#4 Brief History of Comic Books

#4

I read Tin Tin in Tibet. In the class people said that the dialogue was tedious because the characters would unnecessarily explain the visual information. I didn’t get that in this comic. Haddock could get into crazy antics with and ox without anyone explaining it. It might be because it’s a later comic. Tin Tin was still a little tedious to read. I think it was because of the way the panels were laid out. There were about 15 panels per page all with the same height. Lengthy dialogue, such as reading a letter would be stretched out through four panels. If this were a modern comic it would most likely be fit all in one panel and the panel would be stretched to take half the page.  I also noticed that a lot of the panels would use the same composition or “camera angle.” This makes Tin Tin seem inspired by film composition. I understand why the Tin Tin cartoon was so popular. The comic really translates will to the silver screen. It’s like reading storyboards. I love storyboards so it was an entertaining read. It is interesting to see the clear line between Tin Tin and modern comics just by the way the pages are organized.

One thing I do love about Tin Tin is that it is an action adventure comic aimed towards children. It handles the audience and the genre really well. There is just enough comedy and just enough excitement. I enjoyed that all the characters have clear personalities, even Snowy gets internal dialogue.

            The EC comics were extremely entertaining. I can’t believe I’ve never read them before. The art is fantastic. The story and transitions are all done so well. The treatment of story reminded me of the Twilight Zone. The episodes had separate characters and plots but it was still the Twilight Zone.

            Carl Bark’s stories were also fantastic. I love how, unlike most of the newspaper comics we looked at last week, it was funny. The comedy is well thought out. This must be the point in time when writing started to get better. It’s a shame Barks didn’t get enough credit. He really did make a big impact.