Today I read the first book of Blacksad, an edgy French comic written by Juan Diaz Canales and illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido. The comics follow a panther detective through a series of anthropomorphic noir mysteries.
I really enjoyed Blacksad. The story is a fairly standard mystery, but Blacksad's voice is engaging and authentic as a noir narrator, and the artwork is amazing. I felt that the art style was especially effective because it helps immediately establish character personalities--the criminals are rats and scaly creatures, the sheriff is a border collie, etc. I also tend to find that in noir movies or comics all the characters tend to look the same (all the men are square-jawed and serious, the women attractive and curvy) and the style of Blacksad helped prevent this from happening for me.
Guarnido also does a fantastic job at using different shot angles and engaging acting within the panels. I enjoy this kind of visual storytelling much more than flatter shots that other comics used. The watercolor rendering also helps give such a gritty and dark comic a bit of a softer feel too compared to the sharper, more contrasted style that a lot of comics like Batman use, which keeps the comic from being too emotionally tiring to read (which can happen with something full of murder and dark thoughts on the narrator's part). Overall, Blacksad really hit a stylistic sweet spot for me.
When I opened The First Word of Patrick Farley's Electric Sheep comics , I was expecting a standard webcomic. I was very surprised that instead of formatting itself as a "normal" comic, The First Word is a sidescroller that uses simple lighting effects and motion design. This was entirely new to me–I thought standard webcomics were considered fairly modern, but this felt like something completely different. I enjoyed how Farley seemed to be playing around so much with new media to explore what a comic is. It really opened me up to think about what new possibilities might be with merging traditional storytelling and technology. The transitions were especially amazing to me, like the stream of different animals evolving. I did think Farley went very over-the-top with the lighting effects when sex came into play (I found the comic hard to take seriously at that point), but overall, the use of art was definitely something to study. One area where the comic f...
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