Freewriting 4
Recently my cousin, who is a senior in high school, borrowed The Great Gatsby from me night for his english class while I was watching Frank Miller's Sin City. I remembered reading it in high school, for the same teacher, and thoroughly enjoying the recount of jazz-age culture and the American dream, but have never seen the movie. I was then struck with an intriguing idea. I have always been a fan of comic books, especially Marvel's Spider-Man and X-Men, both of which also were made into Saturday morning cartoon shows when i was a kid and are major blockbuster movies today. These comic book stories have emulated just about every form of media, including several video games. I would imagine there are several book versions of these sagas, as well. What if the same could occur with an older form of media? Would The Great Gatsby work as a graphic novel like Frank Miller's Sin City?
Sin City, Frank Miller´s original collection of gothic graphic novels, has become widely known in pop culture since the major movie bearing the same name was released. Miller directed the movie, and has been in the comic book industry since 1978, getting hist first work publishing The Twilight Zone for Gold Key Comics. He is best known for his work on Daredevil and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (which influenced Tim Burton´s Batman) in the 80s, and of course, Sin City in the 90s.
Some notable characteristics of Sin City are its gothic coloring style, it's violence, and its depiction of evil and corruption. The only colors used in Sin City are black and white, and sometimes red for emphasis on blood or a woman's dress. Since it's always dark in Sin City, there's usually much more black on the page than white.
My comic book version of The Great Gatsby would be very different in its coloring style and amount of physical violence, but would be equally powerful in its communication of the corruption of the American dream. Since much of Gatsby takes place in suburban, high-society scenes, the scenery would be much brighter. I, like Miller, would only use black and white to illustrate the book, with the occasional blue or red for emphasis. There would really only be two violent scenes in the book in which I would use red: on Gatsby's car following Myrtle's death and the murder of Gatsby.
Sin City, Frank Miller´s original collection of gothic graphic novels, has become widely known in pop culture since the major movie bearing the same name was released. Miller directed the movie, and has been in the comic book industry since 1978, getting hist first work publishing The Twilight Zone for Gold Key Comics. He is best known for his work on Daredevil and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (which influenced Tim Burton´s Batman) in the 80s, and of course, Sin City in the 90s.
Some notable characteristics of Sin City are its gothic coloring style, it's violence, and its depiction of evil and corruption. The only colors used in Sin City are black and white, and sometimes red for emphasis on blood or a woman's dress. Since it's always dark in Sin City, there's usually much more black on the page than white.
My comic book version of The Great Gatsby would be very different in its coloring style and amount of physical violence, but would be equally powerful in its communication of the corruption of the American dream. Since much of Gatsby takes place in suburban, high-society scenes, the scenery would be much brighter. I, like Miller, would only use black and white to illustrate the book, with the occasional blue or red for emphasis. There would really only be two violent scenes in the book in which I would use red: on Gatsby's car following Myrtle's death and the murder of Gatsby.
posted by stag. at 2:52:00 PM
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