Gaston is working in the office of a newspaper and all this comic does is to show him at work. Actually, the reader will never see him do any work, but he does a lot of funny things in his office, although it's nothing but nonsense!
Comic books are the subject of my research paper because they are
a hobby of mine. Comics were the first books I read. I even read them
before I knew how to read. (What may sound a little paradox, but I
could understand the stories just from the pictures). Later in
primary school I started to really read the comics. They were mostly
Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse cartoons. These Walt Disney comics are
written on a language level that corresponds with the age of the
reader, and the fact that every page of the book is full of colored
pictures, and not just dry letters, encourages the children to read a
lot.
While reading a Donald Duck book you don't realize that you are
practicing reading, but of course that's exactly what you do.
When I grew older the books I read were less and less comics but I
still kept reading them although they were not my main reading.
Finally I reached a moment when my drawing skills were good enough to
draw my own comic-album, and so it's not peculiar that I drew my own
comic.
Comics are something that accompanied my whole life and they have
become quite important for me, so this paper will introduce many more
people to the wonderful world of the comic art.
The comics weren't invented from one day to the next. It was a
slow evolution the result of which is the comic-art of today with its
many different branches.
According to Fuchs & Wolfgang, "history of comics "(11), a first
comic or a "mother" of the comics doesn't exist. The whole
story began with the pictures that were printed in newspapers and
magazines to illustrate something that was written in an article.
Because of the printing technique those pictures were in black and
white, that's why the artists couldn't use paint. The content of
those pictures was mostly a caricature of someone in the accompanying
article. Fuchs & Wolfgang say this happened in the late 19th
century.
The time came when newspapers were able to print photographs,
nevertheless the caricatures didn't disappear from the pages. The
caricature-picture made another step in the direction of the comic,
it became a comic-strip.
A comic strip is what is also called a "cartoon". That means, a
couple of pictures that are connected and make only sense if read
together. You could compare it with a "flip book" which makes no
sense if you look just at one picture but if you turn over all of the
leaves rapidly they seem to get "alive".
You can find such cartoons, comic strips which tell you a joke or a
story in just three or four pictures, still nowadays in every
newspaper. The task of most of them is to make the reader laugh,
nevertheless, you can find some political strips, too.
Some of the newspapers began to collect their comic strips (if they were very popular) and gave the cartoonist a chance to release them in a comic book. So the idea of comic books, as they appear today, was born. It didn't take long until different styles appeared and the comic began to conquer the world!
In 1938 the first Superman comic appeared, introducing a figure
which is known by everybody all over the world still today. The
Superheroes were born and they would multiply in a short time. The
people seemed to like the mysterious strong men who came from nobody
knows where, fought for the law, were armed with superhuman power,
and (in case of Superman) could fly without any auxiliary material.
Many more of this characters similar to Superman came to life after
him. Concerning to Reynolds the most famous may be Batman which first
could be seen in a "Detective Comics" issue in 1939.
Between 1939 and 1940 there were already 60 different series of comic
books and by the end of 1941 the number had risen to 168. After that
new releases grew like mushrooms every month.
About 1950 the animal comics of Walt Disney ( the target market are
children ) began to boom. Today there are so many comics that it's
impossible to read or even count all of them! (Reynolds, 1992:16)
Of course in different countries the comics had different tendencies
to increase. The fact that you can find in a comic shop in the USA a
much higher number of action comics than funny comics ( which by the
way are often made by a European artist) made me believe that
Americans prefer action comics while Europeans seem to care more for
fun comics.
Andre Franquin from France for example invented more than one funny
comic figure and became very famous.
A good rule to follow is that there's nothing you can't find a
comic about. There are so many different kinds and branches of the
comic-art that young and old will find whatever interests them.
Basically you can divide the comics into two big "families" : The
funny and the serious comics.
The funny comics can be divided again into simply or complexly drawn
comics into whether the target group of readers are children or
adults. I would loose much time if I wanted to make more divisions,
so I'll focus on the serious comic.
There can be found a much bigger variety. Serious comics mostly deal
with a Superhero that has to solve uncommon problems in a mysterious
miraculous world. There are science fiction comics, detective
stories, fantasy adventures, comics that retell what happened in
history, and also plenty of erotic comics.
It's quite common among the serious comic books that some of these
listed categories are mixed and you find yourself in a world that is
half science fiction and half fantasy and one might also find some
points similar to history. This kind of comic differs also in the
drawing technique from the funnies. You rarely find an adventure
comic which is not drawn in a very high picture quality which almost
reaches photo-realism.
These artists who design adventure comics are really artists, because
they know their work perfectly and it takes them years and years to
get there where they are. They do a similar work like a painter does,
they must be able to invent a character and draw it from so many
different perspectives just out of their imagination, without a model
they could glance at. And, what's most difficult, they must be able
to make this character look exactly the same in the whole comic
album.
