tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489622848939498705.post7781303941026607832..comments2024-03-18T17:34:56.486-04:00Comments on Four-Color Shadows: Zanzibar the Magician-George Tuska-1939Bookstevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09797445163866512849noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489622848939498705.post-39553769076270253102014-06-14T20:22:32.164-04:002014-06-14T20:22:32.164-04:00One might compare this story to the 1941 Zanzibar ...One might compare this story to <a href="/2012/06/zanzibar-magician-george-tuska-1941.html" rel="nofollow">the 1941 Zanzibar story that you posted at little less than two years ago</a>.<br /><br />Visually, the 1939 story is very much of the early golden age. Panels are laid-out in a rigid 4×2 grid. Narrartive has a white area of border separating it from illustration, as if it is in a panel unto itself. The figures are generally drawn as if dolls posed by a child in a diorama. The shots are all from the eye-level of a standing adult. Background visual elements are markèdly minimal. The colors are simple and striking and unrealistic. Events are given little motivation. Zeus has been reduced from a Supreme Father God to, well, Bluto. Obvious questions are left unspoken and unanswered.<br /><br />In <a href="/2012/06/zanzibar-magician-george-tuska-1941.html" rel="nofollow">the 1941 story</a>, layout is no longer in a rigid grid; rows vary in height, an ocassional circular panel is used; word balloons escape the boundaries. Narration is in a pane but not in a separate panel. Most of the posing is more realistic. The viewing angle is varied. Background elements are still somewhat minimal, but not as much so. Colors have moved <i>a bit</i> towards realism. The story itself still has rabbits coming from hats, but it's better motivated, and is more like a childish morality tale than a dream.<br /><br />There is, on the other hand, a sort of visual slickness to the earlier story that is gone in the later story, as if Tuska had stopped <i>aspiring</i>.Daniel [oeconomist.com]https://www.blogger.com/profile/06763094285750736837noreply@blogger.com