Skip to main content

Realism and Simplified Images in "The Crow"

By ShockeronShockSt

Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics” invites readers of comic books and graphic novels to explore a new realm of art and literature. He discusses the idea of visual sequential art, meaning that comics use each frame to show movement and the passing of time. James O’Barr uses an interesting tactic to cover time in his graphic novel, “The Crow”. The image includes one page of “The Crow” in which Eric Draven who has been reincarnated to avenge his and fiancé’s murders is speaking to one of their assailants. O’Barr uses lighter image frames to indicate his main character having a flashback to the happy times that he and his fiancé had during their lives together. The images will have mainly black backgrounds as Draven’s thoughts are in the real time of the story and they will show a more prominently white background as he is remembering his life before his death so the frames will often go back and forth between dark and light as Draven experiences these flashbacks (if you watch the movie, these flashbacks are generally indicated by red lights – pretty interesting that color has such an effect on visual cues!).
The thing that I found to be the most interesting in McCloud’s “Understanding Comics” is the use of realism versus simplified images. O’Barr uses the more realistic images in his frames that are showing the aforementioned flashbacks. For me, it gave a different kind of feeling than McCloud discussed. McCloud discussed simplified images to represent the realistic and kind of that our minds will automatically insert the face or the realism into the more simplified. O’Barr’s realistic images made me feel as though Draven was really seeing the flashbacks and the items, like the theater masks, from his life while he is seeing things in his reincarnated form less clearly. The crow in the shown in the second frame of the displayed image is undoubtedly simplified. If you read through the whole graphic novel (which I definitely recommend!) then you will find that Draven can see what the crow sees and communicate with the crow as well so this image may be very simplified to show that Draven isn’t really looking at the crow, but is instead simplified as such just to represent the crow’s presence near the scene represented on this page. I thought that the way that McCloud explained the idea of juxtaposing realistic images and simplified images as a way to relate the reader to the graphic novel in a new way and O’Barr’s use of this juxtaposition really brings “The Crow” into a whole new light in the hearts of those who read it.


McCloud, Scott. The Invisible Art Understanding Comics. HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.
“0b. James O'Barr's Original Comic – The Crow.” The Crow Comics, thecrowcomics.wordpress.com/category/0b-james-obarrs-original-comic-the-crow/.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analysis of Aya: Life in Yop City

By Anonymous
To begin this week's post, I'd like to first address a few things about the author's duty to his/her readers. When we think of reading material from other countries or cultures, what factors are important to us? What information do we need in order to recognize the significance of the author's work? For me, it's important for the author to find some way to connect to me as a reader. Do we share a common experience? Can I relate your story to mine? This is not to say that a writer's work is rendered unimpressive if they choose not to do this. But I do think it goes without saying that most impressionable works hit us emotionally. I also think that an author should be conscious of the world that they are painting for the reader. Is it true what you're writing? Does it provide some sort of insight into the world as you see it? Are you confirming outside opinions of your culture, or are you breaking the stereotypes that have been placed upon you? That being sai...
Post a Comment
Read more

Junji Ito and the Art of the Uncanny

By Anonymous
As discussed in Chapter 2 of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics , the Japanese style of comic book art holds several notable quirks. While early manga artists tended to favor simplistic, yet distinct styles that paved the way for a number of internationally renowned characters, contemporary manga artists have since favored a hybrid style that juxtaposes the cutesy, rounded characters of yesteryear with the realistic and richly shaded settings that have since become popular. Building on this, McCloud describes a phenomenon in which Japanese comic artists have used realism to objectify--that is, to emphasize the "otherness" of certain characters, objects, or places--elements of their work and further separate these elements from the reader. I have chosen the work of one of my favorite comic artists, Japanese horror icon Junji Ito, to further illustrate McCloud's point. Though McCloud describes this phenomenon in the context of Japanese comic book art, he is usi...
1 comment
Read more

The Two Faces of Anarchy in V for Vendetta

By Anonymous
As someone who has only seen the movie version of V for Vendetta once many years ago and have never read the graphic novel, I wasn’t exactly sure how similar or different the movie version would be to the graphic novel. I was in for a surprise when I discovered just how vastly different, they are from each other. With that being said, they do have some similarities when strictly looking at the motives of the characters. Let’s dive into those motives and how the author and illustrator of V for Vendetta achieved getting these motives across to their readers. In Scott McCloud’s chapter of Understanding Comics “ Blood in the Gutter ” we are presented with different panel – to – panel transitions, and an introduction to the term “gutter” as being the white space between the panels which is where the audience of reader “takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (McCloud, 66). After finishing reading V for Vendetta , several themes or ideas that were most prevalent...
Post a Comment
Read more