Attached Link: Link to poser article in Joe Zabel's 3D Comics Blog

Folks-- I've just posted the article 'Poser and Invisible Art' on my blog. You may find it puzzling, you may find it infuriating, you may find it just plain nuts-- but I hope you'll find it thought-provoking and entertaining in any case!

I like it.

Thoughtful, and I see what you're saying. But for me, the 'photo comic' style doesn't work; on the one hand, you have the realistic scenes and people (invisible art); and on the other, you have the speech balloons plonked on top. I find it much easier to read a traditional drawn comic, because there seems to be less of a stylistic shift going from the image to the dialogue. The speech is less obviously superimposed, and is more a part of the artwork.This jars when the images are more realistic and less stylised, and the same comment would have to apply to 3D generated comics as well. Maybe I just haven't found a 3D comic that can draw me in to the extent that I can ignore the medium. Just my 0.02 - thanks for making me analyse my previously instinctive reaction to the genre... :)

You've read Scott Mccloud's "Undererstanding comics" havn't you? :D Good stuff.

What's a 'blog?'

Netspeak contraction for web-log. Think of it as an online journal.

Yes, but if he'd read McCloud... he'd be shying away from reality in comics. ;) Too photorealistic a scene doesn't involve the viewer because the viewer doesn't have to invest anything into the image, but simply absorb it like a sponge thrown into a puddle. With no investment comes no identification and no emotional commitment. If you don't care about the characters, why waste time reading about their lives? Carolly

Attached Link: One of Scott McCloud's favorite comics!

Thanks to everybody for their comments. Carolly-- You give a fair representation of McCloud's stance in the early chapters of Understanding Comics, but either he's changed his mind or he didn't quite make himself clear. All I know is that he's an enthusiastic fan of Patrick Farley's work ( http://www.e-sheep.com/ ), including the Poser comic Delta Thrives ( http://www.e-sheep.com/delta/ ). In the first draft of my Invisible Art essay I included a critique of McCloud's iconic theory, but dropped it from the final essay. Here it is: 'The concept of invisible art is not to be confused with the theory of iconic images espoused by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics. McCloud asserts that cartoon images are more suitable for comic art because: 1) they resemble words, creating unified expression; 2) they are more universal, allowing for greater audience identification And 3) they are better at stimulating the imagination. But #1 assumes that the mind is incapable of processing disparate information, #2 assumes that specificity creates alienation (i.e., the more you know about someone, the less you like them), and #3 assumes that art exists within a closed system, so that everything the artist depicts subtracts from what the reader is permitted to imagine. None of these assumptions are likely to be true.'

Thanks, LD.

Picking up on the "invisible art" idea, and skirting around whether the art should or should not be visible in the storytelling, I think there's a general "new language" problem. Using photographs was once a new language in comics, and until people understand the language the results can be like reading a poem written by somebody learning a new language. Look at the examples in that article. The face in the "Kingdom Come" panel is an idiom slipping through from another language. Telling a story in still pictures isn't like a movie, and it doesn't matter if the pictures are drawings, photographs, or 3D renders. But they're distinct dialects, perhaps related, and perhaps akin to a pidgin or a creole or some other evolving mix of older tongues. After all, isn't the composition of a picture; the alignment of eyes and lines in the scene, a language which tells us where to look, creating a sequence in a single image.

I just finished and had approved my Masters Thesis. The subject was the interreflectivity of comics and society. Aside from McCloud's fine work, I also drew heavily on Semiotics, the "science" of symbolism and language. Here's a URL for anyone interested in the basics: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B Having taught the concepts of subliminals when I was teaching advertising and journalism, I think that this whole field is something that needs some serious academic exploration. The artists involved in creating the art should be a part of this discourse. One of the literarary theories teaches that the author artist) has no idea what they are saying when they write (create) their work and it is up to the professionally trained critic to tell the world what the point is. I don't buy that idea but I think that the artist (writer) should be an active participant in the dialogue with the observer. What are your thoughts?

As a raging manga fan I have to say that I take Mc cloud's theory more to heart... @@ ...But it's all good. I don't love manga any more than I love the classic EC SF comics of the 50s, and you simply can't get more different in presentation than that. ^^

I'm delighted to see the sophistication of these responses. I thought the piece would be slightly interesting to Poser artists, but I'm surprised to encounter folks who are deeply familiar with McCloud's work, not to mention Semiotics (the fundamentals of which I've only skimmed.) 3D art is definitely a 'new language,' as are comics. What a shame it would be if we were to conclude that the two weren't compatable! But I doubt that's the case. To answer Cedarwolf's question, I'm quite certain that most artists and writers have a firm grasp on what they're doing. But the role of the critic is 1) to verify that the intent of the work is achieved, and 2) to perceive details and themes that evade the artist's conscious awareness. Sometimes the artist chooses to assume the interpretive role and become their own critics. For instance, French novelist Alaine Robbe-Grillet published an article explaining the meaning of his first novel, Les Gommes, and went on to write a book about his writing philosophy, For a New Novel. But more often, artists let the work speak for itself.

Joezabel, I agree. One of the main arguments our graduate study group had on author intent was that, more often than the critic would like to acknowledge, the author's entire purpose was just to tell a ripping good yarn. I think many artists are the same way. I know that most of the time when I begin a Poser piece I start out by cruising through my folders and looking for bits and pieces I haven't played with recently, or ever, and fitting them together to see how it works. Usually it is only after I've mostly finished the piece that I have any sense of story for it. I've been thinking my way through a piece I want to create based on the concept of Plato's Cave and the reflections on the wall, the whole concept that we can never know the true form of something, only the inferior shadow of it, and how to make that into the visual I see in my minds eye. It'll probably be done very tongue-in-cheek, but I have to figure out the lighting and everything...and I don't have a good cave yet. Author intent? Critical Analysis? Is a cigar only a cigar?

