Comic+Creation

Tan Lam, Denise Mak

__Narrative of ``Call me Jacques``__ The story starts when a couple enters a pet store. The wife sees an adorable French bull dog and she wants to take it home. Her husband agrees and they buy the dog. The wife starts to train the dog when they get home. She makes command ``sit`` but the dog does not respond to that. Next, she says ``come over`` with a more serious tone but the dog James does not response either. After that, she uses a mad tone and says ``lay down, you silly dog!`` since she feels mad and frustrated as James the dog still does not response and she does not know what is wrong. The wife goes to look for her husband and tells him that she wants to refund the dog because it is not obeying at all. The husband is shocked and goes to find the dog. He gives a command in French “Viens!” meaning ``come!`` and James comes immediately. The wife feels surprised and wonders why. After that, the husband gives another command “Assis!” meaning ``sit`` and James sit down immediately. The wife becomes more shocked and feels unbelievable that James listens to her husband so well but not her. Afterwards, the husband says “Saute!” meaning “jump!” and James jumps over his arms immediately. The wife is stunned and mad at the same time because James does everything her husband commands but completely ignores hers. Her husband explains to her that it is a French breed bull dog therefore it only understands French commands but not English ones! The wife feels that she is totally dull and slips away silently.

__McCloud's concepts in ``Call Me Jacques!``__ The characters and the dog in the comic are drawn in a very simplistic away. By minimizing the details, readers are able to integrate themselves in the characters and become one of them. This drawing method is important in comics as one of the main characteristics of comics is to allow readers to use their imagination and integration to complete the time, motion and mood between the panels. Films or other media allow viewers to listen, see and experience the time length in the plot. However, comics use icons, words and pictures to express feelings, sounds, motions, time etc… which readers use their eyes only. As a result, readers’ imagination and integration are important to sense the sound, smell and motions with their imagination to make the story complete.

Iconic drawing is especially used to illustrate the woman in panels eight to eleven to allow the reader to specifically integrate to her character since her changing emotions are the key of these scenes. By further simplifying the woman, the man and the dog in the scene would form the sense of otherness and avoid the readers to integrate with them. Despite the more simplified icon of the woman, the border of the woman also changes to express the emotions of the woman. In panel eight, the border of the woman is warm and gentle, which demonstrates her questioning but gentle emotion. In panel nine, the border of the woman becomes thinner to express her weak and confused emotion by feeling unbelievable of what is happening in the scene. In panel ten, the border of the woman becomes strong and edged to express her stunned and angry emotions. Lastly, in panel eleven, the border of the woman becomes thin again to show her dull and weak emotions.

In addition to iconic drawing, symbols are also used to express feelings in a simplistic way. The question mark is used to express confusion. The double exclamation mark is used to express astonishment. The red symbol on the woman’s face in panel six is used to express madness. The dots represent silence. These symbols are used universally. Even though readers have different cultural background, readers are still able to perceive the same meaning of symbols.

The second panel in the comic uses closure to illustrate the pet shop. Closure is the phenomenon that readers observe the parts of an object but perceiving as a whole. (McCloud, 63) Readers are able to do that without much thinking since readers already have the perception of how a pet shop looks like in reality therefore the readers’ mind could transfer the part of the pet shop to a real pet shop. Also, readers would feel that they are being in the pet shop by doing the imagination.

Closure is also the key for time and motion changes in comics. From the second to third panel, subject-to-subject closure is shown as readers are led inside the pet shop. Both panels express the same idea that the couple are being at the pet shop. From the first two panels to the third and on going panels, scene-to-scene closure is demonstrated as the plot jumps to a significant space which is from the pet shop to the couple’s home.

The curtain and the dog house in the background through panels three to eleven shows the location of the scene has transferred from the pet shop to home. McCloud’s concept of blurring the background and using borderless background shapes are used to illustrate the curtain to express depth in the picture by differentiating background and foreground as the characters are outlined in black. Outlining the foreground creates an obvious contrast between background and foreground because the objects appear to be shaper.

Based on McCloud’s concept, words and panel size are the main indicators of time and space. Sizes of the panels show the length of time in the scene because the size affects the reader’s perception of time. (McCloud, 101) The scenes that the conversations are longer have relatively longer panel size to show that more time is needed compare to the smaller panels where less time is needed to finish the actions. The arrangements of the panels also show the past, present and future moments of the story. As the readers read through the sequence of the panels, the readers understand that the panel before the one that the readers are eyeing on represent the past. The ones that come next to the present panel represent future. (McCloud, 104) As the comic “Call me Jacques” has a constant sequence of reading from top left to bottom right, the readers would not be lost among the panels and would perceive the time correctly. In the second page, the three smaller panels have the same size and are aligned diagonally. This arrangement shows that the three panels occur within a same time frame and without significant time and space change.

Motion lines are used to demonstrate dynamic movements as the scenes on comics cannot actually move compare to other media such as movies. Motion lines are used in panel seven to demonstrate the head turning movement of the man. Motion lines are also drawn near the legs of the dog in panel eight and ten to show the running and jumping motion of the dog. Motion lines are also drawn near the tail of the dog in several panels to show the wagging motion. Motion lines are also used in panel eleven to demonstrate the heavy body of the woman by drawing the lines on her back. The immediate lines on the woman’s back create the effect of shadowing and express her feelings of speechlessness and emptiness.

The shape of the word bubbles and the letter sizes are also effective to express the emotions of the characters. The word bubbles are smooth and round when the conversations are gentle whereas the word bubbles are edged when there is madness in the conversation. The shape of the word bubbles together with the words inside allows the readers to imagine the mood and tone being used in the conversations even thought the readers cannon hear the speaking in reality. The shape of the dog’s sound together with the words “woof!” also distinguish it as an animal sound instead of a human conversation. In addition, the lettering in “Call Me Jacques” uses bigger fonts compares to print comics as the pictures are drawn simpler in webcomics therefore wordings need to be bold and more direct to allow the readers to perceive the words as fast as pictures to get the meaning of the scene faster and easier. (McCloud, 49)

The Comic Creation assignment makes me understand more about McCloud’s concepts as I use them to draw my own comic. I enjoy doing this assignment.

__Work cited__ Scott, McCloud. Online supplement: From Page to Screen. Making Webcomics. 2006. Acessed: November 3, 2009 <[]>

Scott, McCloud. Understanding Comics. The Invisible Art. New York: First HarperPerennial edition published, 1994. Print.