Week #15: Revising a Blog Post

For the final class and revision, I decided to continue improving the World Comics post about Asterix. I feel like it was partly superficial and required a bit more depth in the craft of the comic itself.

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"Asterix and Obelix" was the first world comic I've ever read. These type of comics are made all around the world, some even deal with stories from old, or invent stories based on events that happened in the past. Asterix is a gaul that protects his settlement from the terrible Romans. With his companion Obelix, they get into all matter of troubles. His adventures are episodic and very seldom do they have chapter arcs.

What I like about this comic is the way the artist and author manages to tell both points of views by giving the Romans a distinct setting: their camps. The slapstick humor also helps to keep the reader engaged. This comic is definitely geared toward a younger audience, while teaching some history.

Now, in matters of craftsmanship and art style, this also helps establish the cartoony fun of the characters. Exaggerated expressions and forms where you can tell they're humans, but flexible enough to have slapstick create funny forms. After all, you don't want to scare the children who will be taking a look at it. Even the way they are colored, flat and bright, is a separation from reality and adds to the cartoony reality of the comic. This way one cannot confuse or immerse the way a realistic comic would.

The dialogue was lettered with the tone of the characters in mind. The general's screams were in bold and larger than regular talking. This simple change and attention to detail gave the strip more animation and cartoony feeling to it. A difference from all the serious comics.

It's not realistic, as I said. It's meant to drive the eye and take in information as quickly as possible. It has the pace of a strip comic, so it makes sense it would be limited in palette. It reminds me of 50's comics, when colors were limited in toner and newspaper printers. A lot of red, blue, green and yellow, and mix between with white and black.

I believe at this time the trend was to make things as commercially wide as possible, hence the Asterix and Obelix television series which appeared parallel to the strip comic. Of course one could exist without the other, but color television was the new medium that attracted kids.