Graphic Narrative

Hannah Mizen task 1 initial research

Children booksThere are lots of different types of children's books for all different ages. Different types like educational

booking that’s its main purpose is to educate the children and let them learn through reading or looking at pictures. Picture books will be for the ages of 0-4, when a child is just starting to make sense of the world, these books will be very simple so the child can make out what the story or message is. When a child grows up and becomes older they can start to be able to read and make out simple story lines with simple words, but illustration is still very necessary as it helps and guides the child so they don’t get too confused. Illustrations can be a be more advanced and complex at the 7-10 age as the child’s sight and brain have developed a large amount. The stories would usually contain stereotyped characters like princesses, animals the talk and magic, which would be considered all normal. The next step up from this would be young teen fictions for ages 12-16, these can range in quite a large amount and have a lot of scope for different stories and different reading abilities, from fairies to the war.

The type of fonts used have to be serif fonts, these are the fonts with a fancy bits and flicks, a commonly used font is Times New Roman, the flicks naturally help the eye to flow across the page and it guides the children's eyes on where to read next, which is a subconscious act.

The age on the book is only a guide to the average reading ability for that age and more advanced readers may be reading above their age and visa-versa.

Young children’s books 0-4/5These books are books that help young children learn, by getting them involved in reading it and taking part, like this sticker book, it gets the child to match up. The illustration are fairly simple shapes in pastel colours that are easy to understand.

This book looks like it is more concentrated around maths and counting. It is using the frog to narrate and help the child learn, so giving the frog human characteristics. The illustrations are minimal, with one main frog, which is fairly detailed. The numbers will be plain and simple so this allows for the detailed frog.

These other books are ones that an adult would read and show the pictures to a child. Simple words would be used, but enough to create a story that the child could follow when the adult is reading aloud.

Because the adult is reading it and will have no problem following the story, this means the illustrations can be more detailed, more like a piece of art work, which will also be visually pleasing to the child.

Children’s books 7-10These kind of books are a lot more advanced, the include a lot more wording and a lot more plot. This type of book ‘the magic key’ are used for education purposes, for children to learn how to improve their reading. These books contain a lot of colourful pictures the illustrate with the story.

These books are used in schools and go up in levels of reading skill, so can range for a lot of different ages

These books are more designed for pleasurable reading for children and are usually read by 10 year olds. The Roald Dahl books have a lot thicker plot and require more advanced understanding. They are also quite a large jump from other books as they only have small colorless illustrations throughout the book

Children’s books 12-16The kind of books in this age range varies as in the subject matter of the books and there is a fairly big jump. But the illustrations are similar in the level of detail on the front covers, there doesn’t seem to be much difference, only the books for the 16 year olds maybe looking a bit more simple and sophisticated. They come in a collection to encourage reading and concentration.

These younger teen books are more innocent and still have the subject of magical creatures being normal. In the books there are also a few illustrations in the books, just to help out a bit with the scene and setting for the children.

These books are a lot more mature in their subject matter and a bit more experimental in the vocabulary and length of story. There are no illustrations in these books, so the teen or child has to use their own imagination and head to figure out what the characters look like and what the scene is set out like, according the the description in the book.

Young Adult fictionYoung adult fiction usually over-laps with adult books, for example a popular over-lap book would be the Harry Potter series.

These books can be read by anyone one 16+ as they have a fairly advanced vocabulary. The subject matter of the stories are very much designed for younger people, with the inclusion of magic and wizards

These books don’t have any illustrations on excluding the front cover or maybe a little picture at the start of each chapter.

Graphic NovelGraphic novels are usually aimed at adults of all ages. They are a story told in a comic book style with a series of grids, narrative commentary and speech types. The purpose of graphic novels are usually just for pleasure reading, for people who enjoy reading them and that also appreciate the drawings. There are different types of grids, but the original type of grid was a 9 box one, it was 9 identically sized boxes running down the page, reading left to right. But then artists started to push the boundaries and change the sizing, numbers and even over-lapping boxes, as long as the reader flowed through the story, the box placing would be effective.

When the text is put in graphic novels there are different ways of displaying different types. Narrative speech, explaining the setting and story are often just plain text in a box. Speech is put into speech bubbles and then a tail leads down to the character speaking. Inside thoughts are presented through thought bubbles, which are bubble like clouds leading to the characters head. When a character is not pictured on a page but is talking , then the speech is presented in a box, but the text has speech marks.

Types of grids

This grid is the most like an original grid, it is very simple as all the grids are a similar size and they all have border around so they don’t over-lap.

Now this one is a bit more stylised, the grids are not all straight and a couple of the squares are over-lapping in places.

This one is a more modern grid, as all the pictures are not in boxes, one of the pictures actually looks like the background that the other pictures has been put on.

Text presentation typesThis bubble is a speech bubble, it is used to tell the reader that a certain character is speaking, the reader knows this because the tail is leading to the characters mouth

This box is for narrative purposes, it tells the reader basically what is going on, what the setting is, the date, the times. It is like a guide.

This bubble is a thought bubble, it is used to tell the reader what the inner thoughts or the character, or what they are really thinking. This bubble really helps to create humor and plot twists.

Mind Map

Hansel and Gretel Mind Map.

Discussion of ideasI want the characters to have a traditional feel to them, but also modern. I plan to do this by hand drawing the characters and buildings and other little things that need to be added in, I’m going to do this by line drawing, to keep a traditional feel, but I’m not going to colour them in for a more modern twist, keeping the lines clean and the contrast sharp. I think this is good because I think it will give a really different feeling and look really effective.

I want the colour scheme to be different to what I’ve seen before, I want the characters, buildings and props to be in black and white line drawings with no colour, but then the background is going to be done as a picture, like a woods, and this is going to be in colours of brown, green, yellows, oranges which will be not bright, but earthy. I think the characters will really stand out and look good, the reality of photography being intertwined with the imaginary people

The illustration style is going to be a mix between hand drawn line drawings and landscape photography. I like this idea because I think will look very effective and give a modern twist on a traditional story. I think other styles like rotoscoping or making the characters cartoonlike wouldn’t add up with the over all feeling I want to create and I don’t think they would even work together, especially with the photography element.

I think that some aspects of the story are intense

but to create this intensity a certain amount of

the story needs to be told so it can be built up,

otherwise it will just be an anti-climax and not

that interesting if you haven't been pulled into it.

To do this I am picking the part of the story

where it builds up where the children are left by

their dad and lost in the woods and can’t get

home, then they come across the edible house

and the witch, she is nice to them, but then she

suddenly locks Hansel up and makes Gretel a

slave, then I will build this intensity up and leave

a cliff hanger.

My font will be a serif, to be in-keeping with the traditional style of the original literature and because of the way it is easier to read. Fonts I may use are on the serif section on da font, there are some different styles of serif fonts that are fancier or more plain that I can experiment with

Mood board