Jesse Jacobs

I bought more comics over the summer but my main interest was Jesse Jacobs. I even managed to get the travelling man in York to let me have the last copy of safari honeymoon he'd been saving for himself although I think that was more down to me being a girl than my persuasive skills.

The comics I bought by him were :

Even the giants

I liked this one because of the simple progression from panel to panel. Some of them are almost like stills of animation. This leaves lots of panels to explore the line as texture he does.

The story has breaks in it of random pages that just have other comics on or poems. The panelling structure in his one million mouths run is really interesting instead of being separate images it is just a stack or congregation of boxes with characters inside each speaking one line of the thought/statement. I liked how this made written word more palatable alongside the drawings. Each imge can just hint at what its saying, it's overall the images/characters work together to create the tone of the piece. The colours as ever are minimal. He uses other colours to make lines, each choice seems to be based upon the colour scheme of the image. Colour is a consideration in every page. I think this is something I should work into my own work as its very heavily line based and this could be a good way to get a balanced colour pallet that works well on the line work.

By this you will know him

For this story it was the concept that I enjoyed the most it begins with creatures who are creating worlds and universes as part of an art project. One is making carbon nased life forms and he basically makes earth. It's like a whole new look at a creation story, thinking outside of the box. I think the key to a good story like this is taking something normal that everyone knows, like the origin of species/ creation theory and look at it in a different way. His narrative skills are impeccable and I couldn't put the comic down until I finished the story. This also contained some of my favourite drawn images. There is one panel where one child has smashed the other over the head with a log and the panel shows his brains mid splatter. The wiggly lines and detail inspired to get down into the gross. I think that images has been one of the biggest influences on my visual work all year.

Safari Honeymoon

This book was super nature. i really like all the wiggly shapes and flowing lines. This comic showed me that nature is an open book, like you can pretty much draw anything and its possible in nature because nature is crazy like that. The narrative to this story was another impressive one. I like how Jesse Jacobs narratives seem to dart back and forth between different parts instead of just religiously following one character through the narrative which I think is a bad habit I've picked up.