Attached Link: http://www.undefined.net/1/0/

The cigar is only a cigar if it is not a pipe! (Sorry, I could't resist) To answer one of the questions above, I think that most artists will acknowledge the use of archetypes (or whatever) to get their message across. But there has to be respect for the icon or the symbolism in order to be worthwhile. Just using an archetype because it will sell the piece isn't good art. In that case, the artist is no more than a businessman who *uses* hard-working people to get ahead, and ill-treats them to boot. Figure that we deal in the play of Light and Shadow across form. Those two concepts are deeply burdened by millennia of meanings and associations. Chaos and Order. Form and Void. Weighty things! But, look, the fact that we contrast opposing thoughts bespeaks our dependence upon Zoroastraean duality. Perhaps the texturing of shadow and the nuancing of light show progress and sophistication from very primitive origins. Yet, each artist has to explore the concepts anew, even as each baby has to sort out "self" and "not-self". Black and white comics don't leave much room for graduated tone, so perhaps the absolutes of good and bad were more amplified. With photographs, it is more difficult to be so absolutely rigid. If the art in the comics becomes more realistic in appearance, it is possible that the stories being told will also have more flexibility in interpretation and more depths to explore. Possible. I do not follow comics... my interest in them is because they are another form of sequential art. The Bayeaux Tapestry, the stations of the cross, the tombs of the pharoahs are all sequential art, as are comics and animation. However, the comic which interests me most right now is called One Over Zero. I'd never encountered the idea of the "fourth wall" before. Fascinating. Carolly

Attached Link: The Mr. Nile Experiment

'Black and white comics don't leave much room for graduated tone, so perhaps the absolutes of good and bad were more amplified. With photographs, it is more difficult to be so absolutely rigid. If the art in the comics becomes more realistic in appearance, it is possible that the stories being told will also have more flexibility in interpretation and more depths to explore. Possible.' Fascinating notion! Cartoonists have been relatively successful in projecting complex psychological states onto simple cartoon characters-- Peanuts and Maus being obvious examples. But doing the reverse, projecting simplistic one-dimensional characterization onto realistically-rendered characters, is much more difficult. What appeals to me about photography and photo-realistic art, though, is the sense of objectivity. In a more objective mode of storytelling, the psychological states of the characters aren't immediately known, and part of the fascination of watching the story unfold is the game of infering the characters' personalities from their words and actions. Carolly, if you enjoy comics that play with the 'fourth wall,' you might enjoy the Mr. Nile Experiment (link above.)

The Mr. Nile Experiment is a brilliant piece of work, in my opinion. I'll be passing this link on to the other grad students in my group who are more into the philosophy of literature. I know they will appreciate it deeply. Maus is good, Peanuts is good, Pogo was brilliant, Doonesbury has (IMHO) sold out and is currently trying to find itself again. And then there is Frank Miller and his series Sin City. Very stark B&W with huge swaths of darkness and thick lines. The imagery is startling and draws the observer deep into the concept and story. The art is almost simplistic until you step back from it and actually look at what you are seeing. Then the complexity and nuance will catch you unawares and make you really think about the whole in relationship to its parts. Miller is the artist/writer who recreated the entire Batman concept in the Dark Knight series by showing the reader the sociopath beneath the mask. May I have permission to quote pieces of these posting for a paper I am working on? This discourse and discussion is relevant to the paper and, really, isn't this what forums are for?

Attached Link: JZ's essays on comics theory

Cedarwolf-- You're welcome to quote anything I've written on the web. I have a series of essays about comics theory, listed at the link above. I also wrote a lengthy review of Reinventing Comics, the url is http://amazingmontage.tripod.com/am200006.html

I'd be happy if anyone quoted me as a source for an idea, but I don't think I've said anything original. At most, I've pointed out another metaphor. But the balance between the critic and the actual art in explaining something is more complicated that it seems. For older works, or those from unfamiliar cultures, we don't have the context the artist is working in. How many people today know about the town of Guernica? What does not knowing do to the painting. And a good critic will add context. There are things which I write that have overloads of meaning that I'm not immediately conscious of. When I was fiddling with a fox=headed humanoid Poser character, and put it in an SS uniform, I was echoing a picture of Heydrich which I'd once seen. I wasn't actually conscious as I worked that his forename happens to be one of the literary names for the fox. The jokes about the final solution to the chicken problem came later. Sometimes my mind scares me.

Comics always have and will be about the story. If the story sucks, it doesnt matter how you create the art.

such an old thread, but I totally agree with the last post:  it's all about the story!! you can have the most beautiful artwork ever, but if your story sucks, then it's all pointless.... just set up a gallery and forget about it... on the other hand, even if your artwork is not that good, if the story is compelling and transport the reader/viewer to another place, to there the plot is going on, and makes him forget about the "real" world and be totally transported to the "fantasy" world, then you got the job done!!

of course, the ideal is to find a balance between the two...  regarding another subject mentioned here, I saw a Poser comic using Emboss and Drop Shadow on the dialog balloons and the sound effects, as opposed to using the regular plain style seen in regular comics... 3D effects and 3D dialog sort of made more sense on 3D comics, so I think that's a step in the right direction...

whats going on in here today is someome fiddling with that time machine again!! i keep seeing really old threads being bumped today!!

Thread Necromancy!

haha, necromancy... I just did a search on anime/manga related topics, to see if someone else in Poser is getting involved with manga stories (as opposed to regular american comics stories)... turns out most topics about this were from 2004... apprently after that there was no much interest in the subject, sad to say...

jeez! wouldya lookit that kitty! I wouldn't wanna mess with it before it had its first cuppa coffee in the morning. :lol:

@ pjz99 - Hilarious!