We Travel by Memory
2016
Reflection on the Comic
Work on a film starts from a blank frame, but with a mind that is in a constant struggle to create imagery that instinctively feels right. When I visually build upon an idea, I see moving images, and can almost hear sounds and voices from the imagined sequence. There are numerous possibilities in film, so I make different combinations of audio-visual elements, and leave some space for the changes in script that are bound to occur during the shoot.
Another visual art, which like film deals with sequences of images that tell a story, is comics. It was a challenge for me to work with comics, because I had not had much exposure to it before this course, so working with instinct was a little difficult. When I had just begun to understand the theory and the practice of comics, coming from a background of having studied film for two years, it seemed to lack the potential of creating an impact as powerful as by film. I believed that there could not be any movement between frames, it could create no sound, and the pace of the comic did not depend on the creator of the comic, but on the reader, as all the frames of the story are placed in a way that one can spend as much time as one wants to on each frame. So, I concluded that it is impossible for a comic artist to tell a story as is intended. On the other hand, one of the restrictions that I face during the process of filmmaking is bringing out the grandeur of imagination into a reality that has several technical and logistic restraints, most of which are not present while making a comic.
Over time, by reading, analysing, and discussing comics, I realised that the idea I had about it earlier, was extremely limited. My knowledge about comics was missing many genres and styles. I had almost never encountered documentary, and silent comics, or even serious comics about war, and society. Comic is a word that instantly creates an image in my mind of a comical character behaving in a humorous way. This name seems to be a misfit for a major section of the work produced under it. I am not surprised then that some of these decide to be published as graphic novels. There is an immediate difference in expectation that one holds when one thinks about comics, and about graphic novels, or about fiction, and documentary. There is a sense of seriousness that is associated with the latter ones, and both names attract a certain kind of audience. I don’t think that comics are different from graphic novels, or fiction is different from documentary, except in the treatment of the same material, to cater to the intended target audiences.
It was definitions of comic that we started our class with, and it was not so easy to form one, as no definition covered all the types of comics that exist. Also, when we tried to broaden the definition, it formed in such a way that it included film in it. That is when I realised that film and comic are very similar in principle. Both theories are applicable in each other’s practise.
Once I started making my own comic, I was able to use the theoretical knowledge I had acquired by studying film, and comic. The application of building a sequence through images differs, but the concept underlining it is common to both.
In each frame of a comic, the properties of its elements are crucial, and this is one of the factors that guide the eyes of the reader in a certain direction, and creates an atmosphere. In a film, this is mise en scene. Shots are edited and placed in succession, and the duration of a shot, and the position of one in relation to the other creates connections. This can be seen as the mise en page in a comic. The size and number of frames, and their placement in relation to each other on a page, or multiple pages is another facet of comics that guides the reader. In between these frames, there is movement which is not visible, but evident due to the differences between consecutive frames. A comic is like a storyboard, which has a layout for spacial reading, unlike the layout for temporal reading, meant for film, in which all frames are generally viewed within the same boundary. Showing movement inside a frame is also possible in comics, through the use of elements characteristic of movement, like wind and rain. I have tried to include them in the comic that I made, so that the two-dimensional page becomes more dynamic. Also, diegetic sound can be created in a non-digital comic too, with an effective use of typography, and words that are distinct in their quality of audio when they are repeated in the head.
So, in fact, there are several ways in which the pace of the comic can be determined by the creator, movement can be added in still images, and sound can be communicated by mute frames. My initial exploration of comics included lesser possibilities than those that I believe are present now, and I think a comic artist can have control over the manner in which the content of a comic is read. Working on a comic of my own has been a way for me to learn a lot, about the process of making a comic, and also a film.
For a comic, I had to freeze frames. Then, retaining the same visual or emotional effect as the moving images became a part of my process that I struggled with the most. The idea that I began with was to make a comic that would in a way form a connection between Sweden and India. I enjoy travelling, and sometimes watch all that happens around with earphones in my ears, and music that suits the atmosphere. The music that I listen to back in India has with it memories of my friends and family attached. Every song reminds me of a moment and a person from the past. When this music is heard in a space that is unknown and full of strangers, it moulds into that world with so much fluidity that it appears as if everyone around is moving to the beats of the music, which they can hear in some metaphysical way. The music builds a relationship between the known and the unknown, and a strange, new, and slightly scary place becomes so familiar that it feels like home. To transform this experience into a comic became progressively more difficult for me.
