Graphic Narrative

Hayley Roberts

Children's Books• Picture books (0-5 years) – Uses visual and verbal narratives in a book. Created with oil

paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil. The illustrations are as much a part of the experience with the book as the written text. Simple illustrations which help tell the story allow children to understand what is going on. They are first read to young children by adults, and then children read them themselves once they begin to learn to read.

• Early reader books (5-7 years) – These books are designed to help expand the child's reading skills and uses pictures to explain the story alongside basic grammar.

• Chapter books (7-12 years) – Between the years of 7-9, short chapter books are appropriate and have limited images and more writing, which is starting to become a little more complex to help the child have a wide range of vocabulary. Between the years 9-12, the child will be starting to read longer chapter books which doesn’t use images to tell the story and uses words and longer styled chapters. There may be a few very well illustrated images throughout the book but doesn’t take up a lot of room so more writing is used.

• Young adult fiction (13-18 years) – Young adult literature shares the following fundamental elements of the fiction genre: character, plot, setting, theme and style. However, theme and style are more often subordinated to the more tangible elements of plot, setting, and character, which appeal more readily to young readers.

Traditional Literature • Traditional literature involves myths, legends, folklore and fairytales. Most of

these include using the following techniques to appeal to the audience:• Anthropomorphism – this is where a certain animal/object has human

characteristics which are not capable to achieve such characteristics. For example, the film Shrek has a talking and walking cat which wears clothes and does day to day human activities.

• Magic – Magic is a big factor in fairytales and is acted as a normal contribution to life which wouldn’t be seen in reality. For example, in Cinderella the fairy godmother uses magic to change a pumpkin into a carriage which isn’t possible in life.

• Happy endings – Also in children’s books, the ending is most defiantly always a happy ending. This is so children find a positive experience from reading it and not to not creating a depressing effect on such a young age.

• Stereotypes – This is added to the book to add a reality effect to the book as there is a lot of stereotypical elements in life.

Fonts Used

• Choosing font styles for your book is very important. Among the most common are Times Roman, Goudy, Garamond, and Baskerville. Children's books are commonly set in a serif font, because of their clean straight lines. The serifs help to guide the eye from one letter to another making the text easily readable. A sans serif font such as Arial should be avoided for the main body of the text.

Examples of Children’s Books

Books By Age

A book designed for the ages between 0-5 years

A book designed for the ages between 5-7 years

A book designed for the ages between 7-12 years

A book designed for the ages between 13-18 years

Graphic Novels

• For graphic novels there are no set age to who reads the novels.

• The artwork can be very experimental in design or follow a more traditional comic book format.

• Graphic novels are typically bound in longer and more durable formats than comic books, using the same materials and methods as printed books. They are generally sold in bookstores and specialty comic book shops rather than in newsagents.

• Such books have gained increasing acceptance as desirable materials for libraries which once ignored comic books.

Layout of a Graphic Novel

• Illustration is hugely important in graphic novels.- Illustration helps tell the story. - It helps set the scene. - It helps set the tone. - It often allows for minimal text to appear on the page.

Text is usually reserved for brief description and dialogue.

• There are many different styles of illustration, from simple, black and white images to experimental collages and everything in between.

Examples of Graphic NovelsInspired behind films and TV series and many recent films started out life as

and continue to be graphic novels, these are a few well known examples:• Watchmen• V for Vendetta• The League of extraordinary gentlemen• Batman• Superman• Spiderman• The Walking Dead• Scott Pilgrim• 300• From Hell

Examples of Graphic Novels

Doctor WhoSpiderman

Superman

The Walking Dead300

Watchman

Batman

David McKean

• The work of Dave McKean is some of the most experimental work in graphic novels. He works with a mixture a different mediums including drawing, painting, photography, collage, digital art and sculpture.

His work includes:• Cages• Batman Arkham Asylum• Mr Punch• Signal to noise• Violent cases

Different Text Layouts• JOINING BALLOONS WITH CONNECTORS

There are two instances where this is used. The first is when a character says two separate ideas expressed one after the other. The second instance is when two characters are speaking in a panel and the conversation goes back and forth between them.

• BALLOON TAILSIf at all possible, a balloon tail should point to a character's mouth as if an invisible line continued on past the end of the tail to their face.

• BURST BALLOONSBurst Balloons are used when someone is screaming their dialogue. Burst balloons typically aren't italicized, but are often bold with certain words enlarged or underlined for even more emphasis.

• THOUGHT BALLOONSThought balloons have fallen out of fashion in recent years in preference for narrative captions. The tail on a thought balloon is made up of smaller bubbles and should point towards a character's head (not mouth, as in a standard balloon tails). Generally you should have at least three little bubbles of decreasing size that reach toward the character.

Different Text LayoutsThere are four types of captions in comics:Location & Time captions were formerly the same font as your dialogue only inside a

caption box and italicized. Internal Monologue captions, largely replacing thought balloons, are the inner voice of a

character. These are typically italicized. Spoken Captions are the vocalized speech of a character that is off camera. These are not

italicized but make special use of quotation marks. Narrative captions feature the voice of the writer or editor and are also italicized.

Layout• The earliest comics were always set up in a grid format, contained

within white gutters (borders). They followed the logical Western method of reading – across from left to right + down to the next level & repeat.

• The most common grids are the 9 and 6 panel grids. The 9 panel grid is most useful when the story contains a lot of information.

• The compositional flow is the way the viewer’s eye is drawn through the comic.

• You want to make sure the dialogue follows the composition flow – if you can put the thought and speech bubbles right on that line, that’s the best. European audiences read top left to bottom right so if you put a speech bubble on the bottom LEFT and top RIGHT of the panel, that may confuse people.