PROJECT 1: COMICS AND ZINES
BRIEF
In pairs, we were tasked with creating an 8 page comic based around the nursery rhyme There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, giving it our own twist. Within our pair, we decided to approach the project from quite a dark angle; specifically exploring the themes of poverty and desperation due to the bleak and quite brutal final lines of the poem.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do
She gave them all broth, without any bread;
And whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed
- Dated to the mid-18th century, although suspected to exist as older versions
- Comment on the social conditions of the time; the struggle of poverty amongst the working class
- Potentially an allegory for George II’s inability to effectively rule at the time, as he was colloquially referred to as ‘The Old Woman’
- We decided on a modern twist, retaining the focus on poverty but through modern homelessness
RESEARCH & PLANNING
ASHLEY WOOD
Looking at taking a darker route with the comic, we wanted the style and colour palette to reflect that.
Ashley Wood creates this effect largely through the use of restricted duotone and a very watery texture, likely achieved through watercolour or inks.
SAM KEITH
Keith similarly tends toward duotone, although his work has a sharper and more solid texture to it.
He also uses a lot of bizarre shapes and angles to draw attention and focus onto specific panels, as well as less regimented panel shapes which create a sense of dynamism.
Some character concept designs; playing about with different poses and styles.
A more cartoon style would have allowed us to exaggerate the features of our character stereotype, but ultimately I felt the more realistic style was better suited.
THUMBNAILS
As the poem presents a core theme of claustrophobia, we were keen to experiment with unusual panel shapes and manipulated perspective to inspire a sense of that.
DEVELOPMENT
MOCK-UP
I made a fairly quick mock-up of the comic in order to see how the panels worked together, and whether anything needed changing. The main changes that I made were to the perspective of the aerial-view panels.
LINEART
I used watered down ink and fine-liner to get the base tones for the final line work, fleshing out the pages on A4.
I spilt ink on this panel and then digitally removed it, though wasn’t happy with the printed reproduction; so ultimately left it.
COVERS
We based the covers around the shoes, as the tie-in to the original nursery rhyme, with the front and back covers making up the pair.
INKING
We stuck to a duotone colour palette, using red to highlight the dress particularly, as the key representation of the ‘Old Woman’s lifestyle and the meaning behind our interpretation of the rhyme.
FEEDBACK
- The covers would have benefitted from being solid colour, rather than patchy as they were due to having coloured them with inks.
- The start of the comic didn’t flow well because of the starkness of the white inside front cover.
