Comedy Isn't Pretty, Part I: Silent Forest #0

 A book I have to thank for doing something wrong

Before we get to today's review, let's talk about Will Eisner first, shall we?

Particularly why we have a prestigious award given out annually to people named after Mr. Eisner.

Eisner wasn't just a genius. The comic book medium has had many genius artists and creators. Eisner was THE first genius who KNEW what writing comics was all about. The first guy to understand the medium and its impact. He was also one of the first to pass this information on to others in an understandable format.

His spectacular work on The Spirit is a testament to his expert craftsmanship at telling a story in a visual medium. But he didn't just write The Spirit, he also used it as a teaching tool. Once the comic was in magazine form, he explained the principles and methods utilized in the art of graphic novels between its very pages.  These essays, which he wrote as companion pieces to his lectures at the School For Visual Arts in New York, were compiled into a book of invaluable knowledge known as Comics and Sequential Art. He followed it with a companion piece on creating the narrative called Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. These two books became sort of a Bible for all creators of graphic storytelling to follow. Heck, the man actually coined that term "graphic novel."

Eisner realized that composition of scenes and sequencing of both panels and dialogue are more than just slapping art on a page. In the graphical medium, they are the very essence of storytelling. Abuse them at your (and your reader's) peril.

Which brings us to the issue at hand, a black and white book told in the comedic vein about a bunch of animals trying to rid themselves of the neighborhood golf course. The book is brought to us by Silent Devil Productions, a publishing house that lasted the better part of two decades pumping out various titles and one-shots. This issue constituted half of Silent Devil's first publishing endeavor and to be honest it has a lot of rough edges. Sharp, jagged edges that will cut your hand off if you aren’t careful. The infant stages of many publishing houses are recorded in my stacks of Crapbox comics, but this one I've singled out because it taught me something.

Silent Devil Productions was formed in 1996 by David Fairley, Christian Beranek, and Adam Beranek. They produced a handful of books from 2002-2004, finally getting two series with staying power. Around 2005 or so, Dracula vs. King Arthur and The Devil's Panties books became modest sellers and the startup publisher was on its way. The former book I'll be reviewing later, as it has wandered into the Crapbox as well. I'm glad that the company stuck with it and found eventual success, growing out of the awkward period that produced Silent Forest #0.

I'm not going to lie, the book is all kinds of terrible. The jokes are flat, the art inconsistent, the narrative trite and the characters underdeveloped.

It also hurt me to read it.

Why would I say something so horrid, you might ask? It is due to the nature of what lurks between the covers of Silent Forest. Knowing this was one of the first things out the chute and a labor of love for writer Adam Beranek and artist Heidi Evans, shouldn't I go a bit easier? I will say that the knowledge this was released following their college years makes accepting unpolished art and juvenile humor a bit more bearable (pardon that pun).

But it is the execution of that material that gives me the that headachy pain in my frontal lobes. Unexpectedly it also leads me to an epiphany about comics in general:

Layout and panel design aren’t just important from an aesthetic standpoint, but have to be carefully orchestrated from a storytelling standpoint. Or to put it more directly, it doesn't matter if your art is pretty if it makes understanding the story difficult.

Simply put, Silent Forest #0 makes following the story a chore.

I've written short stories and articles for publication, so I am very familiar with the concept of clarity in writing and keeping people involved in the narrative. The moment the author does anything that distracts the reader, like the dreaded "head-hop" or convoluted flashback sequence, you risk throwing that person completely out of the reading experience. You have to keep them engaged and interested, surely, but the worst sin you can do is to break that fourth wall by doing anything that makes them stop, go back and re-read a passage.

That includes basic mechanical errors, something our current generation of text and instant message obsessed youths would do well to take heed of. In writing, something as simple as poor grammar or spelling errors creates the same effect as something so vast as an unbelievable plot contrivance. Both can act to disrupt the reading experience.

In comics you have an additional "gotcha" that can break the reader's flow: anything in the visual realm. Something as small as mis-ordering the expected arrangement of dialogue boxes, say.

And Silent Forest does that.

Repeatedly.

