Evaluation

A review of narrative structure.

The kind of structure which I decided to use throughout my whole comic book is a block kind of look because I thought that was the best way for me to go because of what kind of comic I am doing and the skills which I have in drawing

My comic book tells a story which is obvious in a way. This is because you can clearly see how it has started and you can see the story unfolding. The story line isnt mixed up like a film with the ending at the start and so on. I chose to go this way because I think it is the best way for my target audience because it fits them because comic books are usually told in a linear way rather than a non-linear way. I also chosen this because it is the most common way a story is told and it will not confuse people whilst they are looking at the images of it.

It is not exactly a realism story because it is about a guy and his dog which accidentally traveled to a whole new universe and then they steal a ring which helps them get back to home. It is a lot more non-realist than it is real because of this.

I would say the comic book has a climax but it is not that much of a great one and this is because it does not show the whole story near the end of it. It has a cliff hanger so you do not really know what is going to happen but you have an idea that you may know what is going to happen. I did this because I felt like I wanted people to have an open mind and it meant I could leave people to make up their own ending which in my opinion can make a comic book or a movie really interesting if it is done correctly.

My motivations for this kind of comic book were that I wanted to challenge myself in a field that I am not that good at so I could improve on my skills in this area for the future if I ever do anything such as this again.

The biggest cause and effect in my comic book is probably in the first scene because you see the dog leading him into a cave which he does not have a clue what is inside there and that is the cause that has been put into effect. Later you see the effect and that is because he chased his dog into that cave they have ended up in a whole different world and this can have so many different effects on top of it such as they are now lost and they need to find a way home alive.

At the moment my comic book does not have an equilibrium and this is because it does not yet have an ending to it because I wanted to leave that cliffhanger, It also gives me something to go back to if I ever wanted to finish it. If I made another episode of the comic book then  it might have an ending to show but at the moment it is just a cliffhanger so people can have an open mind about the ending.

How you created the images.

Pretty much every image which you see throughout my comic book are simple and shaped because I thought that it would suit my comic book the best. As an example you could say the dog which you can see. All that is, is a traced image filled in with a black colour. That made things a lot easier for me because I did not spend as much time working on the little aspects of each drawing. If I did that I think I might not of achieved the deadline because of the skill of my drawing. Mostly animals and humans

Most of the colour that you will see throughout my comic book will be colourful except for the characters. They are usually black because I traced them. I did try and draw them multiple times but I felt like it was not up to the standard that I was trying to aim for so I just traced them in order for my comic to look better than it would of looked if I did not do that.

There a pattern which I have mentioned earlier which goes through my whole comic book and that is block like shapes. You could use the trees for an example. I made them with the square tool because it made it much easier for me to do it that way and it made it look much better than if I drew each shape free hand. It is also very time efficient if I do that because I can make each shape within 30 seconds or so and that leaves me time to work on other parts of it.

I have used a combination of words and images in my comic book because that allowed me to show some parts of the comic book that I probably could not have shown if I did not do that. Some of the story line may be unclear if you just see the images but I added writing near the characters so people can match the words and the images together which may make it a lot more clear for people to look at and understand. I also used that because it was the style of my comic book.  Comic books in the past have speech bubbles near the characters and I thought that added a lot to the comic book it self. As you can see in this image. It gives a deeper understanding of what is going on than it does without the speech bubbles.

If you talk about symbolic codes I think that my characters did not show much of that if you talk about the look on their face. I know this because my characters are just black and this makes them have no emotion on their face. But if you looked at the actions they are doing such as the running scene. This shows that he is some what in a rush or panicking because of the way he is running. He is obviously running fast after his dog and what adds to you knowing that is the speech that you see above him. It gives you a clearer look on what is going on with the emotions that you do not see.

The age of the character tells a lot about what you  know about the character because he is at the young age of 20. I said in my pre-production that he an active and kind of hyper active character. He never stops and takes a break because he likes to be always on his feet and never wants to just stop. This is has an effect on the story and that is him actually going in and chasing his dog into the cave. He does not think before he chooses his actions.

Whilst looking at the gender that I was aiming for whilst creating this I first looked at other different comic books that are similar to the one which I am doing, so that is comic books such as the old vintage ones you see in comic book stores that are based around super hero's. I knew my audience was the same so that is usually a male audience that is aged between 16-30 years of age. There is a lot more older people than children who read comic books surprisingly. Whilst I created mine I aimed for the same kind of audience and I did this by choosing the same kind of characters and aspects you would see in that kind of comic book.

My comic book is aimed at a specific social group and that is the people who love vintage comic books and they used to read them when they were a lot younger and it just carried on to when they are older. I wanted my comic book to aimed at that kind of social group. The reason I have chose this is because it fits my comic book the best rather than the new kind of comic books which you see this day and age.

What people think of my work? 

I asked multiple people about what they think about the comic book that I have made and I different responses which I agree with overall.

I asked one of my friends from outside of college about what he thought about my comic book and he thought that it needed a lot more work to it but he liked the range of colours which I had used throughout the comic book. He liked the bright colours because he thought he gave it the effect of a comic book and the boxes which each scene was inside helped it look a lot more like a comic book but he thought the scenes them self needed defining so they were a lot more understandable to figure out what is going on in each scene and I agree with that

I agree with it because the bright colours did exactly what I was hoping for them to do and that was to make everything a lot more brighter and better to look at visually in each scene rather than using dull colours. I also agree with the boxes which I used to include each scene inside of because I did that to add to the effect of a comic book. I also did not place them formally because I wanted it to be a little bit random of where the scenes where placed but still someone would understand what scene is after each scene.

I asked craig about what he thought about my work and he said "I think it is colourful but it needs more work and detail added to it" I agree with this because I feel like it does need more work to it than it currently has

Task 3 - Evaluation ·         Give a presentation to your peers and tutor. You should demonstrate the finished production explaining the concept behind it and ask questions that will help you to write your evaluation. ·         An Evaluation (500 words), self-reflective which reviews the project. The evaluation needs to include: 1.    A review of the Narrative structure: what type of structure have you used, eg open, closed, single strand, multi-strand, linear, non-linear, realist, anti-realist, non-narrative; What components have you included: eg opening, conflict, resolution, cause and effect, enigma, equilibrium, climax, motivations, manipulation of time and space. 2.    How you created the images: eg form, texture, shape, pattern, line, tone, colour; anchorage, eg captions, slogan, combination of words-images-text; signification, eg technical codes, symbolic codes, cultural codes, connotation; representation, eg gender, race, age, sexuality, class, social groups, societies, cultures, religions. 3.    What type of Historical and cultural context you have used: range of references, eg society, race, religion, politics, economics, art and design, popular culture, technology. 4.    What Production processes you have used and what people think of the production including your peers and tutor.  Include technical competencies; creative ability and techniques used; time management, responding to feedback. This provides evidence for [P3, M3, D3]

Evidence checklist   [tick boxes]