Will Eisner assignment for Tuesday, January 30

Eisner holds an enormous place in comics and graphic novels history, both as a creator and as a theorist, and across the decades: we'll see his strip cartoon _The Spirit_ in the 1940s crimefighter era, his theoretical writings about "sequential art" and his leap into the extended narrative form in the 70s and beyond, up till his
recent death.


Your task is to find SOME piece of information about him, by him, about his work from any point and in any vein, and bring it to us in class Tuesday.

American Library Association's Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens, 2007

Thanks to Isabel Malonzo for this hot list, following nicely on our brief talk Tuesday about the National Book Critics Circle and, especially, the ALA's Newbery and Caldecott Awards.

Aline and Robert Crumb in the Times' Fashion & Style section

The New York Times just can't get enough of the graphic novel & cartooning scenes. This profile of the Crumbs' expatriate life in France has its charms (and there's an online interview and plenty of pix: follow the link).

Persepolis animated

In a New York Times feature today, we read about the process of adapting _Persepolis_ to the screen. In addition to a lot of information and focus on Marjane Satrapi herself, we also learn some things about European animation and how it works.

Ed Alcock for The New York Times

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, with whom she wrote and directed the film “Persepolis,”
based on her comic book, mugging for the camera in a style reminiscent of her drawings.

Early forms of graphic story-telling

In class today we took on these areas of interest for earlier examples of telling stories through pictures:
the ancient cave drawing, the medieval tapestry, the mural, the tryptych (great Scrabble word!), and then the 19th century work of photographer Muybridge.

Here you are asked to tell us a little about what you see your assigned area doing in the way of relaying information visually. Tell us what you've discovered, and give us a link or several links to where we will find out more.

*****
As you post, I'll add the links you provide to our list of links. Here are two from Samantha on murals:

Mural: Great Wall of L.A.

Mural: Balmy Alley in the San Francisco Mission District

Here are some from David on tapestries:

Tapestry: Lady and the Unicorn.1

Tapestry: Lady and the Unicorn.2

Tapestry: Hunt of the Unicorn.1

Tapestry: Hunt of the Unicorn.2

Tapestries: general info.1

Tapestries: general info.2

Here's what Amanda found about the photography of Eadward Muybridge:

Muybridge.1

Muybridge via Wikipedia

Visuals!

I don't know how well I retain images: I think I've long been text-based, tied to words, remembering names better than faces, place names better than places. I've sat through 18 innings of baseball and left the park without any visual memory, though I hang onto the scorecard and have a head for statistics.

That said, I've certainly held onto images from some things--especially when I've looked at them over and over again. Here's an example: I have probably seen the movie _Casablanca_ over twenty times in my life, though not in years. And while I certainly remember certain shots better than others, including the most dramatic and famous ones--Bogart's first look at Bergman, Henried and Bogart watching the plane take off into the fog--for some reason the happier moments, told in flashback, when Bergman and Bogart (Ilse and Rick) are happy, in love, back in Paris, are the ones I generally think of first (so what does that tell you about me? that I think of love BEFORE it has been lost?). Here's one of those images:



That image LIVES in my head, stands in for the entire backstory of Rick and Ilse, lost in love even as the Nazis prepare to march into Paris and send the couple apart, nearly forever.

Here's another (love that rear projection!): http://www.casalinx.com/images/slideshow/phpslideshow.php?directory=.¤tPic=18

What visuals hold such a place for you?

Paul Gravett

I mentioned Paul Gravett and his wonderful introductory book _Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life_ in class Tuesday. I am seeing the book available for around $18.00 here and there online. It's definitely worth looking at.

AND here's the address for his own site:

Paul Gravett