The common aspect of all comics is the technique of drawing. At
least more or less, because there's no rule without exception.
But the majority of the artists use black ink and a feather pen. The
advantage of such an instrument is that they can make lines of
different thickness. It's easy to begin a line very thin and finish
it relatively thick.
This trick helps the pictures look more "alive". If you look at the
whole page it's more alternating and more moving.
(Reynolds,1992:62)
In this part of my report I'd like to show you some examples of different comics as an illustration and comment them.
Andre Franquin's "Gaston" is a typical example of a funny
comic.
Gaston is working in the office of a newspaper and all this comic
does is to show him at work. Actually, the reader will never see him
do any work, but he does a lot of funny things in his office,
although it's nothing but nonsense!
A type of comics that belong to the serious comics,
are the "Mangas". These are Japanese comics and they have their own
style. Among the Mangas you' ll find again a lot of different kinds.
Some are more funny others more adventure like. But a comic reader
can separate any Manga from every other Comic, because the Japanese
simply have their own style.
These are pictures out of "Akira", a very famous comic, that is one
big complicated story, released in twenty books of a hundred pages
each.
It's very famous even in Europe or in the United States. 
An example of a fantasy story is "Aquablue" designed by Olivier
Vatine (France). The pictures are extremely well drawn and the story
is very exciting. It is a blend of science fiction and fantasy.
Last year I went to visit Felix Schaad, a famous cartoonist in
Switzerland, to see what his work is like and how he draws his
comics. Felix is 34 years old and lives in Winthertur (Switzerland).
He works for in Switzerland well known Newspapers like "CASH" ,
"K-Tip" and "Nebelspalter". He has released three different series of
comic books. I spent about two hours in his workshop in Winterthur
and I learned a lot about his job.
Before one can begin to draw a comic he or she must have a story that
can be told. The artist can invent a story yourself, or someone other
can do this for him. That's why on most of the comic covers are two
names: The graphic artist's name and the name of the person who wrote
the story. After this first step of story finding the comic artist
can start to make some drafts for the characters. The most important
criterion for these is to create them in a way they can be drawn
again and again looking exactly the same. In the reader's interest
the artist chooses figures that are recognizable easily. For example
their hair or their physical appearance ( tall or short, fat or thin,
clothes ) are an easy way to reach this target.
Some comic draftsmen begin with a kind of storyboard, which just
consists of short sketches without details.
Finally you can begin with the real comic like it will be printed.
All the professionals draw their pictures twice as big as they appear
in the comic issue. That allows them to involve more details in their
pictures, and it' s simply easier to draw big pictures than small
ones. For one page it will take about a day, if somebody is fast.
Yes, comics are hard work and you get really tired after a whole day
of drawing. And of course your back will hurt !
The artist must exactly know what the characters are saying in the
pictures, because he has to save place for the speaking-bladders and
draw them without filling in the text, which is the writer's work. In
this main work of the comic the artist can realize his ideas more or
less however he or she wants. He can choose perspectives, frame
formats of the pictures, decide what he wants to show in pictures and
what he wants the reader to find out just by the text. Changes during
the process of the drawing are not uncommon and sometimes when a
comic is finished it looks completely different than the graphic
artist and the writer had planned. New ideas can easily be involved
during the drawing process.
If the comic should not stay black and white, someone has to color
it. This is usually not the draftsman himself, it's someone else's
job. Today this is computer work but still fifteen years ago people
had to color the comics by hand. The coloring takes a little less
time than the drawing. To gain time the comic industry has a team
designing and coloring a comic book, not only one or two people. Then
the work is done much faster.
Finally the comic is ready to be printed. Schaad told me that it's
very difficult for a non professional cartoonist to find a publisher.
The big publishers normally get their employees in art schools or
offer the winners of comic contests a chance to release their own
comic book. But, you must be lucky for such a career. An alternative
is to publish your comic book yourself, and make contracts with the
comic shops, nevertheless this is difficult and your success is not
sure. The safest way to find someone who publishes your work is to
join many art or comic contest hope that someone likes your work and
wants to promote you.
I hope with this little report about comics and cartoons I could
interest you a little bit for my passion, and if you see a comic shop
the next time you might enter and have a look at the books, and
perhaps you'll find something that you like to read, who knows ?
Fuchs, Wolfgang J. & Reitberger, Reinhold C. (1971).
Comics: Anatomy of a mass medium
Muenchen : Heinz Moos Verlag,
Reynolds, Richard (1992). Super heroes: A modern
mythology. London : B.T. Batsfort.
Schaad,F.(1997). Personal communication.
The sources of the pictures are online:
HYPERLINK
http://www.inforoute.capway.com/CoinBD/Images/Aquablue.gif
