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I have never asked for a dime from my readers for anything. About three weeks ago, I received an email message from Stavit Allweis:

Hi Ian,

I’m writing to invite you to view early images from “ISNESS” my epic fotonovela currently in the works.

It is hybrid of cinema, the graphic novel form, and is deeply informed by cult masterpieces of past.

We are in the crucial mid-production phase and reaching out to create a fan base and raise finishing funds.

Naturally, I am hoping that you will find my efforts worthy of an article or link on Ian Summers’ Heartstorming.

It would be an honor to have you glance at the Kickstarter link: http://kck.st/bEKVTm

Sincerely,

Stavit Allweis

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Stevie found Heartstorming while searching for photo novella on the Internet. I am glad she did. She found a couple of my articles about sequential art and a challenge to photographers to create the next great photo novella. I am impressed with the fundraising campaign for a wonderful innovative project. She has been using Kickstarter as a means to raise money to complete her photo novela. She has less than one week to raise the remaining start up costs for ISNESS.  Kickstarter is an all or nothing at all deal. Won’t you take a few minutes to view the video below and donate five dollars or more? Everyone contributing $35 or more will receive a signed copy of the book upon publication.

Still photographers interested in multimedia should check this out. Photo novelas are great examples of sequential art. Learn more about the How Messing with Mr. In-Between May Make Gutter Talk more Interesting.

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THE STORY
ISNESS tells of the story of the last remaining family on earth. The story is set in the remains of the culture of the 1970′s, somewhere in North America.

Over the course of 24 downspiraling hours, one family member after another succumb to powerful forces of evolution run amok in their home. As in mythology, their characters are deeply archetypal and some posses supernatural qualities.
On one level the story is the disturbing tale of a dysfunctional suburban family gone post- apocalyptic. On a deeper level, the story lays out and examines increments along the carnality/spirituality spectrum in the human predicament.

THE NAME
ISNESS, the name of the novel pertains to survival: Either “you IS or you ISN’T”. It is the degree of one’s “isness” that nature trades in: that moment in nature’s cyclical regurgitation of matter that we experience as being alive and which we cling to so desperately.

THE FORM
The final product will be in the form of a graphic novel composed of many sequential photographic images. This genre, though rarely employed by comics artists nowadays, used to thrive in the form of pulp magazines in the 70′s and earlier. It never took off in the United States as it did in Europe and South America.

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Only $431 to go as of August 20th with only 7 days to go. Please help.

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As of this writing $6319 dollars has been raised. Stevie needs only $431 to reach her goal of $6,750. Remember, it’s all or nothing at all. Don’t let this great project get away.

Check out this interview with Stevie Allweis at Williamsburg-Greenpoint News+Arts.

There is even more background information at Stevie’s blog Countercomics.com

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I have been a subscriber to The Daily Dose for about a month.

There is always something included to hold my interest and to help keep me current.

You may recall my Heartstorming articles about  graphic novels or Zak Smith’s fully illustrated version of Gravity’s Rainbow.

The following is an excerpt from this morning’s Daily Dose.

The Daily Dose

Presented by Flavorpill

Flavorpill’s Daily Dose is a jolt of cultural inspiration, delivered fresh to your inbox every weekday morning to help jump-start your day.

Our mission is simple: to provide a quick look at what’s new in music, print, art, film, and online,

by offering worthwhile culture to explore right from your screen.

Britten & Brülightly

Painting each page of a graphic-novel noir

Hannah Berry’s debut graphic novel, Britten & Brülightly is enough

to turn any residual comic-phobes into aficionados of the medium.

It’s existentialist noir. The story of world-weary private investigator Fernández Britten

and his unconventional partner Brülightly

has the philosophical wit of Bill Watterson and the whodunit chops of Raymond Chandler.

Berry strikes a pitch-perfect tone. When Britten is hired by Charlotte Moughton, the beautiful fiancée of an apparent suicide victim

, the detective is thrust into a comically sinister world of murder and revenge.

Set in a perpetually rain-soaked quasi-London, the dark and often grotesque characters are stylized to fit the story’s coy-yet-macabre tone.

The artwork was painstakingly painted. Berry, a graduate of Brighton University’s illustration program,

spent more than two years hand-painting each panel of the story.

Read a recent interview with Berry, check out The Oregonian’s review with sample illustrations, and buy the book.

