[Trollbabe comics] Life and Death

[ejh]

Ralph, FYI, Ron doesn't tell us artists any more than he tells you.   The single hardest thing about doing Ron's Trollbabe strips is trying to convey so much in so small a space.  It got easier when I realized that the ambiguity was just the way Ron wanted it and I didn't have to try to visually-storytell my way around it.

I would have killed for twice the panel count per strip, to be able to convey more.  But hey, I just draw them pretty pictures. :)

[Bankuei]

Hi Ron,

I just wanted to say I like how the Trollbabes take all the random weirdness pretty casually, there's a level of deadpan sarcasm that I also see in the Hellboy comics, plus the general unpredictability of where things are going that I like in the stories overall.

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Chris, that's a high compliment. It so happens that I didn't encounter Hellboy comics until fairly recently, within the last year. This represents an unforgiveable lapse of attention on my part, at least from the standpoint of the comics-reader-dude I was for most of my life.

Anyway, I really love the Hellboy comics and the main reason is exactly what you're identifying: the sense of mild separation of the reader from the material, largely through the outsider perspective of the main character; and the "tone poem" nature of most of the stories. On their own, they hint at a story going on, whether in the minor characters or the main characters doesn't matter. All together, they represent a powerful and seamless whole - regardless of the missing parts and exposition.

Mignola's ability both to write and to illustrate in a way that reinforces all of the above at once simply astounds me. I do share a preference for this approach, and it is indeed a guiding aesthetic for writing Trollbabe, but even a whiff of success on my part is a victory. Whereas reading Hellboy is a swept-up-up experience with a master.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Interesting.  The handful of times I picked up a hellboy comic I was decidedly underwhelmed, largely because they left me with a sizeable "huh?" factor.

By contrast in Xenozoic Tales (the only comic I'm a total zealot about) there is never a single panel where you don't know precisely what events are transpiring or what's going on.  There is still mystery and foreshadowing and loose ends to be tied up...but there is never a frame where it isn't clear exactly what just happened.  

That's partially because of the incredible clarity of the art, but mostly because he isn't afraid to supplement the image with text narration and exposition.

Despite the old saw about "a pictures worth a thousand words" I find pictures to be superior only for conveying descriptive imagery of scenery or appearance.  For action and delivering information, prose is far more effective, and combined you have the ability to convey maximum information in minimal space.


I'll make you a deal Ron.  You start adding some more narrative text to the comics and I'll start spelling Rhetta without the 'h' :-)

[Bankuei]

Hi Ralph,

It's definitely a style issue to which you either love it or hate it.  I think its also a big part of pulp writing, from Howard to Lovecraft that they'll throw in random things, or off-handedly mention something and leave you hanging.  Sometimes you get a bigger picture of it, sometimes you just have to accept that you'll never know.  

Which, to me, fits totally into that random weirdness that I was talking about.  The main characters in these stories run into the most strange things, and generally will never know the whole story behind anything, while the audience might be piecing together some of it, at best.  Instead of continually teasing with a piece of info(such as, Wolverine's Past, for, what? 30 years?), it's either made clear, or simply a piece of color to the story.

Chris

[greyorm]

Ralph,

Forgive me if I'm misrecalling, but didn't you mention at one point that you tested as an auditory learner? If I'm recalling correctly, then perhaps the reason the style doesn't appeal to you is because there's nothing to "hear" in the visual, whereas the exposition present when there are written words accompanying the images is what does it for you as a reader/viewer.

[Valamir]

Chris:  No doubt.  I'm not a big fan of either of those authors either.  I particularly can't stand Lovecraft.  Probably part of why I really like the Potter novels.  Zero ambiguity.  There's a lot of secrets, but the events that happen on any given page are crystal clear.


Raven:  I don't remember saying that.  But in school I learned a heck of a lot more skipping lectures and reading the text book then I ever did from the majority of my profs, so yeah, I probably am predilicted (is that a word?) towards text.

[ejh]

Woo! New strip!

Andrew, I'm totally loving seeing the panel or two I did of Witten's Holm back in "Birthroot" resurrected in passing in your strips.  Rock on!

[Andrew Navaro]

Thanks, Ed!

As I mention in the Trollbabe section of my website, I took a lot of my cues in illustrating this strip from your previous work.  I couldn't see any reason not to keep some continuity between strips and have Tha's tower and the surrounding area be essentially the same.  My interpretation of Tha herself is also derived from your work in "Birthroot."

Thanks for making my job easier!

--Andrew

[ejh]

RE: this week's strip...

Yay!  Naked Tha!

But more interesting still, the music in the background suggests that my friend Joe, with whom I was discussing the strip late last week, successfully guessed just which plot threads are about to converge in this strip, and perhaps how.  Can't wait to see where it goes.