Graphic Storytelling

Examines the fundamentals of storytelling in comic book style and offers advice on story construction and visual narratives.

"There isn't a comics artists alive who hasn't benefited from Will Eisner's masterful work and formidable wisdom."—Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics In Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, Will Eisner—one of the most influential comic artists of the twentieth century—lays out the fundamentals of storytelling and their application in the comic book and graphic novel. In a work that will prove invaluable for comic artists and filmmakers, Eisner reveals how to construct a story and the basics of crafting a visual narrative. Filled with examples from Eisner's work as well as that of artists like Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb, this essential work covers everything from the fine points of graphic storytelling to the big picture of the medium, including how to: Combine words and images into seamless storytelling. Wield images like narrative tools. Master different types of comic book stories. Write and illustrate effective dialogue. Develop ideas that can be turned into dynamic stories.

Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation. Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to: Understand the importance of context and audience Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience Together, the lessons in this book will help you turn your data into high impact visual stories that stick with your audience. Rid your world of ineffective graphs, one exploding 3D pie chart at a time. There is a story in your data—Storytelling with Data will give you the skills and power to tell it!

Family Face visualizes our penchant for sorting in playful and entertaining ways. The book presents lighthearted yet compelling work by illustrators, designers, and the creators of infographics that visually structures the stuff of our daily lives.

A playbook for creative thinking, created for contemporary students and practitioners working across the fields of graphic design, product design, service design and user experience. Design is Storytelling is a guide to thinking and making created for contemporary students and practitioners working across the fields of graphic design, product design, service design, and user experience. By grounding narrative concepts in fresh, concrete examples and demonstrations, this compelling book provides designers with tools and insights for shaping behaviour and engaging users. Compact, relevant and richly illustrated, the book is written with a sense of humour and a respect for the reader's time and intelligence. Design is Storytelling unpacks the elements of narrative into a fun and useful toolkit, bringing together principles from literary criticism, narratology, cognitive science, semiotics, phenomenology and critical theory to show how visual communication mobilizes instinctive biological processes as well as social norms and conventions. The book uses 250 illustrations to actively engage readers in the process of looking and understanding. This lively book shows how designers can use the principles of storytelling and visual thinking to create beautiful, surprising and effective outcomes. Although the book is full of practical advice for designers, it will also appeal to people more broadly involved in branding, marketing, business and communication.

This essay collection examines the theory and history of graphic narrative as one of the most interesting and versatile forms of storytelling in contemporary media culture. Its contributions test the applicability of narratological concepts to graphic narrative, examine aspects of graphic narrative beyond the ‘single work’, consider the development of particular narrative strategies within individual genres, and trace the forms and functions of graphic narrative across cultures. Analyzing a wide range of texts, genres, and narrative strategies from both theoretical and historical perspectives, the international group of scholars gathered here offers state-of-the-art research on graphic narrative in the context of an increasingly postclassical and transmedial narratology. This is the revised second edition of From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels, which was originally published in the Narratologia series.

The final volume of Will Eisner’s celebrated instructional trilogy explores the critical principle of body grammar in comics storytelling. Designed and outlined by Will Eisner before his death in 2005, this posthumous masterwork, the third and final book in the Will Eisner Instructional Series, finally reveals the secrets of Eisner’s own techniques and theories of movement, body mechanics, facial expressions, and posture: the key components of graphic storytelling. From his earliest comics, including the celebrated Spirit, to his pioneering graphic novels, Eisner understood that the proper use of anatomy is crucial to effective storytelling. His control over the mechanical and intuitive skills necessary for its application set him apart among comics artists, and his principles of body grammar have proven invaluable to legions of students in overcoming what is perhaps the most challenging aspect of creating comics. Buttressed by dozens of illustrations, which display Eisner’s mastery of expression, both subtle and overt, Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative will benefit comics fans, students, and teachers and is destined to become the essential primer on the craft.

Presents instructions for aspiring cartoonists on the art form's key techniques, sharing concise and accessible guidelines on such principles as capturing the human condition through words and images in a minimalist style.