I tried to figure out a way to include some kind of music that was personally relevant, and the feelings of which could be communicated without sound, considering that in a song two of the most important elements are lyrics, and music. With no prior experience in the field of comics, I realised that to be able to do a comic like this, and for it to work the way I want it to, I would need to first do a less adventurous comic. Trying to include music, and making people move with its beats would be skipping a step of understanding the basic nature of comics, and moving on to experimenting with the form of a comic itself. For me, experimentation with the fundamentals should be a stage that should be reached only after one has dealt with the conventional form of the medium. So, I decided to not work ahead on my idea for now, though I didn’t want to give up on the entire concept. Instead of dropping it completely, I kept a bit of it, and built on it.
I wanted to include in the comic, my experience of coming to Sweden, and staying away from India, and I didn’t want to make it completely fictional. I thought that I could include the funny incidents that took place here, like being startled at every corner. Traffic here moves in a direction opposite to that of India, so it happened several times that I was looking to my right while crossing the road, and a car was waiting on the left, for me to cross. Also, I had never seen cycle roads separate from the road meant for cars, and the pavement for pedestrians. So, I would walk in the middle of the cycle road every time I would go out, and get alarmed by the cyclist who would ring their bells, and pass by looking straight ahead with a not so pleasant expression. Sub-consciously I move to the left when I see someone coming towards me, so in Sweden while crossing people as I walked up and down staircases, or passed through doors, I bumped into a person without a miss every day for at least the first few weeks. The light switches, door and window handles, all worked in the opposite direction. While leaving a room, I would switch on the lights, and would never be able to open or close the door of the balcony or the window of my room in a single try. Also, if I would turn the handle of the window by 90 degrees, instead of 180 degrees, the window would even start to fall on me, almost crushing me to death in my head. Then, attached to the frame only by the bottom edge, it would magically just hang over me, like looming death. Such experiences, very slightly exaggerated, but quite true, I imagined turning into a comic, or multiple comic strips.
I had started working on it, in terms of sequencing and humour, but during the course of progress I realised that such a comic would not make sense for a target audience which does not come from the country that I come from. For people in Sweden, all these experiences are not relatable, and their way of life can cause a bit of amusement for me in certain ways, because it is different, but it would not be humorous for them, especially if I don’t include the way of life that I am used to. Also, if I added that to my comic, it would become a factual comparison of two cultures, which is what I didn’t want. So the effect that I hoped for would not be possible in Sweden. This comic was meant for an Indian audience. The time or place did not feel right, and so then this idea too was left to be completed another day.
I still didn’t want to let go of the idea of converting my lived experiences in Sweden, in the rest of Europe, and in India into one comic. My plan to come to Sweden was quite a surprise for me, and arrangements were made suddenly, and before I realised, it was time to leave India. I have been abroad just once when I was a child, and I don’t remember much from that trip. I had travelled with my family, and gone to visit family. This travel to Sweden was my first travel alone to another country, and the longest time away from family and friends. Everything happened so fast, and I reached Sweden, in minus six degrees, the coldest temperature I had ever been in, in snowfall, which I saw for the first time, and to many first-time experiences. I was suddenly placed in a surrounding that was not natural for me. It was cold, dark, silent, and there was nobody on the streets. I shifted to a place where an entire country has a population that is about half of the population of the city that I live in in India. It was so real, but it was not a reality that I had known earlier. It felt just like a dream. So I decided to try and use a dream-like surreal quality in my comic, for all the experiences that I wanted to narrate.
