 24, 2007

Yeah, but manga still falls into the most common style...a mixture of bigfoot cartoony and realism.

AzBobby · Jun 25, 2007

Except for whatever makes manga manga -- most noticeably face and chin shape, dagger hairdos and the famous big shiny manga/anime eyes. There's something uniform about most of the pop mangas I've read or looked at, as well, where the style might vary subtly by artist but not greatly; they all "look like manga" and you can spot their culture of origin on sight.

AzBobby · Jun 25, 2007

A little help from Wikipedia --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics#Art_styles

Where the description of Scott McCloud's "triangulation" method of identifying an art style is very interesting. Here's the link to McCloud's expanded description complete with diagrams and samples:

http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/triangle/triangle.html

It would appear what we've been calling "realistic" and "bigfoot" (cartoony) here would be called respectively "literal" and "freestyle" by L. Fiore.

I prefer "bigfoot" to "freestyle" just for the sound of it, not that the interchange matters, but I do have a grudge against "realistic" in art terms (the word is usually applied to some misunderstanding or cultural bias of realism, such as an impression that photorealism represents what we see in a more literal sense than various alternatives) that makes me appreciate "literal" as a replacement.

Axler · Jun 25, 2007

Maybe instead of "realistic", at least in the case of the Hal Foster school, we could call it "Meticulously (or anally) Detailed."

Dancre · Jun 25, 2007

Ahhh, I wondered how long it would be before Comic books vs Manga would start. LOL!!! You two, I swear, LOL!!!!

Plot Device · Jun 25, 2007

AzBobby said:
Except for whatever makes manga manga -- most noticeably face and chin shape, dagger hairdos and the famous big shiny manga/anime eyes. There's something uniform about most of the pop mangas I've read or looked at, as well, where the style might vary subtly by artist but not greatly; they all "look like manga" and you can spot their culture of origin on sight.

I totally agree. To paraphrase the now-famous words of a former US Superme Court Justice: "I can't precisely describe what manga actually is, but I know it when I see it."

http://www.bartleby.com/63/93/1793.html

Or

"If it looks like manga, walks like manga, and quacks like manga, then it's probably manga."

AzBobby said:
A little help from Wikipedia --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics#Art_styles

Where the description of Scott McCloud's "triangulation" method of identifying an art style is very interesting. Here's the link to McCloud's expanded description complete with diagrams and samples:

http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/triangle/triangle.html

It would appear what we've been calling "realistic" and "bigfoot" (cartoony) here would be called respectively "literal" and "freestyle" by L. Fiore.

I prefer "bigfoot" to "freestyle" just for the sound of it, not that the interchange matters, but I do have a grudge against "realistic" in art terms (the word is usually applied to some misunderstanding or cultural bias of realism, such as an impression that photorealism represents what we see in a more literal sense than various alternatives) that makes me appreciate "literal" as a replacement.

Bobby--consider yourself kissed.

Is there a style-guide for comics?

A woman said to write like a man.

Impractical Fantasy Animal

A woman said to write like a man.

Impractical Fantasy Animal

ook

A woman said to write like a man.

Ought to be writing instead

Impractical Fantasy Animal

A woman said to write like a man.

Impractical Fantasy Animal

A woman said to write like a man.

A woman said to write like a man.

Impractical Fantasy Animal

A woman said to write like a man.

memento mori

Ought to be writing instead

Ought to be writing instead

Just have fun.

A woman said to write like a man.