Ballad of a Thin Man
- illustration, printing and animation of a comic book
This is an ongoing project of illustrating Dylan’s ‘Ballad of the Thin Man’ in its entirety. It has been an on again off again mission wherein I would isolate myself for a week every year to ruminate over a song. It started of as a mere comic book exercise but soon became an ambitious project of 3 books of which this is the first. Currently I am working on animating certain aspects of it to see where it goes. All animation is done using the already done illustrations from the book.
BOOK I
The song tells a story of a proverbial 'Thin Man' who is a conformist of sorts and is suddenly faced with reality quite different from his. The illustrations and story try to formulate a rhythm of his mental state as he enters one nightmare after another.
Stage One - Illustration
The process involved concentrating on one stanza and illustrating one page at a time. The idea was to make it up as I go yet be true to the song’s gist (to the point of obsession). To compensate for the general lack of direction, few ground rules were strictly followed; no color, thin lines and a continuous composition that can be spread out. The format had each illustration overflow to the next page, so with every turn of the page, a continuity is maintained. This creates an illusion of a side scrolling game akin to Super Mario. The visuals try to expand and reinterpret the song and closely follow the lyrics.
The process involved concentrating on one stanza and illustrating one page at a time. The idea was to make it up as I go yet be true to the song’s gist (to the point of obsession). To compensate for the general lack of direction, few ground rules were strictly followed; no color, thin lines and a continuous composition that can be spread out. The format had each illustration overflow to the next page, so with every turn of the page, a continuity is maintained. This creates an illusion of a side scrolling game akin to Super Mario. The visuals try to expand and reinterpret the song and closely follow the lyrics.
Paper : Ivory Sheet (150gsm)
Size : 37.5 cm X 13.6 cm (one spread)
Stage Two - Printing
The booklet served a way of reading that was traditional. But due to the nature of the book, I thought of printing the whole book as one long illustration similar to the Bayeux Tapestry. This would enable readers to customize their viewing of the illustrations. Printing was done on a cartridge roll in a router machine. The rolled scroll was then straightened using a Pringles can. Each page was then folded like an accordian. And finally, it was sandwiched between two boards and kept in a cover
Paper : Cartridge roll
Size : 21 feet (full scroll)
Binding and cover : white board(1mm)
Photographs by R Manimaran