Image 1: Page 4 of We Travel by Memory
I wanted my comic to have realistic illustrations, but the atmosphere of a dream. I chose to work with water colours, as it is a medium that holds properties that are apt for the kind of narrative style I was willing to work with. I wanted fluidity between consecutive images, even with constant changes in the space that the protagonist was present in. Initially I had thought of physically merging frames at some points in the story, but as I was making the storyboard, I realised that fluidity within a frame, and in the narration was enough to convey the message. Some visual elements, like the layout of the page had to remain less dynamic, and easy to read, so that the reader spends more time on each frame, and the transitions between them, rather than on their physicality.
My comic ‘We Travel by Memory’ is a journal of my past and future memories. I have travelled a lot in India by road, and by foot, and wherever I go, the people, the streets, the markets, and even the wind with its fragrance, sometimes triggers memories from places that I have visited in the past. No matter how different two places may be, there is always a connection that our alert senses make in a new environment. It may be a natural way of survival, to be able to avoid alienation, but it is a different kind of travelling for me, one for which the transport is memory. One can physically be in one place, but is always living in it with a mind and body that carries the experience of another world, and the more one travels, the more transitions there are between the present and the memory. Both are real, but there is always a difference in the way the present reality is viewed, and the way a distant memory is recollected. Since my comic consists of journal entries, they are all memories.
In ‘We Travel by Memory’ I return to India during the monsoon rains in Delhi. I unpack my luggage, and find my journal in it. Realising that it is raining heavily outside, and is really windy, I go up to the window, and open it wide, enjoying the weather. I look out through the grill of the window, and see a lot of activity on the street below my house. The area is full of people with umbrellas, and the street vendors are in their usual places, even with the rain pouring down. In India during rains, one can see all of them put up bamboo sticks to hold up blue tarp over their wooden carts piled with vegetables and fruits. The vendor in the comic has lit a gas lamp, as it is getting dark with the clouds building up in the sky. The yellow light from the lamp is strong enough to help the stall attract customers in the misty and rainy evening. Also, generally when there are heavy rains, the power in many places in the city gets cut, so that if electric poles fall down due to the storm, there is no current in the water on the ground. Due to this reason, and also because the first rains of monsoon relieve the city of the two months of heat generated by temperatures over about forty degrees, everyone comes out to feel the air cool down. People go out on walks, and children play in puddles, and make paper boats for the small streams that start flowing in the drains along roads (Image 2).
Watching this activity outside the window, and holding my journal, I think about the time when I had reached Sweden in January, and rains were so cold and grey that everyone preferred to stay inside their homes, including me (Image 1). Not knowing anyone in the country, the first few days I mostly spent at home.
Image 2: Page 3 of We Travel by Memory
The journal that I made in the form of a comic is from a first person perspective, and the character whose viewpoint all the frames are made from, is me, as this comic is an autobiographical account of my past and future experiences. All that is seen of me are my limbs, or my reflection on glass. This choice of perspective helped me in reaching closer to a dream-like imagery, which I wanted for my comic. There are some portions in the frames that are more in focus, or are more detailed than the rest, since the recollection of a memory or a dream is never as it is first experienced. There are parts of it that fade out, like an old journal damaged by water and air (Image 2). Since dreams and memories are very similar in nature, it is not possible to know which one this comic documents, as it was difficult for me to distinguish between reality and dream in the time I spent in Sweden. Everything felt like a continuous chain of thought, with one moment triggering the next, and which in turn triggered a memory from another time. The same is true for all my travels. So, I decided to include instances from the trips that I have made to the Himalayas, and the desert areas in India. Some of them are real experiences, while others are inspired from past travels, but are not narrated entirely as they were. I have built transitions between all these travels and the five-month for which I stayed in Europe. In the comic, Delhi, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan are the Indian states that are present, and all three trigger memories related to Sweden, and vice versa.
I have shown more of India in my comic than Europe, and I believe that it works better than the previous idea for my comic on the humorous experiences in Sweden. I think a person with a European understanding would to want see something that is not easily seen in Europe, but is still associated with it, even though it is so different from what is generally seen, like one’s fellow travellers being a goat and a chicken in a local bus. Therefore, I wanted my comic to show that despite the two cultures being quite close to opposite poles in terms of the way of life, there are places, people, and objects that are relatable by those belonging to both cultures.
