![\"W&D_balloons\"](\"http:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/WD_balloons.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOf course color and form are important aspects of the storytelling but the central concept is the narrative that moves the story and the plot along.\u00a0 The creative team offer us some looks at what worked well, what worked adequately, and what, perhaps, went awry.<\/p>\n
As an entry under the heading \u2018worked well\u2019 consider the following script page and its evolution from words to pencils to finished layout.<\/p>\n
Note the limited amount of descriptive prose associated with the page.\u00a0 Compare this with the previous two methods discussed.\u00a0 In the Feldstein method, the writer\/editor, provided the dialog, the captions, and the page layout to the illustrator.\u00a0 In the Gaiman method, the writer provided a screenplay with the desired page layout, the dialog, the captions, and large amounts of additional imagery.\u00a0 In this example, the Gillen simply provides a sparse set of directions indicating the mood.\u00a0 He even says<\/p>\n But otherwise, lets the overall imagery fall in the hands of the illustrator team.\u00a0 The resulting page is successful in that it conveys both the quiet nature of the magic (a slow fade in rather than a pop) and the creepy nature of the morgue but I can\u2019t help feeling that the pose struck by the god doesn\u2019t fit the solemnity of the scene or the reason for his visit.<\/p>\n Another example from a later issue is the arrival at the Ragnarock festival where the 12 gods are being adored by their irrational fans (are there any other kind?).<\/p>\n This script from Gillen has a lot more descriptive imagery than the earlier page, including a specific call for the page layout (DPS = double page spread) and he also includes a rough sketch of the top view and two of the lead characters (Inanna and Laura) as they arrive at this Woodstock-meets-cult-gathering (or Glastonbury meets Garden of Eden as the author describes it).<\/p>\n The final page spread captures these basic ideas but the structure of it is quite a bit different in angle and, I would argue, in tone.\u00a0 The stage and 12 standing stones were produced with a 3D CAD-type program and the additional pencils were mated to this image to produce the final result.\u00a0 I think this mixing of methods results in an overall image that straddles the two worlds (digital and analog) without achieving harmony with either.<\/p>\n The final example I\u2019ll consider, comes from issue #8, which is set at one of the psychedelic parties thrown by the god Dionysus.\u00a0 The idea for the layout is that the panels should reflect the dance beat in the background. By and large, I found the end result hard to follow and dissatisfying, in that it interfered with following the story.\u00a0 While there are profound similarities to film, comics are fundamentally a static medium and trying a \u20181-2-3-4\u2019 beat doesn\u2019t work for me (see CBR\u2019s review<\/a> for a different take).<\/p>\n It was interesting to see how Gillen tried to work the page layout in terms of a grid with little pieces of paper.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n