World Famous Comics: Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative: (Will Eisner Instructional Books)
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative: (Will Eisner Instructional Books)
By: Will Eisner Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: W.W. Norton & Co. Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 164 Publication Date: August 17, 2008
Two classic drawing textbooks from an American comics pioneer, revised and enhanced for a new generation. Based on Will Eisner’s legendary course at New York’s School of Visual Arts, these guides have inspired generations of artists, students, teachers, and fans. In Comics and Sequential Art, Eisner reveals the basic building blocks and principles of comics, including imagery, the frame, and the application of time, space, and visual forms. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative teaches how to control a story effectively using a broad array of techniques. With examples from Eisner’s own catalog and such masters as H. Foster, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, and George Herriman, these books distill the art of graphic storytelling into principles that every comic artist, writer, and filmmaker should know.
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative This is the bible on making graphic novels. Will Eisner is the true master of the craft. The guy was a true genius! If you are thinking of writing/drawing a graphic novel, read this book.
Useful tips for the beginner artists Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MNY0NX2LDI3M Telling a good story is an incredibly difficult. In this book, Will Eisner shares with readers some of things to be aware of when tackling storytelling using comics.
He talks about techniques to use to help build a more convincing story. This would include comic tools like lettering, building momentum, using visual clues and writing. Examples include how props (i.e. guns) are held to reveal human characteristics.
There are lessons on how to engage readers, how readers think and mistakes to avoid. These are followed with lots of comic strip examples -- including a selection from different comic artists. Unfortunately, they aren't captioned page by page like it was done on his other books. The comic examples are great, you know it but you don't know why they work.
The book doesn't really go in depth into all aspects of storytelling. There's no talk on character development, story arcs, conflict management and specific story elements and tools.
Overall, this is still a very useful book for anyone who's just starting out and thinking of drawing their own comics.
There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.
An excellent reference for comic book artists! great reference book. love it for it's content. don't expect to get through it in a day or two, though. it's definately a text book written for teaching. chock full of awesome illustrations and clear, easy to grasp content.
Mater Piece the title talk itself, Will Eisner is a master, he never enter to the universe of the spandex heroes, if you don't like the espandex, or you try to understand the comics, or not only comics, visual narrative inself, this is your book.
4 out of 5 First off, Eisner does a great job of combining visual elements with his text in this book. The whole thing is illustrated with cavemen working on their storytelling technique, and I have to admit that the cavemen illustrations were great fun and always helped to clarify the how side of what he was saying in the text. Beautifully done. (Yes, I know, this is like saying, "Hey, y'know that Hemingway guy? Some of his stories were really good.")
Does it have any issues? Yes. It's 164 heavily illustrated pages. You can read it in an afternoon. And some of the illustrative pieces feel over-long for the point they are trying to prove. I hit the point on a couple of them where I found myself saying, "Yes, I get it. We needed the X in the beginning so we would understand Y now. Can we move on?" I also felt that, at 164 pages, he didn't really have the opportunity to go into depth on some areas. There's a point where he provided two bad examples of a comic script... and no good example. Aaaaah!
Even with those issues in mind, I have to give the book 4 caped crime-fighters out of five. It's well-written (though there are also some grammatical gaffs that make me want to scream), it's engaging, and it's instructive. Worth the read.
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