Irrespective of where one travels to, the initial hesitation to explore, and the gradual increase in comfort level will always be present. Every new place becomes familiar with time. My first idea about music and travel would have been implemented in a very different way than this comic, but that is from where I managed to reach this comic, which at the core is quite similar to that one. My process of ideation for the comic that I finally made, started at the beginning of the course, but I didn’t realise it till the time I completed it, and sat with it to analyse it. All the comic theory we studied in class and outside it, the short practical exercises we did in class to make different kinds of page layouts, the short comic we made on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the experiments with bamboo pens and different inks and brushes, and the various styles of comics that we looked at, all added up at the end of the course, and I could apply it to the comic that I made. Not all is included in the final outcome, but throughout the way, all of it guided me to make choices about the tools to use, style of illustration, framing and layout, and about the genre of the comic.
I chose to do a comic without dialogues, but just with four lines of poetry in a few frames. I generally have vivid remnants of visuals from my dreams and memories, but dialogues seem to fade away faster. The moments and emotions remain clearer than spoken words. Also, when I do write in a diary, I write poetry, and not conversations, so I thought that if it is an autobiographical account, then text should be minimal, and in the form of poetry.
Image 3: Frame from page 8 of We Travel by Memory
I have also kept a colour theme with only blues, browns, yellows, and greens, because these are the colours that are common to every place, and thus become a visual thread that runs across the entire comic, holding together those spaces that are physically very different. The colours are applied in layers, the first one being a brown background, like that of the pages of an old journal, second come the illustrations, then the blues and greens, the yellows, and lastly the white highlights. I hoped to get some depth in the images by doing so, and also more control over the areas that I wanted to focus on (Image 4). It was also a good way to experiment with water colours, and different sizes and colours of pens. Exploring the weight of colour and ink was one thing that I enjoyed working with, and it was something that helped me build the atmosphere that I needed.
Image 4: Frame from page 2 of We Travel by Memory
There were many challenges that I faced, and several changes had to be made when I actually began to illustrate my comic. One of the biggest obstacles to cross once my storyboard was done was to be able to create a translucency within the image, so that all the layers would be clearly visible, and the topmost layer would be the most prominent. The use of black ink was attracting too much attention, as the water colours were mild, and the black was creating too high a contrast. So I used a 0.5 point water-resistant grey pen for my illustrations, and a wash of blue colour as background for the frames with rain in it. Using only blue for one layer and only brown for the other made the image too bright, and no part retained focus. So the entire image had to have both colours, but in varying quantities. I had not illustrated with water colours for many years, so it took a while to get used to the brush and the paint.
Since my comic was in first-person perspective, deciding the way to frame and lay them out on a page I thought would be a problem, but as I started to storyboard, I realised that I could use elements in the frame to direct the viewer’s eyes the way I wanted. Also, since the layout in my comic is easily understandable for anyone who is aware that the comic is to be read from left to right, a guiding element was not required in every frame.
Composition, colour, texture, light, and text are visual components that are important to be understood for any kind of visual art, be it a comic, or a film. Illustrating on paper, it is possible to control all of them, so it is I believe a good way to experiment for film. Physically creating the image on a surface, before a shot is taken, would make it easier to visualise the atmosphere that one requires for the film. Making this comic has definitely helped me in finding a strategy to storyboard for film. It has taught me that the balance of all visual components is crucial, and without paying attention to it, the film could seem fragmented, or discontinuous. It is not only the size and the colour of an element in the frame, but also its translucency that can determine its position in the visual hierarchy.
I had felt earlier that it was difficult to transform the moving images in my mind to still images for a comic, but after I worked on this comic I now see how fundamental it is to be able to put imagination onto paper, disintegrate it, and then combine it again into a composition. Imagination will always be larger than practical possibilities in comic, or in film. This is not necessarily a barrier, as all art has its limitations, and some media have certain possibilities, while the rest cover those lacking in the other. When imagination is brought down on paper, the transition creates a loss, but the paper adds to the imagination that which the mind could not. The same can be said to the transformation of still images into film. The more steps there are between the initial idea and the final outcome, the more variety there is in the exploration of form. This course on comics has added another dimension to my practise of filmmaking.