– Chelsea Bauch

If you want cultural events, head over to Flavorpill.

For an up-to-the-minute culture fix, check out Flavorwire.

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What Photographer Will Create the First Full Length Graphic Novel?

The Power of Words & Pictures

In Scott McCloud’s informative and entertaining book, Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels he says “comics is a secret language all its own and mastering it poses challenges unlike and faced by prose writers, illustrators or any other creative professionals. Unfortunately, apart from a few great books on the subject most of that territory has remained unexplored until NOW.” McCloud’s books are presented in comic book fashion — sequential art.

The power of words is an undeniable part of the appeal of this art form we call comics. So strong is the role of words in the vast majority of great comic strips, comic books and graphic novels over the last hundred years, that some comics scholars such as R.C. Harvey have suggested that the artful combination of words and pictures should be included in any comprehensive definition of comics. I think it is possible to create wordless comics (and in these books I am proceeding with a definition based instead of on the idea of comics as pictures in sequence, with or without words) so I wouldn’t necessarily go that far, but clearly any examination of the work of making comics should place the role of words front and center.

Words evoke feelings, sensations and abstract concepts which pictures alone can only begin to capture; they are traditional comics only link to warmth and nuance of the human voice; they offer comics creators the opportunity to compress and express time; and when words and pictures work interdependently, they can create the ideas and sensations beyond the sum of their parts.

Words have also played a role in the graphic evolution of modern comics and through their offspring the — he word balloon, caption and sound effect — have given wealth of unique graphic devices, many of them now associated with the comics and appropriated in other media on a regular basis. Some approach the comics profession hoping to write for others to draw, and for them words are the very substance of their craft. But whether you plan to write for others or write and draw everything yourself, it’s a strong visual imagination and the seamless integration of words and pictures which marks comics best writing.

Today with a century of modern comics under their belt, cartoonists have evolved an artful sophisticated dance between words and pictures which emphasizes each one’s strengths. but also strives, whenever possible, to find the perfect balance between the two. In search for new opportunities and challenges for my photographer readers, I offer the graphic novel for consideration. There have been some photographic novels published in other languages and cultures, but are yet to be seen in the United States. There are many considerations and reasons not to explore this medium — some of them are financial, some include commitment, some include the fear of doing something new, others include not accepting graphic novels as an art form. Instead of looking at what won’t work, I invite you to take a look at a few graphic novels and to extrapolate, combine, collaborate, explore and discover. The combinations between words and pictures have always been present in advertising; why not in your portfolios? At the very least, exploring this medium will strengthen the ways you tell stories.

A Contract with God by Will Eisner published in 1978

The First Modern Graphic Novel

How joyous it was to catch the cover of this novel, while browsing at Barnes and Noble. I remember when it was first published in 1978 and how so many of us in the book publishing business saw it as an innovation.

Eisner’s book was called a mesmerizing chronicle of a universal American experience. Through a quartet of four interwoven stories, A Contract with God expresses the joy, exuberance, tragedy, and drama of life on the mythical Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx. This is the legendary book that launched a new art form and reaffirmed Will Eisner as one of the great pioneers of American Graphics. Graphic novels have gone from a publishing backwater to being the only book category displaying any growth at all. Last year saw $330 million in sales, up 12% from 2005. Translated Japanese manga, particularly the ones aimed at girls, accounts for much of this growth, a phenomenon that I am pleased to say I wrote about for Time far before any other major media outlet. Now virtually all the major print and online media that cover books have at least some sort of graphic novel coverage, if not dedicated critics.

Reported by Andrew Arnold in the last and final installment of TIME.comix (March 2007)

Life in Pictures is a collection of short autobiographical stories. It is a masterpiece and brilliant blend of words and pictures. Be sure to read the introduction by Scott McCloud the author of Understanding Comics. Published in 2007 by WW Norton.

From The Day I Became a Professional Will Eisner, Life, In Pictures

A few decades later we are seeing movies based on graphic novels like Persepolis. A Memoir of growing up as a girl in revolutionary Iran, Persepolis provides a unique glimpse into a nearly unknown and unreachable way of life… That Satrapi chose to tell her remarkable story as a gorgeous comic book makes it totally unique and indispensable. – Time Magazine

Peter Kuper’s Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz

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