Existing graphic novel or comic publishers and products (U9: P1, P2)
Existing graphic novel or comic publishers and products (U9: P1, P2)
Learning outcome 1 (U9): Know the graphic novels and comics industry
DC Entertainment - American
DC Comic is an American comic book publisher created in 1934 by Malcom Wheeler-Nicholson, and is an extremely important unit of the DC Entertainment company and is also a subsidiary company of Warner Bros. DC comics is one of the oldest, and also largest American comic book companies with their first comic released under DC comics was published in 1937. The majority of these releases are set in the fictional DC universe which are home to many popular characters such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, who are now more widely known as the Justice League. This universe is also home to many villains such as Joker and Harley Quinn.
DC are most well known for their superhero comics which originated in the silver/gold age of comics. This titles include Batman, Cyborg Superman, Robin Hood, Wonder Woman, Flash , Green Arrow, and many more. And now, these comics have been turned into massive film franchises which make these titles popular with children as well as adults.
DCs first super hero comic, and one of their most popular is Superman which was created by Christopher Nolan, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Wayne Boring, and the comics were pencilled and inked by Jerry Ordway. Jerry Ordway had painted many other comics for DC such as the original Captain Marvel graphic novel and The Power of Shazam!. The Superman comics are drawn with vibrant, bright colours, however there is no specific ‘house style’ used as the artistic style for the comic has hanged and adapted. However, the very typical ‘comic book’ style is used as there is minimal shading, bold colours and thick line-art.
DC first introduced Superman in the June of 1938, however he made his first appearance in Action Comics number 1. After his initial release, Superman went on to make cameos in comics such as Superboy: The Comic Book, Superman Adventures, Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century, Smallville, Krypto the Superdog and Smallville Season 11.
Superman was created to be a defender of the weak which is the reasoning behind publishing the first comic close to the start of World War 2. With Hitlers rise in Europe, along with his hateful speech and stereotypes, DC made a hero to be the defender of the weak, which is why you can see Superman punching Nazis in some panels.
Superman was born on a different planer called Krypton, in which his parents called him Kal-El. However, his parents sent him to earth alone as a baby as his home planet was about to get destroyed from natural cataclysm. His little pod landed in rural America in the fictional town of Smallville. As he was born on another planet, he evolved superhuman abilities such as super strength, impenetrable skin, X-Ray vision, Laser eyes, Freeze breath, Super speed, Super hearing and Solar Flare. These powers are helpful to him as he goes about saving people, as well as fighting off evil as they allow him to become practically invisible to a human.
As of today, Superman is still a really popular franchise as there has been multiple superman films, along with a crossover film which featured Batman and Wonder woman. The Superman franchise has also had TV shows such as Supergirl, Smallville, Lois & Clark and many more.
Shortly after the release of Superman, DC featured the character Batman in number 27 of Detective Comics which started publishing in 1934. After the comics major success, they deiced to make Batman his own spin off title which debut in the spring of 1940. Bob Kane, one of the creators of Batman, created and illustrated this comic in early 1939 in order to capitalize on the popularity of superman. The style used for the Batman comics is very similar to that of superman. It includes very bright and vibrant colours as well as thick, defining line art. The colour pallet used is very similar to that of super man as well, as you can tell by the images provided, there’s a lot of use of the bright yellow, red and blue colours. This was considered the ‘house style’ for DC comics at the time. The most recent of Batmans pencillers, Inker, and cover artist from 2011-2016 was Greg Capullo who has also worked on other titles such as X-Force, and due to a change in illustrator, the style also changed to a more detailed and dark style.
However, the Batman comic had something the Superman one didn't, a sidekick. Batman has a junior crime-fighting partner for Batman, which later served as a template for other teenage sidekicks in other, future publications.
As well as making his first debut in Detective Comics then going on to have his own spin off title, Batman has appeared in other comics. These titles include Batman And Robin and Batman: The dark knight.
