This is only somewhat related, but there's an image comic called "Black Lights District" that was a comic visualization of an EP this artist did, only if you didn't know that context, you wouldn't know it was connected to music.
This topic is reminding me of the last time I saw a comic artist drawing attention to how he deals with music, it was in Sex Criminals, there's a scene in a bar where the heroine sings and dance to Queen's "fat bottomed girls" but in the caption where the lyrics should be there's actually a note from the author explaining they couldn't get the right to use the music in this comic which I found very very funny and draws you to go look up the music yourself (or having it in your head 'cause it's a pretty well known song) and I ended up having the music in my head for days. It really was a funny way to implement music, draw attention to how hard it is to implement music in comic while still making the reader think about it and playing the actual music in his head himself. The Scott Pilgrim example works great too, this comic has so much personnality it almost hurt. Anyway thanks for the video Hass and stay fresh!
I tried singing the lyrics from the second comic following the musical notes and it was pretty fun! I really enjoyed the fact that while you progress through the sun, you can see the poses the characters make; as you said, the reader fills in the blanks
Magiver77 It's such an odd thing because it sort of breaks the experience by pulling you out but also in a way can make it deeper if you can respond to the music. There's a lot variables at play!
One lament I've had in my reviews of comics that have songs, even something like Roger Langridge's excellent run on The Muppet Show comics, is that I couldn't hear the music in my head, and I know the kind of music that gets played on the show. It all came off more like poetry than song. So it's good to see comic creators trying to work with that.
I read Scott Pilgrim for the first time really recently, I got my brother to play the song and we laughed for a real long time after he played. Honesty a great joke
I don't know whether this is relevant to what you were touching upon in this video, but I do find the use of music in Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye rather interesting, if only because certain moments stuck out to me. In the comic, there's a significant piece called The Empyrean Suite which has heavy associations tied to it, and that opens up interesting uses of it or its mention in the comic, both to create tension, opportunities for characterization and as foreshadowing. One moment in particular that stuck out to me (note: I haven't finished reading the series, so if there are more interesting moments where it's used, I don't know of them) is the first page of issue #39, where some of the notation is featured while the character it is most tied with uses it to begin his issue-long monologue. I think it's both a great start to his characterization in the issue, and showing the notation gives the scene in that page a certain tone and effectiveness that would not have been present without it. I don't know how relevant this is to the topic, just thought it was an interesting use of music in comics! ^^
One of my faves you've done! Are you a webcomics person? Just a random thought but I like how the webcomic "Girl Genius" portrays a certain character's idiosyncratic humming she does when she's thinking really hard (they call it "heterodyning").
Hey wondering if we could get a peak of your critique side of comics. I would love to see tropes in panel design and/or panel designs that convey something poorly or could have done so better.
Personally I think that first example looks the best of the three, ironically because it's the one where the dialogue is most divorced from the music. The only successful merging of the two I've seen is in Asterios Polyp, where letters lie in a staff based on their x-height.
instead of focusing on the melody of the music i find it much easier to portray the energy and texture of sounds. of course this works better with some music than with others. music such as noise and ambient would work really well.
I was talking to someone at a talk about this recently, but music is hard to create in the way you find it in a film soundtrack. I think at that stage it's more about the attitude, feeling and presentation. Check out Ron Wimberley's Prince of Cats for a good example of a comic that feels like hip hop or rap.
this is all really nice, it was a good try. but when I read the first and the last comic I didn't get anything from that. I don't think it works at all. maybe it's just nice like a sort of "easter egg" for people to look into after the fact.
Haha thanks. I think with all the Strip Panel Naked's it's just about theorising on how things work. The introduction of the music changes the relationship in some way. I wonder how much it changes with a musical understanding? - Hass
I also wonder that. I had some flute lessons when I was in third grade and I can´t remember a thing about that. maybe someone with a musical background could tell us.
acuerdox For me, I wrote a piece on the patreon this week about how it differs from examples that just do the typical musical notes next to the balloon thing, and for me there is a different between portraying the idea of music and portraying the reality of music. The reality for me asks (or at least offers the opportunity) for some involvement in the specifics. To potentially hear the music, the rhythm, like a real soundtrack. Whereas the other approach just asks you to understand the idea that it's music. There's something in the specificity of it that is interesting. - Hass
it is all there in the page just like you said in the video. the thing is that it has to be interpreted and constructed by the reader. so I wonder if it was worth the effort. an interesting point, when I read Tolkien all those songs and poems did nothing for me, yet all the Tolkien fans love that stuff and they praise it a lot. so for them it is worth it, and Tolkien doesn't even have musical notes.
