“Everyone can draw comics and create worlds.” Karrie Fransman is an UK illustrator and artist, specialising in comic book creation, such as the gender swap fairy tales and death of the artist. Karrie Fransman’s work is incredibly interesting, as she discussed that she isn’t subjected to one form of storytelling, such as working for the telegraph and being invited to Belgium to create a story based there. This could be from book covers to illustration pages to pages within a graphic novel. Another remarkable point to note about Karrie Fransman is that she doesn’t focus on one particular medium or particular style for her work. I believe this statement has been helpful with my current ways of working, as throughout the connections course, the idea of must trying to find your personal voice, has been overwhelming to say the least. So the prospect of choosing a wide variety of styles and voices have appealed to me.
Karrie’s lecture at the University of Derby has been incredibly interesting and insightful. From her role as a beginner graphic novelist to now working on new and interesting projects, has been completely inspiring. The first part of the lecturer discussed her early years as an illustrator, from teaching herself and finding companies she could work for. What I do love about her work is the gender swap fairy tales, the whole concept behind this is the genders of fairy tale characters are completely swapped over. For example one of the fairy tales was handsome and the beast, this completely revolutionised how we see gender in the 21st century. I love her interesting take on gender equality throughout her book, especially the association of different genders and roles. Karrie Fransman is not subjecting her gender storytelling to male and female, but instead giving more representation of different genders on a wider field. Her association with storytelling allows this to be more interesting and intriguing in the present society.
The second part of the lecture, Karrie focuses on the different elements of storytelling within a narrative. Karrie gave examples of artists and illustrators who provided an effective narrative, works including the wrong way by Brecht Evans. Who uses decorative blocks of colour to provide an interesting and insightful narrative. The colour in the illustration represented the different personalities of people within the work. For example the red blocks of colour represents that those particular characters are extremely bold and bright. Whereas the grey character is seen as plain and considered unsocial. I do agree with Karrie Fransman that the use of colour is effectively displaced correctly throughout the work. The consideration of page layout is also an important element for displaying an effective narrative. An example that Karrie Gave was the gigantic beard that was evil by Stephen Collins. I do love how Stephen Collins effectively uses narrative within his own advantage. The use of texture and where the line sits on the page allows the narrative to flow more easily and at a greater advantage. The colour choice is quite simple, yet effective, in portraying a dark and sinister story.
Karrie Fransman uses these examples, to then discuss the important elements of storytelling. The invisible ink by Brian McDonald has been helpful in giving continuity and direction to storytelling. Brian McDonald summaries the main devices within a narrative. The first part of the narrative, which Brian deems essential is the once upon a time, every day or until one day as a starting point. This helps provide context within the storyline and gives the viewer time to understand what the particular narrative will be about. The next part is the ‘because of this’, which can be used to develop the story further and add a greater interest. The element is the finally, which develops into a climax. Then leading towards the end of the story called the ‘ever since that say’. I believe that his direction of storytelling is essential for illustrators, artists and even writers. Though storylines don’t tend to always follow the exact narrative. I still believe that Brian Mcdonald’s is helpful with turning my own story into an effective narrative.
At the end of the talk, Karrie Fransman discusses the main objectives of the brief. Karrie Fransman’s brief responds to living in Lockdown. The brief’s objective is to give a illustration narrative of a character that we have seen or imagined during Lockdown. My village is personally quiet, but I have noticed that there is a ginger cat that has been annoying my dog throughout the village. I thought this could easily respond to lockdown, as I kept the feeling that the cat, was living in perfect freedom, allowed to go outside and roam free. Whereas his ‘humans’ had to stay inside. For the main element I decided to go with a graphic novel. As I do particularly enjoy portraying a narrative in this way. Here are the sketches below of my previous cat sketches. The other idea for the graphic novel is to create a graphic novel of someone traveling to work in there daily life. But gradually becoming more tired and hopeless. But by the end, of the graphic novel people announce that everyone is vaccinated – and are finally free. to go out the house. Of course at this moment, everyone is still facing tighter restrictions. I just hope that people would find hope in it. Of course this does not mean that everything will be back to normal.
At the start of my particular brief I focused upon doing rough sketches of my story. The story represents the doctors and nurses putting there life on the line throughout the Covid 19 pandemic. In this story it is my intention to portray them as heroes. It is personally based on an imaginary character of a nurse stabbing Covid with a sword. Personally, throughout this pandemic, I am looking forward to a day when Covid is completely gone from society. (I know it will be here for a while) And looking foward to a day when people celebrate in the streets, when Covid is gone from society. Of course I know that Covid will be with us for a particularly long time, I just wanted to produce an illustration that represented my hope for the future.
Here are the sketches below.
Here is my final
Jess's Illustrations discussions 