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[Hide] (2.9MB, 3024x4032) Reverse This is an exercise I did recently. I took a scene from Blade Runner: 2049 and decided to adapt it into a comic form. The idea here was to practice utilizing panels creatively to communicate the story, then use the film as reference for everything else. I really like this scene because of how visually interesting it is, and how many significant beats it has. I think a good comic should have 1 beat per 1-3 panels. Tell me if you think I communicated the story well enough, and what techniques you liked or abhorred. Here is the original scene: https://youtu.be/3TjyGmvNBfM
I think any artist can learn a lot from film cinematography, but film has many things in common with comics, but for two major differences. Film has control over sound, a which is a big loss for drawn mediums. We try to fix this with sound boxes, but I have mixed feelings on them. I like them more as visual representations of a sound, than the effect of reading specific sound effect. The biggest is control of time. In comics, we are limited to showing very specific moments of time. Film communicates a vast amount of information in a few seconds. Comics main advantage is the reader can spend as much time looking at any given panel, meaning you can add as much information as you want the reader to discover without being cluttered. The hard part is you have to be extra judicious when choosing what moments you want to show. Its also tempting to copy "shot reverse shot", which is good in film because the viewer needs to quickly tell who is who through many quick cuts. But in a comic, I think its best to avoid showing the same angle more than once if you can help it.
In my continuing comic "homework" I read V for Vendetta. One thing that stands out about it is the total lack of sound FX or internal thought bubbles. I like how this helps with the gritty feel of the story. The horrible dreary coloring really adds to the atmosphere. Almost every page uses just 1-2 colors, a very effective technique. Helps differentiate from very colorful superhero comics. On a meta level, I think its a interesting example of how you CAN write a story about Mary Sue protagonist who exists only to parrot the authors political beliefs and still have it be good. I think this relies on the strong surrounding characters, quality satire, and compelling mystery. Ill probably take another look at it soon.
If nobody cares, ill cut this out, but I hope a few of you are interested in learning about comic creation.