acuerdox yeah not everything is going to work for everyone, but at the very least I think you can see the reality of it in the page. The Scott Pilgrim example is literally showing you all three chords and making a joke of how simple it is. You can't do that as effectively with just words and musical notes. But YMMV with all of this. - Hass
I'm sorry, but I have to object to your opinion here; the execution in these examples was a bit forced. I like that they experimented a bit but I don't think it worked. For some very good examples you should look at P Craig Russell's Opera translations, specifically the duet of Brunhilde and Siegfried in Wagers Ring Saga (Gotterdammerung, The Twilight of the Gods Part 1). It doesn't need anything, even words to make you hear music, the pacing of the panels and the art are enough to evoke the music even if you never listened to the Opera. Then when it goes into the duet the repetition and wording is very musical and operatic and perfect, the punctuation of "HAIL! HAIL!" builds up to the love sequence and to him galloping away through flames. Another great example from that book is Votun (Odin) speaking to the Erda the Vala. The lettering and balloons gives you a sense of the musical timing, here it's partly the placement of the balloons that give the pages the music. And Russell art through out the entire book gives a very clear view of what the characters are feeling so that helps the music too. I am cheating a bit by using an example of Opera translations cause these were written for music, but even the pages without any words on them are very clearly music. He's done quite a few of them and I highly recommend everyone to read them, The Ring of the Nibelung is one of the best comics I've ever read.
Me Me so that's partly what I wrote about on the patreon this week. There's clearly a trade off in the suspension of disbelief when you attempt to do this, because you're drawing attention to the limitations of the form as well. But I think lyrical pacing in structure is a different effect that specifically saying, "These are sheets of music." I don't know that they're necessarily aiming for the same effect, (the purposeful breaking of the suspension of disbelief is what would make me say this) so the response would be different. But you're right in terms of approach. I used Kennel Block Blues in the article on Patreon as an example of something with uses suggestion to keep the suspension of disbelief and create a musicality, but ultimately again the effect is very different (potentially)! - Hass
ah, (sorry, not on patreon) that makes more sense, I wasn't thinking in that context. Have you read any of P Craig Russell's Opera's? He has a talk about Salome on youtube. They had played the opera with the comic to show how each part works with each other, unfortunately they just uploaded the talk but it's still interesting to hear his process in getting the music into the comic.
This is only somewhat related, but there's an image comic called "Black Lights District" that was a comic visualization of an EP this artist did, only if you didn't know that context, you wouldn't know it was connected to music.
Ooh, sounds intriguing. Will take a look.
- Hass
This topic is reminding me of the last time I saw a comic artist drawing attention to how he deals with music, it was in Sex Criminals, there's a scene in a bar where the heroine sings and dance to Queen's "fat bottomed girls" but in the caption where the lyrics should be there's actually a note from the author explaining they couldn't get the right to use the music in this comic which I found very very funny and draws you to go look up the music yourself (or having it in your head 'cause it's a pretty well known song) and I ended up having the music in my head for days. It really was a funny way to implement music, draw attention to how hard it is to implement music in comic while still making the reader think about it and playing the actual music in his head himself.
The Scott Pilgrim example works great too, this comic has so much personnality it almost hurt.
Anyway thanks for the video Hass and stay fresh!
I tried singing the lyrics from the second comic following the musical notes and it was pretty fun! I really enjoyed the fact that while you progress through the sun, you can see the poses the characters make; as you said, the reader fills in the blanks
Magiver77 It's such an odd thing because it sort of breaks the experience by pulling you out but also in a way can make it deeper if you can respond to the music. There's a lot variables at play!
One lament I've had in my reviews of comics that have songs, even something like Roger Langridge's excellent run on The Muppet Show comics, is that I couldn't hear the music in my head, and I know the kind of music that gets played on the show. It all came off more like poetry than song. So it's good to see comic creators trying to work with that.
I read Scott Pilgrim for the first time really recently, I got my brother to play the song and we laughed for a real long time after he played. Honesty a great joke
Haha 😊 yeah I gave it a go. The beauty of it is tapping into exactly that sort of band. It's so spot on!
- Hass
Amazing analysis. I read an indie comic called "Rock Mary Rock" the other day. The author executed this in a really interesting way too.
Will make a note!
- Hass
Damn that humming 😩
Thug Is here First!
HassanOE lol
I don't know whether this is relevant to what you were touching upon in this video, but I do find the use of music in Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye rather interesting, if only because certain moments stuck out to me. In the comic, there's a significant piece called The Empyrean Suite which has heavy associations tied to it, and that opens up interesting uses of it or its mention in the comic, both to create tension, opportunities for characterization and as foreshadowing.
One moment in particular that stuck out to me (note: I haven't finished reading the series, so if there are more interesting moments where it's used, I don't know of them) is the first page of issue #39, where some of the notation is featured while the character it is most tied with uses it to begin his issue-long monologue. I think it's both a great start to his characterization in the issue, and showing the notation gives the scene in that page a certain tone and effectiveness that would not have been present without it.
I don't know how relevant this is to the topic, just thought it was an interesting use of music in comics! ^^
More Hass humming please!
