Monday, April 27, 2009

first 2 pages from a "choose your own adventure" book

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0qhmuhTzOz4/SfW7xvnu1GI/AAAAAAAAAOE/_qOIYe6ohpM/s1600/page-1.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0qhmuhTzOz4/SfW7xj3DueI/AAAAAAAAAOM/6EwC6zeI8vM/s1600/escape2.jpg

8 comments:

Uland said...

I always give it a shot, Ray, but I lose steam pretty quickly. It seems like very often your comics lack a central narrative engine. A subject, basically. Not saying it can't be bizarre, but it needs to be made known , imo. As it stands, I'd rather just look at some weirdo sketchbook page or something..

Unknown said...

thanks for your feedback, Luke. The first page started off in my sketchbook actually.

The impetus for this project was trying to recreate a gamebook I drew on notebook paper as a kid. The subject of this comic is childhood traumas, mostly. Bible stories, fear of drowning, sex dreams. I know it reads like sketchbook wankery, but it feels like honest work to me, just unrefined.

You're right that I rarely have the concentration span for narratives. Or continuity, for that matter. I like the immediacy of ideas but I haven't quite found a way to orchestrate them.

I haven done stories with linear narratives and layouts but they're mostly sentimental, two-dimensional stuff. Needing to make things known always work against me. I'm not one of those deconstructionist guys who feels that they are 'above' telling a story, by far.

Unknown said...

This idea of a central narrative engine...

My most natural inclination is to cram a million ideas into a page and the outcome is often incoherent as a result... However there's always the idea (excuse?) that if I make enough stream-of-consciousness strips like these a self-contained logic, or 'universe' will emerge naturally out of all the disjointed odds and ends, and recurring characters and location and themes will eventually be the central focus of my work.

Luke, do you think that quantity will inevitably shed clarity over the big idea? Or if I keep going in this direction will I end up with a whole lot of pages of fruitless compulsion?

zeke said...

Made sense to me, I would've liked to have read the whole thing.
Seems like you've put a lot of thought into the structure of it.
Has a kind of 80's feel to it somehow, like something you'd see in 'Weirdo', if that makes any sense.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

On my computer the images you posted are not entirely visible (A quarter of them is invisible) and I can’t see them full screen by clicking on them. I basically can't read the comics...

Anonymous said...

It's working now, thanks!

Anonymous said...

I was maybe too flippant before. Wrong tone. Apologies.
-Luke

Gaspard Pitiot said...

Did I comment on your dream stuff ? It’s good to write about dreams. I’m fucked. My dreams are so obnoxious at the moment that I couldn’t even think about publishing them on the Internet.