blue
all the time
exploring melancholy in comics
marnie legg 2022
I am really interested in all the ways people, and more specifically illustrators, share our feelings and make connections with others. The feeling of melancholy is something that I want to explore within comics in particular because I think it’s something really relevant to my experience and interests at the moment, and is interesting to portray visually.
Much like the comics I’ve been making, I feel as though my project didn’t play out in a particularly linear way. Most of my practical work has been made in this instinctive space, using quick processes to expel my feelings, whether responding to my thoughts, or music or the written word onto a page. It all comes out with this inherent longing, which is what I’ve seeked out to explore through my research. When bringing my thoughts together, I realised I didn’t have a name for what I was making or why these processes were coming to the forefront, other than that longing, which I had found words for by reading into articles about the music I’d been responding to.
Jamison, L. (2014)
Each of its selfdestructive manifestations felt half- chosen, half-cursed.
I’m singin’ at a funeral tomorrow
For a kid a year older than me
And I’ve been talkin’ to his dad, it makes me so sad When I think too much about it, I can’t breathe And I have this dream where I’m screamin’ underwater While my friends are wavin’ from the shore And I don’t need you to tell me what that means I don’t believe in that stuff anymore Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time And that’s just how I feel Always have and I always will I always have and always will I have a friend I call When I’ve bored myself to tears
And we talk until we think we might just kill ourselves But then we laugh until it disappears And last night I blacked out in my car And I woke up in my childhood bed Wishin’ I was someone else, feelin’ sorry for myself When I remembered someone’s kid is dead Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time And that’s just how I feel Always have and I always will I always have and always will And it’s 4 AM again And I’m doin’ nothing Again phoebe bridgers - funeral
visual synecdoche
aidan koch
the actor or subject in the comic is represented by a feature or part of it, e.g, hands and hair two intersecting lines and a suggestion of closed eyes, or hands spread out on what can be assumed is a back
‘A lack of clarity can also foster greater participation by the reader and a sense of involvement’ (McCloud, S., 1993).
zoë beckley
interdependent
the words and image are working together to create a meaning that neither could convey alone
fragmentation zoë beckley
Allowing my instinct to guide my visual exploration during this research project has been particularly helpful in giving me a new point of view to reflect on my own practice, process and influences. After spending a lot of time using print and drawing techniques to create tender, layered imagery in response to poetry, music, and my own writing, I followed the thread of melancholia which ran throughout.
