Word + Image

In our Design 001 class, Brian Fies (a graphic novelist - look him up.  He is crazy talented) came in to give us a really interesting lecture about his career and passion rooted in comics.  One of the most important things that I personally got out of the lecture was how words and images must work together to create something amazing, because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Brian Fies mentions his use of fantastical imagery mixed with serious text.  In one panel he creates the image of his mother in Frankenstein's Laboratory, which conveys a sense of overwhelming tension and foreboding.  The text then displays the actual scientific information in an emotionless voice, but gives reasoning for this feeling of dread.

by Brian Fies

When is comes down to it, both words and images are essential to the novel.  Like my explanation of the whole being greater than its parts, Brian himself articulates this concept by saying "comics transcend words plus drawings. [...] Words convey half the meaning, pictures convey half the meaning, and neither has meaning without the other, or neither fully tells the story without the other."  Though he acknowledges the fact that other artists take different approaches, he says that this style works for him and is imperative in his storytelling.

Do I believe that, if Brain Fies was simply a writer rather than graphic novelist, he could write an engaging and sympathetic story of his mother's and his family's struggles?  Yes, and I'm sure that writers have in the past.  However, I stand by the fact that it would not be nearly as affective as his novel, Mom's Cancer, due solely to his balancing act between word and image and his spectacular use of metaphoric imagery (which I will expand upon soon).