Scottish Art Pick 1: Frank Quitely & the Art of Comics - Esther

“Change your mind & prove you’ve got one.”

It’s one of my favourite phrases.

After a while I allowed myself to be defined by certain tastes & aesthetics.

After another while however I decided to please myself & consider a wider field – music, art, films. Thus my interest in graphic novels has taken off.

I was never into graphic novels the way some people in my life were. Of course I loved some of the artwork itself, the style of drawing, the expressive ways of line & shadow the genre affords…but not enough to buy the books. It wasn’t snobbery - I found it hard to suspend my disbelief in the way I could do with a film or theatre production. But mainly, as an avid reader of words, I find it really hard to follow a story mainly/entirely in pictures. It was a barrier.

Recently, in a bid to learn something new, broaden my horizons & change my mind, I made my peace with it all & this has been almost entirely down to Scottish graphic artist Frank Quitely. I had seen a great 2014 documentary (link below) that focused on his work where he talked about his processes, life, art, influences & some of his (very) successful projects. He placed himself in what has really become a Scottish tradition of comic-makers that we all grew up with (for better or worse...) 

This fascinating insight coincided with a major 2017 exhibition, The Art of Comics, in the bowels of Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery. As the expo title suggested, there was more to comics than superheroes. There was a very complicated series of processes involving a number of different people & tasks.

& there was ART.

In the documentary Frank Quitely (a spoonerism of Quite Frankly, real name Vincent Deighan) tries to push the boundaries of layout & framing, to show the passage of time in new ways, trying to slow down the reader’s impression of the story into perhaps real time. He tinkers with the structure of the page layout. He’s interested in “the way you can lead the eye around the page,” I like this notion of manipulating the viewer. Then again, “you do a lot of thinking on order that the reader doesn’t have to do any.”

& it’s easy to see “how one picture leads into another one” is the basis for telling a story. He’s subverting that which was already quite subversive whilst also striving for something more visually intriguing than what had gone before. Frank was especially interesting for me because he’s a penciller/inker - a man after my own heart. He explains that because of the time it takes to produce these often very intricate works & many panels & because there are always deadlines someone else does the colouring. As a confirmed control freak, this level of collaboration - which will also include many meetings & discussions with an author – astonishes & impresses me.

Anyway, his pictures are the thing. Today I’d like to celebrate some of Frank’s images.

The subversion of the genre is particularly dramatic in the graphic novel We3, written by Grant Morrison. It’s an oddly human tale of three pets, weaponised for the military, possibly my favourite Frank.

Look at this! 

& this!

This “CCTV sequence” was developed by sketching on post-it notes (kept in a raisin box) & moving them around:

I do like a learning opportunity. Who knew that the white space around the panels was called a gutter? Not me! Here I've added text to one of Frank's pages: 

Two of my favourite things - Nick Cave & Frank Quitely:

“You’re putting something down that doesn’t really work in a film, doesn’t really work in prose.”

Where would we be if it wasn’t for individuals trying to change people’s perceptions & create something different? If it wasn’t for individuals that knew that what they were doing mattered, was important, no matter what people thought? & if it wasn’t for those that try to serve the story & make a connection with the wider world?

Frank Quitely, we salute you.

What Do Artists Do All Day: Frank Quitely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42f-UNHlYrI&frags=pl%2Cwn

Go to next C7 post