Research: Astro city

Book title: Astro city

Author: Kurt Busiek"s

Artists: Alex Ross (cover)

Brent Anderson

This line of comics is one that I found very interesting. While like most comics it is about superheroes and villains it looks at them as a part of real life, they deal with real life problems as well as fighting crimes and it shows them as a normal part of everyday life. It features very stereotypical superheroes and villains which are based closely on existing ones for example one of the series' main characters bears a close resemblance to Superman, the best thing about this fact is that the readers are meant to know this, it is much more about the concept of a world with superheroes more so than that of the characters which is why each story doesn't usually lead on to one another which is good because you get a different story each time unlike may comic lines which will stick to one story arch for a while, having different storys each time is sometimes better because it gives the reader something new each time.

While the art in this is very 'comic-bookie' I think it works because afterall it is telling the storys of superheroes but what makes it different is the fact that this style of art is being used to tell the story of what the real world would be like with superheroes in it.

First ideas and sketches continued...

Here is another character design for my futuristic story idea, the style of art I have chosen for my drawings so far is very rough and sketchy because I feel that it fits in with the world I have come up with for these characters because it is very rough and gritty.

First ideas and sketches

After having done some research by reading a few graphic novels I felt like coming up with a few character designs, I thought this would help me not only come up with a few story idea but also the style of art I would use.

This design is for a futuristic character, on his coat I have added blocky patches to make it seem more futuristic like some sort of technological futuristic item of clothing. I have drawn the character with futuristic weapons and in each picture you will see robots that the character has either killed or is battling.

When drawing this I was just playing around with what I thought was cool and through this I came up witha pretty simple story idea of a world which has been through some sort of war with robots (who knows where they came from?!) and how people are living on afterwards which includes many encounters with old rogue robot warriors from the war meaning most people have ways to defend themselves. This is just a pretty early simple idea which is pretty childish but I thought I would include it as part of the project to show the progression of my ideas and artwork.

Research: The Dark Knight Returns

Book title: The Dark Knight returns

pages: 192

Duration: 2 days

Author: Frank Miller

Artist: Frank Miller

Another of my favorite comics the Dark Knight Returns tells the story of a future Gotham city where Bruce Wayne has retired as batman due to his age and the death of his sidekick Robin. Appaling crime rates due mainly to the infamous Mutant gang and the return of Harvey Dent convince Wayne to don his old alter ego once again. While being a somewhat an unofficial addition to the Batman contunuity it gives a good view of a batman who was pushing 60, while having experience he lacks the physical attributes he had when in his prime and must prove to Gotham and himself that he has what it takes to protect his city once again.

As well as having a very compelling well written story This has some of my favourite artwork, whilst it is very 'comic bookie' type art work it is different from most art and had very nice texture to it.

Research: Phoenix: a tale of the future

Book title: Phoenix: a tale of the future

pages: 287

Duration: 2 days

Author: Osamu Tezuka

Artist: Osamu Tezuka

Phoenix a very clever and well written story that had me glued to its pages, this story is set in 3404 ad and shows a fairly depressing view of the future where the population of earth has been forced to live in five underground capitals due to lethal levels of radiation on the surface, the protagonist Masato is an escaped fugitive who used to be a police officer in one of the capitals, he escaped with the last of a banned shape shifting race called moopie's and on his run encounters a scientist who's one goal is to create life. This story whilst apearing to be simply a futuristic epic explores life, evolution, people and the idea of god.

One thing I really like about this graphic novel is the fun slightly childish manga art style as it contrasts with the serious and depressing plotline. In terms of inspiration I think the story and writting will help me the most as it is very well constructed and compeling.

Research: Moonshadow

Book title: Moonshadow

Pages: 468

Duration: 1 week

Author: John Marc DeMatties

Artist: Jon J Muth

As part of my research for this project I decided to look at a graphic novel called Moonshadow. It is an exiting story of adventure, love, life, death and incorporates alot of pop culture in to the plot such as books, music, films, people and much more. The story's protagonist and the story's namesake Moonshadow is a boy who was born and spent the first 12 years of his life in the zoo: a strange world created by the godlike race called the G'l dosses who abduct creatures from all over the universe including his mother. Monshadow is then told by his father that he is leaving the zoo to venture out in to the universe on a journey of self discovery, accompanying him are his mother, his cat and his reluctant friend Ira.

I thought that this story would be perfect to look at for this project for a number of reasons: the book features very beautiful art which is painted using watercolours and is very interesting to look at, I didn't at any point whilst reading this get bored with the art and I feel it will be very useful throughout this project as inspiration and for ideas of what style of art to use for my own comic. One of the great things about this story is that to compliment the art is very good writing, there is a very poetic theme in Moonshadow and there are constant refferences to pop culture, especially books making the reading experiance alot more interesting as well as exciting. Because my skills for this project lie mostly in the art this will really help my writing skills.