In a way that if you pay as close attention to the material as I was, you begin to have a deeper understanding of the challenge faced by the artist to tell a story in a graphical medium. It is MUCH more than slapping characters into a panel with some dialogue. It takes a layer of skill that we seldom if ever think about. Using sequential art design is a tricky skill to master.

Let me show you what I mean.

Here is a page from early on in the story. The art is a crudely simplistic, but given that this was a "funny animal" book, let's give that a pass for now. The first panel is setup. 

The second is where our problem starts. As American comic readers, we typically read things from left-to-right. In the comic realm, higher balloons are usually read before lower balloons. Now here is our problem, in this panel we have three balloons. Normally you would read them starting at the lower left and continuing to the upper right. 

However, to read these in the correct order you have to ignore the expected left-to-right reading flow. Instead you would read them right-to-left, like a manga. At least the artist attempted to clue the audience in by making those dialogue boxes higher, but put quite simply this panel doesn't work.

In several instances I caught myself reading answers before questions. Or reading statements made with the supposition that a previous statement spoken by a character to the right of the speaker had already been read.

And what those experiences did was break the forth wall. With a good outcome, I suppose, since the experience created an uneasy feeling that there was an important principle that had been violated to thrust me out of the story if I could just figure out what it was. Let me give you another example. Read this box as you would a normal American comic book panel.

Our three main characters meet this female animal while looking for the wise owl who will help them get rid of the golfers. I have to state for the record that I have no idea what that female animal is supposed to be. She is located on the far right.

When I first saw her I immediately thought it was the unholy love child of two lemurs from the movie Madagascar. Tell me you don't see a little King Julien combined with Mort in that character design?

Whatever she is, one of the werebears has fallen for her. The one in the middle. And he has the first piece of dialogue in this panel. So our correct reading flow is middle balloon, right balloon and then left balloon. There is no country where reading this way is the expected flow

Another example is here:

The flow starts with the sound effect of the character in the upper left laughing at a previous panel's joke. Then for some inexplicable reason we are supposed to know to shift to the character in the bottom right-hand corner. From there the order goes upper right dialogue box followed by middle left. If you draw a line for how your eye should move about the panel it would look like this:

There is no way that is natural or expected.

What all this boils down to is that panel design and storyflow are both in the hands of the artist in a graphical medium. 

While the first is kind of a given, it is the second that comes as a surprise. An award-winning story in the hands of an artist with talent BUT doesn't understand how to properly structure their panels will end up horrible. And an average story in the hands of even an average artist who understands the advantages and limitations of spinning a yarn visually will end up looking like an award winner. 

I've seen this time and time again in the Crapbox, but it took Silent Forest to really unravel the mystery.

I'm pretty sure these are rookie mistakes, but how do comic book artists address them if they want to succeed?

I'll admit to NOT being Eisner or having anywhere near his understanding of the medium that is comic art. I'll also state that I haven't read much of his essays on design. However I think I can throw together a couple of thoughts on it that might be relevant.

I can think of three ways to address problems of dialogue sequencing like we see in Silent Forest #0. The first is to utilize your dialogue boxes to always create left to right flow. If you have to, stretch them across the top to attribute them to a character standing on the right and then layer subsequent dialogue boxes directly below them. It is an ugly fix, but it works and could have saved that first panel I presented.

Second would be to reattribute dialogue (if possible) to create the correct flow. This is tricky, since much of dialogue is used to inform the audience about the character. If what is being said is personal and can apply to ONLY that character, then you are stuck. In those instances you must move on to the third tactic. However, there are instances where the contents of what is being said isn't specific to that character. In those instances it doesn't matter if character A or character B says a certain thing as long as it is stated so the story can move forward. In that case, redistributing the spoken lines would be much better than causing confusion.

Third would be to send it all back to the drawing board. If the layout of the panel doesn't fit the dialogue sequence, you can always have the artist draw the entire panel over, perhaps from a different angle or moving characters from position A to B, or from foreground to background. This is possibly the cleanest method in regards to how it looks, but also the most time-consuming.

Yes, Silent Forest has weak spots but the most glaring was a problem that every comic struggles with. Give the book a seasoned illustrator and/or an objective editor and this problem gets caught before it heads to the presses.