During his childhood, Batman witnessed the murder of his parents Dr. Thomas Wayne, and Martha Wayne. After this, he swore to avenge his parents and get vengeance on the criminals who did this, an oath tempered by a sense of justice. As he grew older, Bruce Wayne trained himself physically and mentally and comes up with a bat-inspired persona to fight crime. Unlike Superman, Batman does not possess any super human abilities as he was born a normal child on earth. Instead, during fights he relies on his combat skills and intellectual skills. However, the attributes that do help him in his crime fighting is his make that conceals his identity so he can still go about normal life when not in his superhero persona. Another element that helps Batman is his bat mobile. As he doesn’t have any powers, the ability to utilise the bat-mobile helps him greatly in terms of transportation as he can fly.
Just like Superman, Batman is still a fairly popular figure to this day having featured in several modern day films and TV shows. These titles include films such as, Suicide Squad, Batman vs Superman, Justice league, Batgirl, Joker, and the most recent film going out in 2022 The Batman.
Other, more modern, influential pencillers used by DC include Jim Lee who has worked on the more recent batman and superman comics. His style is very different to those of the more early pencillers of the comic as his work is much more detailed, and more dark. Whilst the early days of batman and superman comics were filled with bold, simile line art and bright, flat colours, Jim Lee’s take involves much darker colours with lots of shading and rendering with more detailed line art.
Kodansha ltd - Japanese
Kodansha Ltd. is a privately held Japanese publisher company. Kodansha is Japans largest publishing company and produces manga magazines such as Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Evening, Weekly Shōnen magazine and Bessatsu Shōnen magazine. Th Kodansha Ltd. company was founded by Seiji Noma in 1909, and its first publication was a literary magazine called Yūben in 1911. Kodansha also have been publishing manga (Japanese comics) and novels since before World War 2. Now, Kodansha own some broadcasting companies such as they are now anime producers, basing their anime primarily on their own manga publications.
Kodansha's most popular manga titles (from 2018) include Fairy Tail, Sailor Moon, Attack on Titan, Wotakoi, and The seven deadly sins. These titles are from a range of artists and collaborators from across various genres, and they have US subsidiary publishers who publish english versions of their manga and novels.
As stated previously, one of their most popular manga titles (now also a TV series) is Sailor Moon which was written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi, and first published in the Monthly Manga Anthology Nakayoshi on December 28th 1991. Naoko has published other notable titles such as Codename: Sailor V. The style of the manga it very much in line with a lot of other retro manga series with characters having large eyes and small noses and mouths. Manga is typically in black and white, however the anime displays many bright and bold colours. This series then spanned over 52 chapters and ended on February 3rd 1997. The very popular main character of this series was Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon was an underachieving, 14-year old school girl named Usagi Tsukino, until suddenly she meets a magical talking cat named Luna. Luna gave Usagi the ability to transform into a magical alter-ego named Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon was given the task of locating the moon princess and battling the forces of evil of the Dark Kingdom along the way.
Sailor moon has an extensive list of abilities, as well as being able to use the accessories she has on hand in combat, such as projectiles from her hairpins, and also Moon Frisbee where she throws her tiara like a boomerang before disintegrating the target it hits. However, she does also have human abilities such as her Sailor Moon kick which is where she kicks her opponent to injure them as well as Supersonic Waves, which is an involuntary attack which occurs when she is panicked or upset which is surprisingly painful to her opponent. These powers are all extremely helpful to her as they allow her to continue to fight off evil with some sort of ease.
As Sailor Moon obtained such a large amount of popularity, it started getting animated as an anime series, and after the show gained a mass of popularity, when it ended a second animated adaptation named Sailor Moon Crystal was aired as a reboot of the show from July 2014 onwards. As well as a reboot of the series, due to her popularity, Sailor Moon also made cameos and there were Sailor Moon references in 27 other series such as The Princess Diaries, and Duck Tales.
Another one of Kodansha's extremely successful and popular titles is Attack on Titan. Attack on Titan was written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama, and began in the first ever issue of Kodansha’s monthly publication of Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, released on September 9th 2009. The Attack on Titan manga ran for 11 years and Hajime Isayama published the 139th chapter on April 9th, 2021. As this story was being released for so long, Isayama only really ever worked on Attack on Titan, with only 2 other, lesser known titles being published such as The Killing Pawn, and Heart Break One.
