The origin of comics

As a unique art category, comics are deeply loved by people all over the world. People call comics an esperanto without national boundaries, and are praised as "the ninth art" by western art critics. The art of comedy has been promoted to an unprecedented height. Turkey is one of the countries where modern comics started earlier. They also promoted comics to the category of fine arts together with other painting arts, and called them six categories of contemporary art together with painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography and architecture. Comic art is the crystallization of human wisdom and embodies the essence of human civilization. It is these profound cultural accumulations that make comics exert strong artistic vitality.

2 1 century, the development of chinese comic is in the ascendant, and a group of cartoonists who are obsessed with the pursuit of comic art are trying to find the way of comic creation under the new historical conditions. It is particularly worth mentioning that the 6th World Comic Congress was successfully held in Beijing from June 5th to 10, 2004. In order to make the contest more international, famous foreign cartoonists and successful domestic cartoonists were invited to form a jury, and the selection rules of the contest were formulated in accordance with international practice, with special emphasis on the selection of comic works with artistic characteristics. This congress marks the beginning of chinese comic's artistry in the 2nd/Kloc-0th century, and also shows that chinese comic is being integrated into the world comic forest. This conference opened a new chapter in the integration of chinese comic art and world comic art.

First, the origin and development of comics

Tracing back to the source, comics have been marked with their noble artistic lineage since their birth. According to historical records, as early as the 15th century, some exaggerated figures appeared in European paintings. It is well documented that Leonardo da Vinci, a famous Italian painter during the Renaissance, and william hogarth, a painter during the British Industrial Revolution, frequently appeared some exaggerated figures in their sketches and oil paintings, especially Huo Jiasi's representative works Sleeping Brothers, Fashionable Marriage and Personality and Comics, which marked the formation of modern western comics. Thomas Rolandson is known as "the father of modern comics". Although he was greatly influenced by Hogarth, he has more modern cartoon characteristics in character modeling and conception, which laid the style of modern western cartoon. From this narrative, we feel the embryonic form of satirical cartoons first formed in Europe.

Perhaps it is the exaggerated deformation characteristics of cartoons and the metaphor of mulberry curse that have become the sharp weapon of sectarian struggle in its embryonic stage. With the rise of the bourgeoisie, it also bears the heavy responsibility of political factional struggle. With the continuous development of society, satirical cartoons can no longer meet people's spiritual needs, and cartoons gradually expand to diversification. Since the 20th century, cartoonists have continued to criticize these shortcomings with their sharp brushes. However, with the advent of personalized society, people pay more and more attention to their own lives and feelings. Comics, once used as a tool of political struggle, have developed into humorous paintings with humanized characteristics, which are closer to the daily life of ordinary people. At the same time, comics have also been derived from different styles and different connotations, which has won more room for development. It is in this sense that when we refer to modern cartoons, we are not only referring to political satirical cartoons. From a historical point of view, it should be said that satirical comics are the originator of the development of contemporary comics.

/kloc-in Europe in the 0/7th century, under the background of the British industrial revolution, a group of outstanding cartoonists built the golden age of modern British cartoons, and the great satirist william hogarth was born. /kloc-in the second half of the 0/9th century, some European metropolises started comic magazines one after another, and the communication between cartoonists became more and more frequent. They describe city life with satirical and humorous brushstrokes, vent their emotions for the citizens and win people's love. 184 1 The publication of the satirical magazine Punch in London, England, set off a critical wave in Europe in the19th century, which quickly swept the whole world, and China and Japan were also infected.

Due to the influence of western humanitarianism and humanistic spirit, comics are people-oriented and pay attention to human nature. In order to meet people's spiritual needs, various types of cartoons have mushroomed, and humorous cartoons, groups of cartoons, long comic books and so on all appeared in this period. The successful commercial operation of comics has become a pillar industry in Japan and the United States in the twentieth century. They left Britain, the unique originator of comics in the19th century, far behind and opened a new era of modern comics.

Second, the basic characteristics and attributes of comic art

As early as the Neolithic Age, people used pictures to express their feelings, wishes and record their lives, so painting became the most basic means to record human development. The characters drawn in this period have the original embryonic form of comics, but they do not have the function of comics. The so-called cartoon is a unique spiritual element endowed by modern people.

What is a comic book? In the dictionary, we can't find the exact explanation for the cartoons we know. Different social backgrounds, different political backgrounds and different nationalities give it different definitions, but one thing is basically the same: comics are the art of laughter. However, it is obviously one-sided and superficial to understand comics only as the art of laughter. In fact, this art of laughter has covered all forms of beauty. Some people compare comics to a collection of painting, philosophy and literature, which is a mixture. It not only has the characteristics of painting, but also has philosophy and literary thoughts. It is a "marginal" art involving painting, philosophy and literature. Although this explanation is ridiculous, it shows the basic characteristics of comic art. From this point alone, comic is different from other kinds of painting art. So how to define modern comic correctly and fairly? Throughout the history of comics, both satirical cartoons with political themes and humorous cartoons with life themes have the functions of making people laugh, thinking and enlightening. It can be concluded that "all cartoons are funny"; Thought-provoking; Three characteristics that inspire people's minds are the basic characteristics of comics.

