Graphic novels

Graphic novels are basically book length comics, they can sometimes tell one continuous story throughout or they can be a selection of shorter stories or even individual comic strips.

Before beginning this project I wasn't very aware of the difference between graphic novels and comics, purely because I have never really been interested in reading them. However I have heard of the popular comics such as superman as well as other superheroes and comics such as Benno and Dandy. We have been asked to research some graphic novels to look at some styles that we like the look of. 

V for Vendetta:

This particular graphic novel has a densely detailed narrative with multi plot lines. Looking at an example page of the novel I would say that each page is quite bust which in my opinion would attract late teens or possibly young adults because they would appreciate the dialogue whereas I think the younger generation would appreciate more illustrations. Of course the storyline of V for Vendetta complements the style of comic, this is because it is a political thriller which shows a shadowy freedom fighter, known only by the alias of "V", plots to overthrow it with the help of a young woman.

Graphic storytelling and visual narrative 

There can be many different styles of graphic novels, whilst looking through a bunch of comics our teacher bought to class I found an interesting style. I liked this because it is different to the others I have previously seen. The amount of text and illustrations differ on each page making it more interesting for the audience.

Louis Cyr graphic novel

I found this graphic novel online, this one is aimed at the younger generation. I like how each page is quite simplistic with not as boxes compared to V for Vendetta which is a lot more crammed. Personally I prefer this type of comic because I think the point of a comic is to have an equal amount of dialogue and illustrations however I also think it is good to have a variety to attract different generations. 

My idea

For our own graphic novel we were asked to make ourselves the subject. Firstly I struggled with this because it was quite a vague instruction, what sort of story about ourselves are we supposed to use? An event in our life that has happened? Factual information e.g. our favourite food, colour, song etc. However having a long this I realised that it is completely up to me and it was time to be creative. I liked the idea of telling a story about my dog so I decided to tell the story of how she grew, when we first got honey she was a young puppy, very playful and mischievous to the point she destroys the house and as an owner it was quite frustrating. My story board shows how honey realises she is causing trouble and as she begins to grow up she calms down which improves the relationship she has with her other owners and I.

My drawing skills are not great so I was struggling to think of ways I could create the graphic novel, I spoke to my teacher about my problem and he suggested I experimented with some drawing just to see what I could do. I found this task quite frustrating because I found it really difficult to draw these pictures. Here are the drawing I ended up with, I understand I am not an artist but with the time given this is all I could do.