What happened with Silent Devil? Sources show the follow-up Silent Forest book had a portion of the writing chores headed to ChristianBeranek, who has proven herself a talented writer and went on to bigger things running Disney's comic book subdivision in 2008. She collaborated with brother Adam on writing the Dracula vs King Arthur book and not to spoil a later review, but it has the potential of being one of the better Crapbox finds.  Given its long print run it appears to have been a commercial success as well. Adam had his own successes, even contributing to the comic book tie-ins to David Fincher's "Se7en" movie. As for this Silent Forest? Perhaps the more silent I remain, the better.

Kid's Stuff, Part VIDEO GAMES! Last Quarter: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider #43

Essentially Indiana Jones with boobs, and I find NOTHING wrong with that

If all goes well at the end of this month Eidos will release Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC, following up its port of the game after the initial exclusive release of the game for the Xbox platform. And hopefully it will make it on to the PS4 too. Even if it doesn't, the company can still celebrate putting the cap on 20 years of the Lara Croft franchise.

Eidos struck gold in 1996 by creating a feminine version of Indiana Jones for their video game Tomb Raider. Lara Croft was designed by Toby Gard for the first game. He would later leave before the release of the follow-up game disappointed because of creative control issues and the way Eidos was marketing Lara’s sex appeal. 

Eidos had the right idea, however and have now developed the Croft character into a franchise that includes 21 different video games, a short-lived animated series, novels, action figures, comic books and two big budget feature films starring the yummy Angelina Jolie. In 2006, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized Lara Croft as the “Most Successful Human Videogame Heroine.” 

Not bad for a bunch of pixilated boobies.

Looking back on the toy that started all this, the video games are episodic puzzles that take place in a 3-D environment. Lara is rendered in third person with the gamer usually taking an over-the-shoulder view. Lara faces a variety of foes including humans, animals and supernatural entities while exploring ancient ruins and solving paranormal and mystical mysteries. Most of the games are “on a rail” but the ride is interesting, so you don’t notice it too much. There is usually an “end boss” that has to be defeated and most of the time Lara’s task in the game involves saving, if not the world, at least some aspect of it. I’ll admit to having tried these games if you won’t ask how well I did. 

Poor hand-eye coordination really bites, by the way.

One of the oddest marketing techniques employed by Eidos is the use of live models as “stand-ins” for Lara in magazine spreads. I’m not sure how these ladies are picked exactly (I’m sure it has something to do with looks and modeling ability), but they’ve gone through around one model every two years since the release of the first game. When you take into account all the cosplayers doing takes on the character, there might be several hundred really good doubles for Ms. Croft at any one time. All of them are stunningly beautiful and convey a sense that Lara is grounded in a real, live person

Don't believe me? Check the links below:

The Official Tomb Raider Cosplay Fansite

A few of the best from that site
LadyLemon Cosplay
Tenyon aka Jolien
Anne

And for a hoot, check out Smosh Games youtube: Honest Game Trailer's review of the series go HERE.
 

Before this turns into a discussion on teenage boys and sexual themes in video games, let’s take a look at how the graphics in Tomb Raider have changed over time. Any woman that has succeeded as long as Lara has is bound to undergo some changes appearance-wise.Check out this site exploring her physical game evolution.

As for fan sites that are full of pretty much everything go HERE, HERE and HERE.

The “Lara Croft Tomb Raider” comic book debuted in 1999 and went on for 50 issues and several one shots. The series ended in 2004, but during the run Lara got to crossover with other Top Cow books like Witchblade, Fathom and The Darkness. 

The issue I found floating at the bottom of the quarter bin was written near the end of the comic’s life. It reads like an episode of Scooby Doo. And not one with a cool monster in it, either. I’m not certain if the writers had run out of plot ideas by this point or if the entire series was like this one issue.

We begin with Lara arriving at a pub in County Offaly, Ireland, in the company of “warrior poet” and big wussy coward Byron Owen. It’s a dark and stormy night. *cue lightening* Lara’s there seeking the magical Dolmen Emerald which is hidden somewhere inside the decrepit, abandoned and reputedly haunted Lotte Castle. *cue second splash of dramatic lightening*.