What are the attributes of comics? Comics is a visual art, which has the same commonness with other paintings. However, it is not completely equivalent to other paintings. The fundamental difference between it and other paintings is that it puts forward opinions and comments on things, and it also has the characteristics of humor. So satire and humor constitute the most basic attributes of comics. The art of comedy is the art of satire and humor, and it is also the art of reverse thinking.

Third, the classification of comics.

In the 2nd/kloc-0th century, there were many kinds of cartoons, especially in China. For example, there are many kinds of cartoons, such as sentimental cartoons, lyrical cartoons, philosophical cartoons and ink cartoons. The boundaries between them are very vague and confusing. However, after careful analysis of these so-called comic types, it is not difficult to find that these kinds of complicated comics are basically the same in creative laws and spiritual core except for their slightly different names and forms, so this division is unscientific and thoughtless. In fact, comic art inherits the tradition of satirical painting and humorous painting, and at the same time, it also derives cold humorous comics and practical comics. Cold humor comics include black humor, absurd humor and avant-garde comics; Practical comics include illustration comics, advertising comics and profit-seeking comics. In order to better understand the classification of comics, in this section, I made a rational and scientific division of the derivation and development of comics, and made a chart to let everyone better understand the development history of comics and the aesthetic value of comic art.

From the chart, we can easily find that the survival state of comics at this stage is an era in which satirical cartoons, humorous cartoons and practical cartoons coexist. However, driven and controlled by the law of commercial profits, mainstream cartoons such as satirical cartoons and humorous cartoons have been hit by the tide of economic interests, losing ground and shrinking, while quasi-cartoons (practical cartoons) have been infinitely expanded and developed. This asymmetric development cannot be entirely attributed to the profit-seeking market, but the vulgarization of mainstream cartoons is the root of the problem, and the didactic nature of satirical cartoons has lost its former combativeness; The expression of humorous painting has remained unchanged for decades, which leads to aesthetic fatigue when people appreciate mainstream comics, so the mainstream comic art has a vacuum state, which invisibly provides a huge market for practical comics. However, practical comics cater to the mass consumption and rebellious psychology, and dispel the deep meaning and artistic charm of comic art with empty signifiers full of sensory stimulation and commercial flavor, making comics an accessory and joke of mass consumption culture.

When we study and analyze this kind of fast food comics with historical viewpoints and thoughts, the first concern is its relationship with consumerism since the 1990s. Fast food comics represent the fate of mainstream comic art in our consumerism era.

There is no absolute stability in any kind of art, they are constantly changing in the process of historical development, such as construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. Comic art is no exception. We should not stick to the unchangeable forms and techniques of expression, but should constantly produce new forms of comedy art to meet people's spiritual needs.

We should raise the artistic content of comics to an important position, so as to improve the artistic level of comics. As we all know, the value of comic art is supported by aesthetic value. Without this support, comics will lose their artistic value. Under the influence of today's consumerism, it will surely become a vulgar cartoon without artistic spirituality. However, this vulgar cartoon with no aesthetic value can only steal the concept of the word cartoon and parade in the city, which is very popular.

Fourthly, the aesthetic characteristics of comic art.

Comics have developed from a single political comic to humorous comic and pluralistic comic, which enriches the artistic expression and aesthetic taste of comics. Comic not only has its own unique artistic characteristics, but also contains comedy, which shows that comic art has beautiful form and aesthetic value. When it comes to the aesthetic value of comic art, we must first understand its aesthetic characteristics.

So, what are the aesthetic characteristics of comic art? The author thinks that cartoon art is different from other painting arts, and has its unique artistic and aesthetic characteristics compared with other painting arts. In content and form, the connotation and extension of comics are far greater than other painting arts, and its materials are extremely extensive, from the macro world to the micro world; From concrete to abstract; From form to consciousness, it can be expressed through cartoons. In the use of materials, it is not limited by painting types, such as oil painting, sculpture, printmaking and traditional Chinese painting. All painting methods are used by it, thus enriching the expression forms of comic art, therefore, comic art has aesthetic interest and value in both content and form.

In addition, due to the emergence of multi-comics, the expression forms of comic art are enriched. They are different from the creation rules of satirical cartoons and humorous cartoons in the spiritual core, and they are a new artistic expression form, such as black humor, absurd cartoons and avant-garde cartoons in cold humorous cartoons. It is particularly worth mentioning that the avant-garde comic art, which has just sprouted in China in recent years, is not the traditional comic style that people understand in form, but pays more attention to discovering more individuality and depth from the spiritual world of the ID in content. Avant-garde comic art has basically stripped off the characteristics of traditional comics, and it conveys strange dreams or virtual scary scenes to people, from which people can't feel the pleasure of appreciation at all. This metaphysical artistic concept conveys more incredible loss to people. However, the avant-garde comic art still retains the elements of irony and humor, which breaks the law of traditional comic creation and is a new art form reconstructed on the basis of irony and humor. Only when the appreciator crosses this gap of consciousness can he resonate with the author spiritually. This new field of comic art is worthy of our in-depth exploration and research, to explore its aesthetic characteristics and values, and to further expand the expression forms of comic art.

