Graphic narrative evaluation.

My story was about a man called Kargre who is sent back in time into the future
when he is caught in an avalanche. The story starts slow as he is trekking across
mountains, the action gets more and more intense as the narrative gains pace.
Before we know it our hero is falling off a mountain and wakes up in futuristic
laboratory full of scientists. This is the spark point. From there we see each of
the scientist explain a little more about what has happen to our protagonist. As
Kargre wakes he meets the antagonist Gring and they argue as the narrative
begins to escalate again. Before long all hell breaks loose and a fight bursts out.
This is the pinical in my narrative, then out of nowhere our hero is tranquilised
and piece ends.
I think that the plot is effective because it keeps the audience on their toes with
the constant twists. I like to keep my audience just slightly confused so I used an
open ending. This is more effective because it makes the reader want more and
they would buy the second issue.
However its not all blue skies, if I was able to do this again I would have made
the piece longer but I feel my drawing skills are little to slow. If the piece had
been longer I could have bought more detail into the plot and made a more
gripping narrative.

Comparrisons.
Narrative wise my piece is similar to Metro
comic series can see this in the way that it
leaves you clue less as to whats going to
happen next. This postmodern approach grips
the reader and keeps them hooked. This is
also a rather dark and real, I like this if I was
to make my comic in to a full series I would
keep on making it darker.
My piece also compares narrative wise to
Palistine by Joe Sacco. The way my narrative
was chaotic it and gave the sense of realism,
fast narratives can lose a reader but if you
get it right which I feel I did it makes the
reader feel like theyre there. In real life you
dont have time to gather the whole picture
so things can be disorientating. If you mirror
this effect into a comic it gets the reader
more engaged. Palistine makes you feel like
youre their with these people in a war zone,
it connects you to them and makes you feel. I think that I did this pretty well.
However I would say that I didnt do it as well as Sacco but thats not surprising.
I feel if I had more time I could have made the narrative more coherent.

My images

For my novel I used a simple sketched look. The lines are very heavy rough, I
kept the for so it look like it was sketched because one Im not the drawer in the
world and two because I think that the style looks really striking and eye
catching. I used the occasion splash of colour that I added in Photoshop, I used
only a small amount because it has more of an effect in the piece that way.

So first I sketched out all my images from scratch, then I scanned them all in as
jpgs. Once id done that I used Photoshop to do the rest. I gave the images
custom made frames and used the custom shape tool to make speech bubbles
and the brush tool to add colour. I used a little bit of speech here and there, in
hind sight there could have been more but I thought the images would tell the
story well enough. I think if I added more speech the story might be a little
clearer.
I could have used a little more Photoshop to make these images look better for
example if added colour or used a drawing tool to emphasize lines and give
things more impact.

Visually a good comparison to my piece is the novel Palestine by Joe Sacco. The
black and white art style is similar, like mine it lacks colour and it uses more
abstract framing as the frames are at odd angles much like my piece. However
the art style is a little different, Saccos drawings are more detailed and frankly
better, their less sketchy and its clearer whats going on.
The narrative is od as the time line jumps all over the place unlike mine. I feel
like my narrative was a little bewildering with its time skip but thats what I was
trying to do, leave the reader shocked and they will remember you.

This example uses speech in similar way to me, the images tell most of the story
and this stops things getting cluttered. Notice though how Sacco keeps all of his
speech in the corners so it doesnt block out what is important, the images. I
think that despite their similarities my piece differs from this in the way that I
have kept my text very simple but in Palestine there is a lot off it.
This was a style I originally tried to copy but because I wanted to make
something a little faster paced I chose a sketchy style and made all my drawing
look rougher out of choice. In hind sight I think that if I added a little more colour
to each piece it might look more eye catching. I chose black and white as it
makes the red that added as selective colour more striking. I feel I could have

added tone the background of some of my scenes though as they all sort of
merge into one monochromatic mess.

If I were to print this work I would like to fix a couple of things with the visual and
aesthetics elements of it to improve the overall production quality. Firstly I would
make sure that the images where black inked with outlines before scanning them
as the outlines in my images are a little weak.
Then I would add little more colour in places as it look a little bland, this would
make it look more eye catching. And finally I would be sure to make the drawings
of higher quality next time as my sketches look a little off on some bit as the
proportions are strange.

The main problem with this piece was time management. I fear I spent too much
time on the sketches so everything else was little rushed. This meant that the
Photoshop part had to be rush and I couldnt do everything I wanted to do like ad
some more colour. My peers said that if I had used less pages and made a
shorter piece I could have made it of higher quality.

what age do you think my TA is?

35+
25-35
18-25
14-18
0

The way my narrative flowed

worked well in my opinion but if you asked me to pick It apart Id say this; it is a
little confusing as it is very fast paced. Note the last few pages below, the action
flows fast as it is a fight scene. This could throw some people off as they dont
know fully whats going on. The way it jumps from one millennia to the next
could also be confusing.So although the piece is linier in its narrative structure it
could be referred to as postmodern. On the up side though the fast paced
narrative aids the piece. The fight scene was something I designed to appeal to
my TA. You can see how my TA is younger people so the fast paced action is the
thing they want to see. It keeps them interested. You could say the same of the
time passed as this takes you by surprise. The end goal with my narrative was to
make sure that if I was to make a series people would be rushing to grab the
next issue. This is why I ended it as I did with the dart flying towards Kargre, it
draws in my TA.

This is a point you could raise with the socio economic grouping I aimed at. The
fast paced action would keep people interested. The way I designed my
characters so the villains were upper-class this will make it appeal to the D and C
grouping. I also think that the main character Kargre should appeal well to the
lower classes and he is a violent man of action and from Scotland. It is true
though that some people may take offence of the Social representation of rich
and poor and this could cause issues. However I do think this is good
representation as many people feel uncomfortable about the modern age and
science, the plot of my piece is about what danger science can have if it goes to
far. This should appeal to the C and D groupings because they are possibly
students especially as my TA is a younger demographic.

What social group?

E-D

When it comes to character representation I have sort of half stuck to the

connotation of si fi and horror. I wanted my piece to feel real so I made my main
villains od scientists and rich people, I did this because a few people with
questionable morals and vast disposable income are sort of more believable. This
means that the TA will connect to this. As for my hero he is a polar opposite a
Celtic warrior and this opposition to his foe makes the reader more involved as

the two characters are designed to hate one another and the audience should
pick up on this. My villains are scientists and rich so thats basically sci fi 101 but
where my piece differs from the status quo is in Kargre he isnt a Bruce wane or
anything he has been transported 4 millennia into the future and is very
confused, and that puts the reader in the same chair. You can see how my piece
will relate to these traits of sci-fi as My piece is about mad scientists and the way
they misuses technology.
To get round any legal issues around representation is set my piece 4000 years
in the future so innless OFCOM have a time traveling complaints sector I should
be fine.

I also think that although my protagonist did fit the bill of hero for the stereotype.
I didnt kill the horror. Sometimes if you make a hero to heroic it can ruin any
sense of peril and without that horror is useless. However my not introducing my
character formally I basically just drop the reader in. this forces us to question
the character and his goals so he is sort of a hero but also he might not be. This
leaves the reader confused just like Kargre so that puts us in his shoes and make
him more relatable. Sometimes if a hero is to heroic it just doesnt feel real and
this is what I wanted to avoid. Kargre is just a person who got dragged into the
situation he is by fate alone, he is natural and this makes it feel real.

You can see how the scaling was not that consistent in my piece as character will
change size and scale throughout. This was because of my fairly lacklustre

drawing skills.