Because it’s haunted, a place of pure evil, has REALLY bad indoor plumbing, yadda, yadda, yadda… It’s about this time in Scooby Doo cartoons where the villain of the piece makes a spectacular entrance looking all evil so we can then be relived it’s only a normal guy. Then later we learn this was actually foreshadowing showing that the normal guy was actually the ghost, space mummy, ghoul, and/or bad person.

Nice. Meet Dunleavy, the caretaker of Lotte Castle. He’s sort of an old hippie with bad teeth and a cataract eye. He’s going to lead Lara and wimpy boy back to the castle but first he wants to play 20 questions.

He espouses the history of Lotte Castle. Seems in the sixteenth century two brothers of the O’Connor family fought over leading their clan. One of the brothers, a priest, was slain by his evil sibling Ian while praying at the altar inside the castle. Ian then proceeds to torture any opposing clansmen in the Castle dungeon. Usually by making them watch Ishtar or Madonna’s Swept Away. Once Ian died, an evil entity known as the Elemental took up residence in the castle making the place a real estate agent’s worst nightmare.

Lara is unimpressed by all this, because she knows that she’s slated for the Tomb Raider VIII video game and there’s no way Eidos would kill her off now. So off to the castle the trek, following Dunleavy who is looking more and more suspicious. They hear a cry in the night that girly-man Byron thinks is the wail of a banshee, meaning someone will die tonight. Lara pokes fun at him and then asks a very Scooby-ish question of their guide.

Uh…yeah we believe that “trust fund” story in a heartbeat, buddy. You should be wearing a big sign that says “I’m the bad guy”. It would save a bunch of pages, ink and maybe some staples. I don’t buy the trust fund story for a minute. Even if I did, who would pay a guy with a work ethic like this to take care of the castle?

As Dunleavy leads the pair further into the recesses of the castle, Lara confides in pee-pants Byron that she is really seeking the Dolmen Emerald because she believes it’s cursed. He is skeptical and questions why she would want it. Lara coolly replies that she is trying to keep it out of the hands of evil men. It’s about this point that Dunleavy lets out a scream from around the corner and disappears. Lara takes off after him leaving Byron to stand still and wet himself. While Byron contemplates never leaving the house without Depends on, Lara finds the very first clue. Scooby snack for Ms Croft.

Showing his true chicken feathers, Byron high-tails it back to the front door which is inconveniently locked shut. At least he doesn’t lose his cool.

One spooky story is all it has taken to reduce him to a bowl of jello. Not only that, but he is completely oblivious to what real dangers lurk in old castles. Take for instance that crumbling piece of statuary poised ever so precariously above the entranceway. You know, the one that makes creakly, crackly noises whenever he pounds on the door. And sort of sways a bit like it is not balanced so well.

 

Yeah, that one. Looks like Byron sees it now as well.

With that Byron makes his exit from the castle, if not this life as well. Sadly the book decides it’s necessary to show his grisly remains instead of just a reaction shot from Lara. Yuck, a bit too much like Shadow Reavers for my taste.

 

Lara figures out that the doors are locked without causing huge a stone gargoyle to fall on her noggin. Then she proceeds to wander about the castle encountering glowing spirits of everyone from that little girl in the Silent Hill video game…

…to Ian’s ghostly brother, who strangely bleeds blood that she can see even after he disappears. In a scene that seems right out of the video game, she gets knocked into pit full of huge spikes and has to avoid them all. If I was at the controls she would have been a shi-ker-bob. Lara lucks out and continues on through the castle until she meets up with a ghost who looks very familiar.

 

I have to say that for a full-sized issue, this book seems very light on story. There is a seven page preview in the back for something called Proximity Effect, but it takes the place of several ads, so the Croft story page count is still that of a normal issue. Yet there is an odd sense that too much of this issue is fluff. The art is well done, and it makes a pretty good read albeit the aforementioned predictability. Maybe it is that there’s no way to attach a game controller to the book and make the action a bit more involving. I’m sure Lara’s fan base feels differently.

I'm heading home from the arcade now. Look for more Kid's Stuff: VIDEO GAMES later on this year. On that note, happy playing everyone!