The style of attack on titan was not quite consistent as Isayama's art skills were constantly improving throughout the 11 years he was illustrating the story. However the one thing that stayed consistent was the black and white manga stye, with simple and crosshatching shading. Furthermore, the anime also went through two styles as after season 3 part 2 WIT studios decided to stop animating Attack on Titan, so therefore, a different animation company, MAPPA studios took up the rest of the story which resulted in a different art style being used.
The main character of this series is Eren Yeager. In the first chapter is 10 years old, and the story follows through, and ends when he is 19. The series is set in a world in which humanity is forced to live in cities surrounded by walls in order to keep them safe from the terror of the man-eating humanoid creatures name Titans. The story follows Eren Yeager as he vows to exterminate every single titan after he and his close friend Mikasa witness the destruction of his home town and the death of his mother at the hands of the titans.
Eren Yeager was born an average child, however later chapters reveal that he possesses the ability to change into a titan. This titan of his holds the ability to harden his skin, regeneration of limbs, super strength, all on top of being 15 meters tall. As the story progresses, we learn about how Eren got these powers, as well as witnessing future adaptations and upgrades to his titan form. These powers he has are extremely useful in his mission throughout the story, his strength allows him to fight off enemies, and his size gives him an advantage as well when it comes to travelling long distances, and fighting off enemies.
(Images referenced from attackontitan.fandom.com and villains.fandom.com)
Over time, Attack on Titan has gained mass popularity amassing over 100 million copies of the manga being sold worldwide, and way over 2 million watchers. Due to their popularity, there have been side stories of different characters made in manga, and anime form, as well as a spin off series called Attack on Titan chuugakkou where instead of humans, the titans eat everyones lunch. As well as these side stories, many other manga and anime, as well as western shows have Attack on Titan references in them, these titles include: Kiss Him, Not Me, Osomatsu San, Outbreak Company, Nisekoi, and even The Simpsons.
Dargaurd - French
Dargaurd comics is a french publication company, founded in 1936 by Georges Dargaurd. Despite being founded in 1936, their first comic wasn’t published until 1943, starting with Allo les jeunes. Before publishing comics, they published novels for women, however in 1948, after they started publishing comics, they started a line of Magazines for Elegant Women as well as a French addition of the Belgian Tintin Magazine. In 1960, they bought the weekly Pilote magazine, then shortly after in 1961, they published the first of their famous Asterix Album.
Dargaurd's most popular comics consist of the Asterix series, Aldebaran, Blacksad, and Blueberry. These titles are from various different genres, different target ages, and different illustrators and writers. Dargaurd even ended up partnering with Netflix to create the first ever 3D animated series based on the Asterix Albums and will start streaming in 2023.
As stated previously, one of the companies most successful world is the Asterix Albums. The creators of this series are Jean-Yves Ferri and René Goscinny, and it was illustrated by Alberto Uderzo. The style used for this comic was very simple as it included no shading, and basic flat colours. The line art used features different line weights throughout the works giving the characters dimension without the need for heavy shading. The line art is also used for slight shading as parts of the body are cross hatched, giving the effect of shadows. This series first appeared in the magazine Pilote on the 29th of October 1959. Goscinny then died in 1977, so Uderzo then took over writing until 2009. The rights to the series were sold in 2009 to the company Hachette. Uderzo died, however in 2013, a new team consisting of the original writer, Jean-Yves Ferri, and a new illustrator, Didier Conrad took over. As of 2021, 39 volumes have been released with the most recent one being released in October of 2021.
The main characters in this series are men called Asterix and Obelix, and the story is about a village of indomitable warriors who travel the world during the era of Julius Caesar, and fight the roman republic, with the help of a special magic potion. One of the main characters, Asterix, is extremely popular, and loved within French pop culture. He lives in a Gaulish village in the middle of the roman empire with his friend Obelix. As he fell into a vat of the special potion mentioned earlier when he was young, Obelix is extraordinarily strong. This power is helpful in their journey as they go on to defeat many enemies using his super strength.
