Will Eisner and Craig Thompson Graphic Novel

So for this week reading, I decided to read Will Eisner’s most famous graphic novel, Contract with God. Will Eisner is considered to be the one of the earliest cartoonist to work in the American comic book industry. He is also one of the cartoonists who pioneer the term graphic novel. His famous work including the spirit, his early adaptation of comic before he tried the new approach, which is, A contract with God.

This is the first time I read a graphic novel and so far I had a blast. This is like stepping into a new territory for me. Will Eisner really bring a new format of reading novel.  In a way graphic novel for me is like a mix of comic book and novel. You get the novelty, the complexity of a novel; on the other hand you also get the simplicity of the reading from the comic, by explaining it through images, and not just words.

Reading graphic novel from Will Eisner is really such an experience. The clarity of the drawing is what makes it really easy to read. The way he use the ambience to clarify the emotional state of the character is really clear. I guess what makes his work as a graphic novel different than the other comic is the way he use the panel. There is a lot of freedom in each panel that makes his work stands out. I guess the way he draw each panel itself is what makes A contract with God is so much different than a comics. The sentences that explains the story also drawn in such a way, that really enhance the mood of the story. We can see it in the beginning of A contract with god where we can see the main character is walking in the middle of the rain. The sentences “ All day the rain poured down on the Bronx without mercy” are also drawn to look exactly the same with the drawing. This is also what makes it different than comics. In the comics, you can see how the words or dialogue are seems to be drawn just for the sake to clarify what is this picture is all about. Here in this graphic novel, we ca see that the dialogue itself is also used to enhance the drawing itself. It has a similar approach to a story book where the word itself is also part of the art whereas the comic book, the word used is seems to be drawn separately and not further enhance the complexity of the drawing.

After reading Will Eisner’s work, I tried to read another well-known graphic novel artist work, Blankets by Craig Thompson.  Overall, I feel that the format of his graphic novel is no different than Will Eisner. The freedom in using the page to illustrate what is happening and how to make it even more dramatic, The way he use the panel to illustrate the mental stage of the main character. In will Eisner, A contract with God, we can see that he tried to convey the emotion through the environment state. For example in the first story, where the main protagonist was in distress and threw the stone, the environment changed into a blazing thunderstorm as if the nature really understands him.  In Craig thompson’s graphic novel  however, the emotional state of the main character are usually portrait in a very stylized form to give the idea that all of these are only happen in the main character’s mind. Like of the example would be the scene where the little brother was thrown into the extra room that is very stuffy, the room was drawn as if that room is like the monster cave where there lived a big mouthed monster which is only a foldable bed in reality. It is really interesting the way Craig Thompson depicted the mindset of these kids.

Another similar approach that I notice from both Craig Thompson and Will Eisner is also the way they use the background around the character to depict the emotional state of the main character is pretty similar. While in Will Eisner, he use a lot of vertical lines or any other one way lines to give a more dramatic over the emotional state of the main character, Craig Thompson’s approach is broader with the use of the pitch black background  and almost simplified line drawing of the main character, giving a good negative space to see the emotional state of the main character better. He also use the same approach as Will Eisner with the line direction, but I feel that Craig Thompson has evolved the style much further. Maybe it is because as graphic novel evolve over time, the style is also evolved. So here in Craig Thompson, depiction of main character emotional state is also the evolve version of Will Eisner approach. The concept is the same, but the style is really different as Craig Thompson’s work is newer.

Reading these two graphic novels is really a new experience for me. At first, I assume that when I was assign to read graphic novels, I would have to read a long passage, just like a novel. However, as I began reading this graphic novel, my perspective was changed. Who knew that reading graphic novel is fun. This is really different than what I had expected. I hope I can read more graphic novel if I had more time.