One of my faves you've done! Are you a webcomics person? Just a random thought but I like how the webcomic "Girl Genius" portrays a certain character's idiosyncratic humming she does when she's thinking really hard (they call it "heterodyning").
Hey wondering if we could get a peak of your critique side of comics. I would love to see tropes in panel design and/or panel designs that convey something poorly or could have done so better.
I have some limited musical knowledge so the second one really worked for me
Personally I think that first example looks the best of the three, ironically because it's the one where the dialogue is most divorced from the music. The only successful merging of the two I've seen is in Asterios Polyp, where letters lie in a staff based on their x-height.
instead of focusing on the melody of the music i find it much easier to portray the energy and texture of sounds. of course this works better with some music than with others. music such as noise and ambient would work really well.
I'm trying to figure out a way to use hip hop in comics . Tying to figure out how to express the beat of a rap song in comics. Do u have any tips ?
I was talking to someone at a talk about this recently, but music is hard to create in the way you find it in a film soundtrack. I think at that stage it's more about the attitude, feeling and presentation. Check out Ron Wimberley's Prince of Cats for a good example of a comic that feels like hip hop or rap.
How did I miss those those when I wrote this: monkeysfightingrobots.co/music-fuses-with-comics/
God I feel stupid.
this is all really nice, it was a good try. but when I read the first and the last comic I didn't get anything from that. I don't think it works at all. maybe it's just nice like a sort of "easter egg" for people to look into after the fact.
Haha thanks. I think with all the Strip Panel Naked's it's just about theorising on how things work. The introduction of the music changes the relationship in some way. I wonder how much it changes with a musical understanding?
- Hass
I also wonder that. I had some flute lessons when I was in third grade and I can´t remember a thing about that. maybe someone with a musical background could tell us.
acuerdox For me, I wrote a piece on the patreon this week about how it differs from examples that just do the typical musical notes next to the balloon thing, and for me there is a different between portraying the idea of music and portraying the reality of music. The reality for me asks (or at least offers the opportunity) for some involvement in the specifics. To potentially hear the music, the rhythm, like a real soundtrack. Whereas the other approach just asks you to understand the idea that it's music. There's something in the specificity of it that is interesting.
- Hass
it is all there in the page just like you said in the video. the thing is that it has to be interpreted and constructed by the reader. so I wonder if it was worth the effort. an interesting point, when I read Tolkien all those songs and poems did nothing for me, yet all the Tolkien fans love that stuff and they praise it a lot. so for them it is worth it, and Tolkien doesn't even have musical notes.
acuerdox yeah not everything is going to work for everyone, but at the very least I think you can see the reality of it in the page. The Scott Pilgrim example is literally showing you all three chords and making a joke of how simple it is. You can't do that as effectively with just words and musical notes. But YMMV with all of this.
- Hass
I'm sorry, but I have to object to your opinion here; the execution in these examples was a bit forced. I like that they experimented a bit but I don't think it worked. For some very good examples you should look at P Craig Russell's Opera translations, specifically the duet of Brunhilde and Siegfried in Wagers Ring Saga (Gotterdammerung, The Twilight of the Gods Part 1). It doesn't need anything, even words to make you hear music, the pacing of the panels and the art are enough to evoke the music even if you never listened to the Opera. Then when it goes into the duet the repetition and wording is very musical and operatic and perfect, the punctuation of "HAIL! HAIL!" builds up to the love sequence and to him galloping away through flames.
Another great example from that book is Votun (Odin) speaking to the Erda the Vala. The lettering and balloons gives you a sense of the musical timing, here it's partly the placement of the balloons that give the pages the music. And Russell art through out the entire book gives a very clear view of what the characters are feeling so that helps the music too.
I am cheating a bit by using an example of Opera translations cause these were written for music, but even the pages without any words on them are very clearly music. He's done quite a few of them and I highly recommend everyone to read them, The Ring of the Nibelung is one of the best comics I've ever read.
Me Me so that's partly what I wrote about on the patreon this week. There's clearly a trade off in the suspension of disbelief when you attempt to do this, because you're drawing attention to the limitations of the form as well. But I think lyrical pacing in structure is a different effect that specifically saying, "These are sheets of music." I don't know that they're necessarily aiming for the same effect, (the purposeful breaking of the suspension of disbelief is what would make me say this) so the response would be different. But you're right in terms of approach. I used Kennel Block Blues in the article on Patreon as an example of something with uses suggestion to keep the suspension of disbelief and create a musicality, but ultimately again the effect is very different (potentially)!
- Hass
ah, (sorry, not on patreon) that makes more sense, I wasn't thinking in that context. Have you read any of P Craig Russell's Opera's? He has a talk about Salome on youtube. They had played the opera with the comic to show how each part works with each other, unfortunately they just uploaded the talk but it's still interesting to hear his process in getting the music into the comic.
Me Me Nope but I will check them out! Sounds very interesting!!!