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Graphic Narrative Resear ch
Graphic Narrative
Research
Children's books
Outline of Children's books
Categorised by these 3 things:1. Written by children2. Written for children3. Chose by children
The main topics within these books are: Fairy tale, folk lore, myths and legends. This is mainly because this is what interest this particular demographic, the producers of these books are aware of this, and publish the books accordingly. Happy endings are also a common occurrence in children's books, as well as stereotypes as well.
A few examples of the illustrations used in Children’s books with a range of materials used to create them:
Watercolour
Pastel Drawing ink pen
All of these books are an example of the youngest age demographic for children's books, also know as picture books. This type of book has little text, if any, and many images, this is because the target audience is in the age demographic of 0-5 and will be unable to read the text.
Picture books
Simple illustrations used on the cover, which continue throughout the book as well. This fulfils the gratifications that this age demographic would seek from a book.
The bright colours, again, will appeal to the target audience
The font is big and bold, therefore easy to read and won’t be misread or misinterpreted.
Early reader booksThese books are mainly designed to develop the children's reading skills. There is now more text and less pictures within the books and the books are now intended for an age demographic of between 5 and 7 years of age.
These books still have the simple illustrations within them, however, there is now text to accompany them.
The bright colours are still evident inside the books, but because the amount of images have reduced, it makes it look less colourful. However, this colour still needs to be there because the target age demographic is still as young as 5-7 year olds.
The books are now set out in a proper formation, instead of one image a page, teaches the audience the correct way in reading left to right.
Chapter books Starting to phase out the amount of pictures there are in the books, more text has been added as well. This is to move with the age demographic increase of 7-11. Small chapter books have a few pages between chapters, with an image every couple of pages, where as the long chapter books has quite a gap between the next chapter and has a few illustrations within the book
Small chapter book – Ages 7-9Large chapter book – Ages 9-12
The illustrations become less bright, due to the target audience increasing and don’t need very bright colours to attract them to the book.
The font has become a little more creative than block writing of the picture books. Chapter books use more formal features because of the gradually maturing audience it is aimed at.
Graphic Novel
Outline of a graphic novel
A graphic novel is a story which is communicated to the reader through artwork, which in itself, is a piece of narrative work. The artwork that is used in the graphic novels can follow a comic book style of artwork, or can be very experimental illustrations. However, these products aren’t bound like comic books, but instead produced like a printed book, which gives it more value than a comic book, as it is also a desirable item.
Graphic novels are often inspirations for films, like the following:
This example of a Graphic novel page is unconventional in terms of slide layout. Traditionally, graphic novels have equal slides on each line. However this piece has stuck to the 6-8 slides that you normally find in a graphic novel as well as the left to right reading for the graphic novel, and indeed, many pieces of text in the UK.
There is more dialogue in this novel than there normally is. On the other hand, the lack of captions makes them necessary to explain the narrative within the piece.
Analysis of existing products
This Artemis Fowl graphic novel sticks to the codes and conventions of a traditional novel. The lack of dialogue is the main thing that doesn’t follow the graphic novels conventions, but the lack of text makes it even more effective.
The illustrations that are used on this narrative are commonly seen in graphic novels. This is just one way illustrations can be carried out when constructing a graphic novel.
Analysis of existing products
Ways of generating illustrations for graphic narratives
Rotoscoping
Drawn
Painting
Photography (with or without comic book effect)
Collage