Due to the popularity the series gained, this was turned into a 2D animated TV series based on the comics, as well as having various 2D animated films released in 1967, 1986 and 1976. There was also two live action Asterix and Obleix films made in 1999 and 2002 called Astérix et Obélix contre César, and Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre.
Another popular title made by Dargaurd is Blacksad. This was a noir comic series actually made by the Spanish writer Juan Díaz Canales, and artist Juanjo Guarnido. Although they are both spanish, their target audience for Blacksad was French. The first volume was published in the November of 2000, the second volume in 2003, and then the third was published in 2005. In 2020 alone, around 800,000 copies of the Asterix Albums have been sold.
The art style was rendered in a noir style and set in the late 1950s in America. The characters consist of anthropomorphic animals who’s species match their personality, for example, the police in the series are typically German Shepard dogs and Bloodhounds. The main character of the series is a private investigator John Blacksad who was born in 1911. He is a black cat, and the story follows him as he takes up the job of being a bodyguard for rich and important celebrities when he is short of money. Whilst he doesn’t have any superhuman abilities, as he is a World War 2 veteran, he is above average when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. This helps him in his profession as he is a detective ad might run into criminals, so having this combat knowledge will help him greatly.
Blacksad became so popular throughout many companies, so much so that the creators won several prizes for the series as well as three nominations for the Esiner Award in 2004, and two Eisner Award wins in 2013. There has also been a video game adaptation of the series called Blacksad: Under the Skin. The game follows the main character John Blacksad as he investigates the suspicious death of a boxing club owner. The game was released November 14th 2019 for PC and Macs, and then later on on December 10th of 2019, a Nintendo switch version was released.
P2: Heartstopper - Graphic Novel
Heartstopper is a British graphic novel, written and illustrated by Alice Oseman. Alice has written other, regular novels, such as Solitaire, Radio Silence, and Nick and Charlie which include side stories from the Heartstopper graphic novel. Heartstopper is a drama, and teen drama graphic novel which tells the story of year 10 Charlie Spring, and Year 11 Nick Nelson who meet and fall in love. As of now there are 4 volumes, with a 5th and final volume expected to be released in the February of 2023.
The panelling in the graphic novel includes focal points by making certain panels larger than others, as well as isolating certain panels on the page in order to draw attention to it. On the page on the right, there is a bigger panel in the middle of the other, smaller panels. This is so we can see both characters in the frame, as well as the fact that one of the characters is saying their line much louder instead of just saying it at a normal volume. This is because we see them zoomed out and the characters speech bubble is jumping out the frame, emphasising the point that he is talking at a much higher volume. Furthermore, the panels on top of the page illustrate that whilst not being in the same frame, the two characters are talking to each other. The two characters are facing each-other in the separate panels, and their speech spew into each others panels showing the fact that they are speaking to each other. However, on the page on the left, the focal point panel is presented in a different way.
The text inside the speech bubbles is handwriting instead of typed. This fits the overall storyline as its based around teens and secondary school, so by using handwriting, it adds to the ‘young’ and ‘school’ aesthetics of the graphic novel.
The storyline of the Graphic Novel is very much linear as it follows both Charlie and Nicks life as they go through secondary school, and fall in love. There are some flashbacks within the novel going back to Charlies past, as well as bits from Nicks, but overall the novel follows a very linear storyline.
The structure of the graphic novel, very much includes elements of macro and micro structures. The novel follows the narrative that of a mainstream film which follows todorov’s theory of narrative structure, and also loosely follows Propp’s character archetypes as we have sort of a hero and heroine (Nick and Charlie) as well as a ‘villain’ (Harry and Nicks brother) and a ‘helper’ (Charlies friends). These are all examples of macro-structures, but there are also elements of micro-structures as the comic includes shot-reverse-shot techniques, flash backs and inter-frame relationships.
