Researching Graphic Designers: Frank Miller

'As a cartoonist, I'm a caricaturist. First you find out what somebody looks like, then you find out what they really look like'

FRANK MILLER

Frank Miller is a 58 year old American writer, artist and director. Born on 27th January in Olney, Maryland, Miller is one of seven children. Frank Miller is best known for his comic book stories and graphic novels, with some of his most popular work including; The Dark Knight Returns, 300 and Sin City. 

SIN CITY

Miller's 'Sin City' artwork is one of my favourite pieces that he has done. Almost all of the comic is in black and white but seems to have a reverse effect where the backgrounds are black and the drawings are in white. I really like this monochrome style because I think it not only suits the typical comic book style, but is also very recognisable as a piece of Frank Miller's work. I also think that this helps to convey the mood of the story itself, which is quite dark and dramatic. For the most part, Miller's art is of a very basic colour palette, however in some places he does use one very bold colour, for example the Sin City tile is always written in red and I think this just as effective as having everything in black and white. I think the one splash of colour helps to make the story more dramatic. The boldness of the red also helps to make the artwork more identifiable, as one of the most recognisable things about the Sin City comic is the black, white and red colour scheme. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YHxliQUyRc

Graphic Narrative Production - Ghostbusters

The comic was written by Erik Burnham, the artists were Dan Schiening and Doc Shaner, and the colours were by Luis Antonio Delgado.

The majority of the colours in the book are quite basic colours- there is a lot of reds and yellows used in there, for example in scenes with fire and explosion, and in some of the scenes the characters faces are red to show that they are angry. In scenes where they are outside or in a colder temperature the artist uses the colour blue, which really helps to set the scene. 

The typeface used is actually called 'Ghostbusters' and is unique to the comic books. On the front cover it appears in black, however the O in ghostbusters is the ghostbusters logo, which is iconic and known by many people and makes it even clearer that the comic is a Ghostbusters one. The font itself is quite big but when it is on the page with everything else it's not the first thing your eye is drawn to- it isn't the focus point of the page. The colour of the text is just plain black but it has a white outline that has been blurred to make it look like it's glowing, which I think really fits in with the theme of the comic. I think it fits in because the 'Ghostbusters' narrative is centred around paranormal and science fiction things, so I think the use of shadowing really helps to cement the this. 

The use of images in the narrative are hand drawn and have a 'dream like' quality to them. The colours in the background are not in a block formation, they all blend into each other almost like a gradient, which makes it look a bit fuzzy and dreamy. Different images have been combined together to portray a certain part in the story. Although the images were most likely hand drawn to begin with they have been scanned into a computer and manipulated to make them look more like a comic. For example, the characters themselves have been edited using a computer to make them more crisp and clear, rather than looking hand drawn which can sometimes appear as quite scruffy and amateur. Personally, I think the right amount of images have been combined together to tell the story. The style of the narrative means that it would be quite easy to overload an image with different elements to make it look cluttered and as though there is too much going on, but I think the artists have used the right amount of images, I think if they had used any less the images may have appeared quite empty and like they have a lot of wasted space. 

Although there are different stories told, I think the emotion of the Ghostbusters comics is quite humorous. It is meant to be light hearted and has quite a large fan base that spans from young children to middle aged men, so the narrative has to be kept quite light and fun.