2A DRAWING AND SPECULATION
Chris Ware
Analysis of Building Stories by Chris Ware
COMPOSITION: Comic book-like, main focus of area or building in the middle of page with squares of comic strips around it- Interesting and eye-catching composition, may be even messy at first glance.
PERSPECTIVE/ POV: Multiple different POVs on one page, consists of zoomed out drawing of area, the character's perspective and even a second person perspective- Creates a full understanding of what is going on in the comic, from how the surroundings of the character looks like to being able to experience what the main character is looking at all on the same page.
LINES: Clean outlines of drawings using same thickness of lines, barely any shadows or vaguely drawn things in the image- Uniformity in comic, allows drawings to be clean and visually pleasing to look at.
SEQUENCE: No particular order in the 14 parts of the comic, but there is a certain sequence in each of the individual parts, depicting passing of time or a sequence of moments in the character's life- Allows readers freedom of interpretation of the comic sequence, emphasises on the "mix of histories in a block" where every individual, despite living in the same block is experiencing something different in their lives.
SPACE: Places main building where character is in at that moment in the foreground of the comic while the background space is mostly used for the comic panels- An interesting way of telling a story, gives the reader a visual idea of where the story is taking place and the view around the place while the character's story is in the background.
For my first drawing, I use Ware's technique of putting a building where the story is taking place in the foreground while I sequence the story of the character at the sides around the building according to the area it is taking place at.
The story shows a frustrated main character who feels unhappy with her life and takes out her anger on a mirror reflecting her image, to resemble how she blames herself for the feelings she has currently.
The different panels attempt to show the passing of time and different moments in her life, where she feels so alone and upset by her current state in life.
USE OF ARROWS: Similar to Ware, I used arrows to connect my comic panels to allow readers to follow the sequence of the story.
DIFFERENT SIZES OF COMIC PANELS: Different panel highlights what I wanted to portray to the readers
Smaller, squarish panels usually depict drawings that allow readers to take in the atmosphere of the area in the moment. It shows the passing of time while being stuck in the same place.
Rectangular panels depict main highlights of the story that I wanted to portray or allow readers to focus on.
Drawing of building: Ware often uses black to colour in the windows of the apartments that he was not focusing on, which I did similarly to bring the reader's attention towards where the story I was drawing was taking place.
For my second drawing, I wanted to experiment with Ware's use of foregrounding and backgrounding of places and comic panels. I tried to capture the details around the place in the park in the same moment, to depict how there is always something different happening despite being in the same place.
The story continues where frustrated main character spends her time outside, where she still feels so alone and stuck in time in a world where everything feels like it's progressing except her.
Here, I sandwich the main character between the 3 different panels on top and bottom to depict the passing of time and show how she feels stuck as the world around her progresses on. The 3 different panels progress at a similar time frame, depicting the same building I drew above and on the bottom showing the change in light reflections on the water as time progresses.
The three different situations drawn here bring attention to some details in the park where the main character is sitting at, to depict how every living creature is experiencing something different in the same moment.
Overall, I wanted to tell a story that encapsulates the main character's indescribable feeling of loneliness and frustration in this covid world using Ware's techniques that are effective in depicting the change of time and capturing detailed moments in the story.
ESSAY
Building Stories is a graphic novel published by Chris Ware in 2012 and features the lives of four people living in the same building in fourteen different segments. Ware’s work captures fragments from the lives of “melancholic, despondent, shamed figures” (Ball & Kuhlman, 2010, p. 146) in a modern society, depicting this through a unique way of storytelling. In this essay, I will be examining Ware’s use of colours, sequencing and drawings in Building Stories and explaining how I have applied these techniques to my own works in this project.
The fragmented sequencing of Building Stories was effective in examining the different moments in the life of every character, and making readers piece the story together to make a whole on their own. This technique forces readers to figure out how to “disentangle this seeming clutter of words, lines and shapes” (Zetter, 2020) which allows us to reach a deeper level of connection and understanding to the work because each interpretation of the work is personal. Ware uses “repetition and sequencing to unify the entire sequence” (Ball & Kuhlman, 2010, p. 93). In the fragmented fourteen segment story, his use of repetition in character’s appearance invokes a sense of familiarity and allows readers to understand the story of the character. I incorporated these techniques used by Ware, in order to allow readers to piece the story together to create their own interpretation of my work and thus, and by doing so, creating a more personal and meaningful experience. My work consists of a two part segment, where both are interlinked but portray a different story each. One segment examines the world around the “main character” in a fragmented way, while the other incorporates Ware’s similar technique of storytelling by examining the life of the “main character” inside her apartment.
In Building Stories, colour is an essential part of Ware’s work. The colour palette Ware used consist of “largely muted, balanced tones with some vivid splashes” which contribute to the “ordinariness” (Ball & Kuhlman, 2010, p. 233) of the contemporary space Ware portrays. Using colours, Ware achieves the overall effect he wishes to portray to readers, which is the sense of a mundane, everyday life. Through the use of a muted colour palette rather than a vivid one, the comic feels melancholic yet warm, which is appropriate as the comic gives us an intimate and personal insight into the mundane or melancholic aspects of these character’s lives. I chose to use the same colour scheme as Ware used in Building Stories to achieve a similar effect he did in his works. The colour scheme brought my work to life but also emphasized on the overall mundane scenes around the characters which I wanted to portray.
Ware’s work in Building Stories also often has a focus on architecture, where he draws the buildings and interior of houses with precise detail and accuracy. He draws the buildings portrayed in the story based off of an actual building in Chicago, where he is living at which shows how he takes inspiration from his own life to create this story. It emphasizes on how Building Stories is not just a story about four different characters but has a personal touch to it where Ware implements elements from his own life. The way in which Ware portrays the outside structure and people around the building while also showing us the “architectural cutaways” (Cohn, 2017) inside the building brings out the contrast between the “structure” on the inside “in direct opposition to the messiness outside” (Dittmer, 2014). This technique used by Ware provides readers with the sense that we are getting a glimpse into a personal aspect of these character’s lives and also allows us to see the interiors of these character’s houses. Through this technique, I was able to portray my character’s mental state by showing how messy and unkempt the interior of her house was. Bringing detail to the interior of the character’s house was a way for me to be able to convey what I want to be understood about by character, but without verbalizing it using text or speech.
Overall, Ware’s techniques, such as his unique way of sequencing, colour palette and drawing of architectural spaces contributed largely to the overall outcome of the novel. These techniques were purposeful and incorporated to silently affect the overall aspect of the comic, thus truly allowing the reader to experience what Ware wanted to portray through his work. The effect of mundaneness and melancholy that Ware achieved through these techniques in Building Stories was something that I tried to incorporate in my own work in order to complete my story.
References
Ball, D. M., & Kuhlman, M. B. (Eds.). (2010). The comics of chris ware : Drawing is a way of thinking. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Cohn, J. (2017). The Politics of the Diagram as Graphic Narrative: Chris Ware and Chad McCail. SubStance, 46(2), 33–49. https://doi.org/10.3368/ss.46.2.33
Dittmer, J. (2014). Narrating urban assemblages-Chris Ware and Building Stories. Social & Cultural Geography, 15(5), 477–503. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2014.908235
Zetter, N. (2020). Cybernetic melancholia: Chris Ware’s Building Stories and cultural informatics. Textual Practice, 34(3), 437–460. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2018.1513061
