In response to your query about collage and ‘irregular’ lettering, there is a big difference between being confronted with one page - a singular piece of art - versus navigating multiple pages, maintaining flow. Personally, I find it somewhat exhausting. I have seen other graphic memoir boldly experimenting with this and despite the cleverness, even the beauty, they end up being “unreadable” for the vast majority of their audience.
Used sparingly it might well be effective, but there is such a level of time, effort and commitment required for the reader that it risks being a barrier.
Perhaps if you are ‘drawn’ to creating more of these complicated pages, you might decide to treat them almost as a conventional illustration with an accompanying sparer text page bearing in mind that many readers will skip the words creatively layered into visual. This would allow readers to choose whether they want to “deep dive” or not while keeping them in the narrative.
(Another way at this would be to add the text later as a digital layer you can play around with … but then you lose the magic that arises through the moment by hand. )
Zoe thank you for your thoughtful comments on this. I am likewise torn - I love some of the visually-complex images in some graphic novels but, like you, find them really hard to read. And, I'm always there for the story, the through-line which, if it's too hard to find, is just plain annoying.
I am wondering about selecting certain words or phrases in the more complicated pages but not relying on those spreads to carry a lot of detailed meaning via text. I'm also not sure at all how many of these types of pages would be good to include. They are so different to the stick figure cartoony panels that actually work well to move the story along. Sigh. Every day, it seems, some new fork in the road appears...
Loving the journey…
In response to your query about collage and ‘irregular’ lettering, there is a big difference between being confronted with one page - a singular piece of art - versus navigating multiple pages, maintaining flow. Personally, I find it somewhat exhausting. I have seen other graphic memoir boldly experimenting with this and despite the cleverness, even the beauty, they end up being “unreadable” for the vast majority of their audience.
Used sparingly it might well be effective, but there is such a level of time, effort and commitment required for the reader that it risks being a barrier.
Perhaps if you are ‘drawn’ to creating more of these complicated pages, you might decide to treat them almost as a conventional illustration with an accompanying sparer text page bearing in mind that many readers will skip the words creatively layered into visual. This would allow readers to choose whether they want to “deep dive” or not while keeping them in the narrative.
(Another way at this would be to add the text later as a digital layer you can play around with … but then you lose the magic that arises through the moment by hand. )
For reference:
Both worthy with much interest - sumptuous even - but impenetrable for most readers.
“Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt” by Andrea Wulf / Lillian Melcher
“Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home” by Nora Krug
Thank you for the recommendations - I'm compiling a great list to check out! I'll be happily immersed for decades :)
Zoe thank you for your thoughtful comments on this. I am likewise torn - I love some of the visually-complex images in some graphic novels but, like you, find them really hard to read. And, I'm always there for the story, the through-line which, if it's too hard to find, is just plain annoying.
I am wondering about selecting certain words or phrases in the more complicated pages but not relying on those spreads to carry a lot of detailed meaning via text. I'm also not sure at all how many of these types of pages would be good to include. They are so different to the stick figure cartoony panels that actually work well to move the story along. Sigh. Every day, it seems, some new fork in the road appears...