Picture Stories

I came across a marvelous resource today that has already influenced some aspects of Halfland. I admit that I've never enjoyed what I knew of comic books, even though some of my best friends love them. Boingboing.net threw a link to a wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_balloon) that explored the origins of balloon or scroll speech throughout historic art. The image above is what initially caught my eye, as I'd never before considered the origins of this device. Seeing them in this context sparked an inspiration for some personal (outside 1/2 L.) artworks.

An external link there (http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.speechballoons.evolution.html) lead me to Bug Powder. I started poking around the rest of their origin & evolution of modern comics section, in contributor Andy Kru's carefully curated comic archive (http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.origin.html). It was there I found the Max and Moritz comic by Wilhelm Busch (1865) (http://bugpowder.com/andy/e.busch_mm.html) I was charmed by the style of verse and highly entertaining animated drawings. It's got me thinking that I'd like to write Halfland's story in this style of rhyming couplets and choose liveliest frames to illustrate a Halfland storybook.


This particular folk image from the comic got me thinking about making a cellar in the cottage for future episodes!

For those of my comic loving friends, I can recommend the Bug Powder UK Small Press weblog for it's smart artful tastes in all things small press comic and art. (http://bugpowder.com/) I especially dug the mention last Monday (8/21) of Stuart Kolakovic's inventive 'A Prince Such As I', micro comic printed as if an vintage 45rpm vinyl single.

I think I'm starting to get it.