This week I read Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. Eisner was a major player in how comics look today. In McCloud's books he frequently mentions Eisner's work and points readers to his instructional books on making comics (like GSaVN). This particular book was written in 1996 and given an update in 2008 as a nod to Eisner's desire to keep his books as current as possible.



Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative

"Indeed, visual literacy has entered the panoply of skills required for communication. Comics are at the center of this phenomenon" (xv).

Eisner discusses most of the same things that McCloud does in Understanding Comics and Making Comics. One such issue has to do with stereotypes. Though McCloud discusses finding interesting ways of overturning stereotypes, Eisner mentions stereotypes as being an inescapable part of comics. Since effective communication is essential in comics I can see why stereotypical characters are inescapable. You can't devote a ton of panels and pages to every single character without detracting something from the story as a whole. I think this also connects to what McCloud had to say about archetypes and using them to your advantage.

Another thing Eisner mentioned in connection with making characters easily recognizable was to make characters resemble an animal. So, not only are human stereotypes present in comics... but so too are animal stereotypes (e.g., making someone who is untrustworthy have a snake-like look). And these stereotypes do serve a greater purpose (i.e., making them instantly recognizable — showing your reader something about a character without having to tell them right away).

"The reader absorbs mood and other abstracts through the artwork. Style of art not only connects the reader with the artist but it sets ambiance and has language value" (150).

Eisner also discusses, as McCloud does in his books, the use of text design to show the nuances of emotion. For instance, making the text larger in a dialogue box for a character who is yelling. He also discusses the use of symbols to help a reader understand what is taking place. Like when a character is carrying a knife or a gun it is the way they are holding or carrying that weapon (or the design of the weapon itself) that tells the reader upon first glance what that characters intentions are. Essentially every detail of a comic is working to create a seamless whole between art and text, which keeps a reader engaged and ensures they are not needlessly removed from the story.

"Once the reader's attention is seized it cannot be allowed to escape" (51).

Empathy also goes along with this idea (of keeping the reader engaged). The reader stays connected to the story and to the main characters through empathy for the characters. The readers get attached to characters who respond to things in a way that the reader could see themselves responding similarly to. This information immediately made me think of when people complain about how a character is acting and when it causes them to poorly review things. In a lot of these cases I think it probably is because the character is acting in a way that is contrary to how they feel they should. It makes me think of a quote I read somewhere that says something like, "The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense."

Most interesting and different from what information I took away from McCloud's books was that of the relationship between writer and artist. Though Eisner says that ideally the writer and artist are the same person he acknowledges that it is now far more typical for there to be a different person in each role (and for there to be teams of people working on one comic).

The process the writer goes through is much different when writing a comic than it is when writing a novel. First the writer must start with their concept and think about it in terms what can be translated into images. The dialogue seems to be much less important than the descriptions the writer will use to detail what should be seen in the art. "The dialogue supports the imagery — both are in service to the story" (113).

The author essentially writes for the artist — the dialogue is for the readers but the description is for the artist. A writer might give a few paragraphs of internalization for their characters in the script but what actually makes it in to the physical appearance and art is up to the artist. The artist has to take into account the entire story and make decisions about how much or how little to show in the design and gestures/posture of the character in order to get the meaning across to the reader.

Eisner points out several things to watch out for during your process. One such thing is the fact that the process from the original idea for the comic in the mind of the writer... all the way to your finished product being in your readers hands... can lead to a lot of miscommunication between your team. It pays to be very clear on what you envision so that if you do have a specific idea about something it won't be lost in translation from person to person. Another interesting point has to do with the consideration of your reader... In film the storyteller doesn't have to take literacy or reading ability into account in the same way that a comic artist does. The storyteller must always keep their audience in mind so that they can create images that correspond with their readers imagination. He also mentions that today the attention span of most is low thanks to TV and the artist/author can't ignore this fact.

A final connection I found between Moore, Eisner, and McCloud was in their mention of writing stories that were of no real substance (or tepid, barely readable shit as Moore put it). Moore and McCloud both mention it as a negative thing, while Eisner acknowledged the existance of such stories without much judgement, other than the following pointed comment about where the artist/authors true interest is.

"The market, therefore, exercises a creative influence. The graphic storyteller, in pursuit of the market, will give sovereignty to the graphics. The graphic storyteller in the retention of readership will keep graphics in service to the story" (156).

So What?

Eisner's book was definitely a cross between Moore's book of essays and McCloud's books (which are entirely in comic form and do the reader the favor of showing and telling). I saw my first real mention of an editor in here; however, it was only a brief drawing with "editor" labelled overhead with the aim of showing us how miscommunication between different team members happens easily.

His mentioning that the author is writing to the artist made me eager to do some comic script reading (which I will be tackling next week!).