There are various types of speech bubbles used in the different chapters of Heartstopper in order to represent different things. There are square ‘speech bubbles’ used to describe something about the scene such as what lesson they’re in or where they are, or what day it is. As well as regular speech bubbles when two characters are speaking to each other, and even squiggly speech bubbles when someones voice is unstable if they’re crying. However, speech bubbles symbolising shouting are never used as the illustrator just writes in all capitals to show that a character is yelling.
As a teen drama/drama graphic novel, iconography of the genre would be things such as school, textbooks, phones and social media. This correlated with the Heartstopper Graphic Novel, as they use Instagram as their form of communication which is a social media app on their phones. As well as this, a main setting in the story is their school which is a massive convention of the teen drama genre.
Whilst there is still text in the graphic novel which helps readers understand the narrative of the story, the visuals also help in defining that narrative. The drawings used in each panel are also chronological and in line with the narrative being told by the dialogue, almost like an animatic sort of style as the characters show progressive movement within their scenes and in line with their dialogue to reach a final outcome. This is more effective than having characters make really sudden and non-progressive movements as it can confuse readers and mess up the storyline and narrative.
The colour of the original printed version of the Graphic Novel is black and white, however there have been some slightly coloured versions released, such as the one above where there are some parts which have been coloured with blue to set some elements apart. But separately from the graphic novel, the illustrator has released some coloured in official art containing the characters from the novel, such as the front covers of the novels.
(Image referenced from goodreads.com)
As the characters spend a lot of time in school during the novel, the characters can be seen wearing school uniform a lot of the time. This obviously has connotations to school, and being a teenager and student. The means it helps the people reading the novel relate to the characters in some way as the target audience of the novel is mostly teenagers who are around the same age as the main characters. As well as this, the characters featured are normal teenagers going through a very average stage of life. By making these characters no normal, it gives all reader the chance to relate and align with the characters as they may have gone through the same experiences as them. Lastly, another element of the graphic novel which has created meaning is the ‘font’ which is used in the novel. The illustrator hand writer the text in the speech bubbles giving it a more teen/childish look which fits in with the target audience of the novel. It also fits in more with the art style of the novel than if a typed font were to be used.
The target audience of the Heartstopper graphic novel is a young, teenage audience, so potentially 13-18 year olds. This target audience is beneficial, as these are the ages of the characters throughout the storyline, so by keeping the target audience within the age of the characters, it ensures that the people reading will be able to emotionally connect and relate to the characters that they’re reading about, as chances are they may have lived through the scenarios presented.
Charlie Spring is one of the main characters of Heartstopper. Charlie is high-strung and tends to overthink due to anxiety, he is also incredibly empathetic. After he was outed by a rumour going round his all boys school, Charlie experienced bullying throughout lower secondary school, but it calmed down once he got into year 10. Throughout the novel, Charlie starts to gain some confidence within himself after he gets together with Nick, with help from his friend group (Tao, Aled and Elle). However, his confidence starts to decrease as towards the middle of the storyline, its revealed that Charlie is struggling with an eating disorder, which he eventually seeks help for, and starts to do a lot better towards the end of the narrative. Charlies character can be greatly appealing to the target audience, as he deals with a lot of real issues which are unfortunately quite common in todays times, meaning people can find parts of his character to relate to and find comfort in knowing that their issues and problems are represented in the media.
Nick Nelson is the other main character in the Heartstopper novel. He is a year above Charlie in school and part of the rugby team which he eventually gets Charlie to join. Due to his stance in the ruby team, people see him as one of the rugby lads but it’s revealed that he is actually kind, patient and extremely open to everyone. Unlike other characters in his friend circle, Nick doesn’t care about Charlies sexuality, and becomes extremely close to him as he is constantly protecting Charlie from the homophobia from his friends. Nick becomes confused and quite scared after he realises he actually has feelings for Charlie after he kisses him at a party. At first he’s scared of expressing his identity to everyone apart from Charlie, but over time Nick becomes confident in his sexuality with help from his new found friends, and doesn’t try to hide it from anyone. Nicks character, like Charlies can be appealing to the target audience as people can find them selves relating to his experience and finding comfort within his character knowing that they struggles have been represented in a popular media product.
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