Assessment Graphic Novels

In this blog I will be comparing and contrasting two comic books, named “Witch”, and “Wolverine”. I will be comparing and contrasting the colors, shadow, and panel size of both stories. “Witch” is about a girl that hears voices in her head which ends up being her familiar, a monster cat that is under her command with great power. Once she found out her powers she used it to escape from criminals, save her boyfriend, and save her uncle which at the end died. Hunters are the people chasing her trying to take away her familiar. “Wolverine” is about a man mutated with powers of healing, and metal claws that were inserted by the scientist. He then becomes a super hero working in the group called X-men, but throughout the whole story he tries to save a girl that he has strong feelings towards.

            In both comic books one of the important things is the color being used. In “Witch”, and “Wolverine” one thing that compares is how they use their color to go with the actions , as well as the mood that is taking place in the scene. For, example Kylie from “Witch” was walking down an ally the scene was dark almost like a warning to the readers that something bad was going to happen. Which it did, a man with a knife tried to steal her belonging. The colors used were purple, brown, black, setting a tense mood; this led to know the readers that there are dangerous problems. In “Wolverine” it’s almost the same message when dark colors are used. Logan walked into a cave looking for a monster that has been bothering people, the scene got dark because there was going to be action happening, even his words went with the dark mood, he said “perfect for an ambush. Better let him come to me”. So the author uses color to convey the mood and actions to the readers. The contrasting part is that “Witch” is pretty dark throughout the whole story, as “Wolverine” is not; some scenes have bright colors that represent Logan’s image. Also in “Witch” colors are well colored in, in “Wolverine” the colors are not to well colored in the comic book.

            Another important element is the panel size used in both comic books. In” witch” and in “Wolverine” panels can be compared together. Panel sizes are used in both to state the importance of the scene and let you focus on what’s happening throughout the scene. For example, In “Witch” the scene were Kylie falls into the ground and her inner familiar comes out to attack the criminal, the panel takes half the page. In “Wolverine” the scene were Logan walked into the apartment that he and his girlfriend lived in, and found his long time friend dead in the floor, realizing that his wife had killed him but he didn’t know why. The panel size also takes half the page, to let the readers know that this is important part of the comic book. A difference between both their panels is that the small panels in “witch” aren’t usually important, and in “Wolverine” each panel are important and follow up each moment of the story. Another difference is that in “Wolverine” the really small panel size are used to express what Logan is thinking in his head.

            The last important key to the comic book is the shadow that’s being used in both. In “Witch” last volume, page 17, second panel the author made Kylie’s face one sided shadow, and behind her bright colors. The side of the shadow of her face represented a dark side of evilness that’s inside her because she wanted to kill the man that hurt her uncle, and had taken away her mother. Another clue is that inside the shadow of her face Kylie had a red dot inside her eyes. In “Wolverine”, page 21, first panel, were Logan just killed the father of his loved one, and the lord daughter walks in to see. The artist used shadow to represent the dark mood that is occurring in that scene. The biggest shadow is the guy’s daughter Mariko, she takes half the panel. This is to represent the importance of the scene, because she was clueless of what was happening. The artist also shadowed Logan to almost hide his feelings of killing her father, or even to represent that it wasn’t in an importance to him.

            In Conclusion, I’ve compared both the “Witch”, and the “Wolverine”. I compared the color, panel size, and shadow that are in each comic book. Each one of these elements makes up the comic book, and shows its importance to the readers. If some of these parts weren’t in the comic book you might not be able to understand it. The color brings out the characters, the panel size show the importance of the scene, and the shadow bring out the importance of both the character and scene.