New comic: Tagging Public Spaces
Added 2019-02-18 23:26:30 +0000 UTCBillboard advertisers ‘tag’ our public spaces in the same way that graffiti artists ‘tag’ walls with their marks.
At 26 pages long, this is my first major comic of 2019.
It follows last month's The Crudest Form of Advertising (14 pages) as part #1 of my ongoing series Twenty-Five Arguments Against Billboards.
I am particularly pleased with the composition of this double-page scene, which I added to the comic at the last minute:
Comments
FYI, I just published the blog post that I threatened to write: <a href="http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/favourite-page-comics-art/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/favourite-page-comics-art/</a>
Stuart McMillen
2019-03-19 06:21:19 +0000 UTCInteresting! A major reason for dropping the 'balk' from my text is that it is spelled 'baulk' in British/Australian English. So where possible I try to avoid words that might look unfamiliar to some readers. But that is impossible to totally eliminate.
Stuart McMillen
2019-02-20 06:28:19 +0000 UTC:-) I'm afraid I often enact my family name, not being the boldest actor and shying away from conflict. But I'm told it got changed from Fledermaus (meaning bat) when my grandfather emigrated as a teen about a century ago. No idea why that happened or how Balk was selected.
brian balk
2019-02-20 05:24:35 +0000 UTCOh, and one more thing Brian. You'll be interested to know that at one stage the text in the second caption was "But advertisers balk at no such limits." Just thought you'd be interested in that wording, given your surname!
Stuart McMillen
2019-02-20 03:28:33 +0000 UTCBrian, I knew that I had to illustrate a comparison between how street art is limited to walls and surfaces that exist, whereas billboard companies can simply erect their own structures that tower above the city on poles. I wanted it to be a single scene that compared the two side-by-side. So I had to find a way to make the reader's eyes begin in the bottom-left corner of the page, and rise up to the top-right of the page. After looking through a lot of reference photos, I was able to mentally compose a street scene that had this left-right comparison. And I used the placement of the text, and the subtly rising arrangement of the panels to draw the reader's eye across the page in this way. The eye scans between the four black text boxes, and I found a way to arrange them so there is no way that anyone can read them out of order, if the are following the cues of the 'rising' arrangement of the panel boxes. So, I like the way that the eye is drawn across in this way, across the four main panels. But we still get a sense of the larger scene that is being depicted through the three other panels that show the chimney, the power lines, and the woman's chest. (I actually drew the entire scene, but then covered up huge swathes of it with the borders, the black text boxes, and the 'white space' that blocks it out). Thanks for your question. I might turn this into a blog post soon - will let you know if I do so.
Stuart McMillen
2019-02-19 22:59:20 +0000 UTCThank you, Stuart. Can you say more about what it is about this composition that especially pleases you? I'm just curious to get a glimpse inside your creative mind. I believe I have almost no talent as a visual artist. I'm rather fond of a one-cell cartoon that captures my idea of my own drawing ability. It's of a stick figure showing another stick figure a picture of a stick figure. And the other is responding, "That doesn't look anything like me."
brian balk
2019-02-19 03:00:43 +0000 UTC
