His Face All Red

This one is going to be short and sweet—I hope. There’s a comic strip called “His Face All Red”. My best friend posted it on Facebook the other day and I gave it a read. It’s only about ten pages long. Before I go into what’s so impressive about it, the comic can be found here.

Now that you’ve gotten a first hand look at this thing, did you notice how chilling it is without resorting to gore of gratuitous violence? Emily Carroll, the author in this case, makes impressive use of the medium she is working within to convey feelings and emotions without directly telling the audience very much. Sure this is easier because comics are a visual medium, but even in comic books we’re used to seeing characters launch into needless exposition to explain complexities in the narrative and the like.

It’s not uncommon for authors to treat their audience like they’re completely inept and unable to figure out the reason behind things or what’s actually happening in the plot, which is what makes this such a great piece of work. Emily trusts you to reason a lot of the bits and pieces out and you don’t even consciously do it. She doesn’t have to call attention to everything. You feel it and as you read you understand. That is a really hard thing to do and the line between too much telling and not enough showing can be hard to find for some. The trick is usually that you should show when possible, tell only if necessary or for dramatic impact.

Having said that, I know it’s easier said than done. Before the day is out I will break that rule multiple times.

Another blogger actually goes into an in depth page by page anaylsis of the plot and how it’s a good example of showing versus telling. That can be found here.

Video Games As Art

It’s not every day that a new medium (visual or otherwise) comes along that one can actually call art. Sure the word has been bastardized by relativism and much like I can say “I love Sour Cream and Onion Pringles” someone can say that anything is art.

But for those of us stick to a slightly more restricted definition of what art is, it’s not very often that something new comes along a way that you have to start a new classification. The film medium was probably the last major one before this, but I would have to say that despite what people think of videogames they’re art.

One of the most impressive, awe inspiring things about Diablo III when I first started to play was the fact that it was beautiful to look at. Not in the way that the graphics were crisp, but just in the style of the settings. The huge crumbling temples with water cascading down through them, the glowing radiant blue scars of a fallen star marring a cathedral. There’s something ethereal and arcane and very gothic about it all. Even when there is bloody body parts arcing across the screen there’s some beauty to be found in the visual aspect of the game.

Sound wise, the game is just as stunning. But before I ramble on about all of this, the story is pretty damn crisp too. Videogames had a meager beginning and they’ve come close to being film like in the last five or so years, but when you think about it they borrow some of the aspects of so many different areas, some games taking more than others, to compile it all and make something completely different for the player. Games have to have writers, programmers (which some also see as art), graphic designers and people to draw the characters and someone else to sculpt them in 3-D. Long before games had merit or stories, they were seen a toys and pass times. Now they tell stories, scare people, make them laugh or cry and hold a huge audience world wide.

I’m sure no one had this vision for them going into it, but I can be sure that video games are solidifying themselves as an artistic medium right now.