Week Five: Body Talk: Eisner and Thompson

Self Portrait by Will Eisner

Will Eisner's theory of graphic narrative emphasizes the conveyance of mood, emotion, and state of mind of a character by use of the language of the body. Everything in Eisner's rendering of a character is designed for a clarity of emotion. At times in Eisner's panels it is as if we are looking at key frames of a movie and yet many of the visual effects and organizations of information would be impossible in a movie. In Craig Thompson's Blankets we can see the same devotion to clarity, although the narrative itself is often soaked in ambiguity--ambiguities about time, memory, belief. For me there is a striking similarity in the narrative approach of these two creators.

Before Zoom Class: This week we will consider Eisner and his contribution to comics and to the emergence of the long form of comics, the graphic novel. We will also consider Eisner's contribution to educational comics and the graphic narrative as an information medium. Please read at least one of Eisner's graphic novels, such as A Contract With God and earn 3 points. Also read Craig Thompson's Blankets and earn another 3 points when you write about what you read for this week.

Writing Assignment: Do you see anything similar in Eisner's approach to graphic storytelling and Thompson's?  As a possible topic for your blog this week, describe the similarity and comment on how it affects the reading of the works. In another approach you could simply describe how something in one of the works affected you at the personal level. Describe the affects and what produced them during your experience of the text.

There are more details and links to resources on the Activity Page for this Week.  Click here to go the activity page or use the schedule to get there.

Next week we will look at the explosion of possibilities for content brought about by the emergence of underground comics. There are a number of underground comics available to be read on the password protected course website. There are also links to appropriate soundtracks with which to read these comics. These comics were almost always read to accompaniment of music of the period.