Fifth, the aesthetic value of comic art.

As an art form, comics must first have aesthetic value.

The aesthetic value of comic art is mainly manifested in two aspects: thinking aesthetic form and visual aesthetic form, which are inseparable, interdependent and interrelated, and constitute the basic form of comic art beauty.

1, aesthetic form of thinking

Any kind of art is completed through human thinking activities, and comic art is no exception. Comics express the spiritual essence of things through exaggeration, humor and absurdity, and convey literary and philosophical thoughts to people. Through thinking activities, the appreciator produces aesthetic pleasure and pleasure in this uncoordinated and unexpected state, and forms aesthetic interest.

Comics are not only the art of satire and humor, but also the art of paradox and reverse thinking. The greatest artistic feature of comics is that they start with ugly forms, but end with beautiful pleasure, so some people call comics the art of appreciating ugliness. As we all know, beauty and ugliness are opposites, but they can be transformed into each other. Ugliness in life and ugliness in art are different concepts and essential differences. In real life, evil thoughts and ugly behaviors are always hidden in the form of beauty. As the saying goes, gold and jade are outside, but they are defeated. When ugliness is exposed, people will be disgusted with its beautiful appearance, so beauty becomes ugliness. On the contrary, the ugliness of art is that artists appear in the form of ugliness through artistic processing and characterization of the main body of things. People analyze and judge this ugly form and affirm beauty by denying ugliness. Therefore, the aesthetic taste of comic art has emerged.

Regardless of ugliness in real life or in art, although their external forms have not changed, they have undergone qualitative changes in people's concepts. Beauty becomes ugliness, and ugliness becomes beauty. This change between beauty and ugliness is the change of human thinking process. This is the aesthetic thinking form that produces aesthetic value.

2. Visual aesthetic form

As we all know, cartoon is a visual art, which contains all the means of painting expression. Through the description of comic works, it plays a role in rendering and contrasting the theme of comics and deepens the theme of comics.

Because of the rich means of expression and various forms of comics, it is inevitable that people will misunderstand or have a vague understanding and can't tell how many forms of expression there are. Therefore, it is necessary for us to divide the colorful painting forms rationally and scientifically, so as to have a clear understanding of the expression means of comics and to understand and master the visual aesthetic forms.

From the analysis of these rich expression techniques, it is not difficult to find that there are two kinds that are particularly prominent: one kind pays attention to conception and takes painting as the carrier of expressing ideas, which we call "concept school"; One is to pay attention to the visual artistic effect of comics and set off the theme of comics through delicate depiction. This type of cartoon is called "technical school". No matter the schools of thought or techniques, they only focus on different forms of expression and ultimately serve the main body of comics.

The forms of expression of comics can be basically classified into two categories: one is the stick figure with outstanding conception, strong generality and simple picture; Second, many artistic paintings are narrative and detailed. The former embodies the author's agile thinking and philosophical thoughts in his works, and expresses clear themes and rich ideological connotations through concise pictures; The latter strengthens the visual art effect through meticulous description, which has high artistic content, embodies the author's ideological wisdom and solid painting skills, creates an unreal virtual scene, arouses people's appreciation interest, and understands the theme and ideological connotation of the work. Although their manifestations are different, the result is the same. The ultimate goal is to realize the unique function of comics.

From the perspective of aesthetic value, both simple comics and complex comics are valuable and meaningful to comic art. People convey different visual enjoyment through a simple and complex artistic expression, endowing works with profound connotation and aesthetic value, resulting in aesthetic pleasure. Form and content are actually an interactive dialectical relationship. Highly generalized cartoons express profound and rigorous cartoon language through light and agile lines, and delicate brushstrokes depict the illusion of cartoons, expressing light and beautiful cartoon language. We can also appreciate the metaphysical significance of comic art works corresponding to individuality and nature.

To sum up, modern comic art has formed a pattern of pluralistic coexistence. Objectively speaking, the forms of expression are not limited to the two types mentioned above. It can use all means of modern art, as well as installation art and performance art, but from the perspective of aesthetic value, any form of expression can not be separated from high generalization and detailed description, which are of value and significance to comic art. In the field of contemporary art, not many people really understand the connotation of comic art. On the contrary, many people are limited by prejudice or a little knowledge and mistakenly understand comic art as "childish" and funny art.

If we further contact with the current reality, the realistic pertinence of comic art spirit will be more clear. In fact, the real connotation of comic art is the art of literary philosophy, scientific world outlook and humanistic thought, and its core rule is to conform to nature and humanity. Therefore, in this sense, comic art has revolutionary significance, so it has more realistic aesthetic value. Comics is an eternal art.

Comic pen

1, pen tip

In order to draw ever-changing lines, we need pens of different sizes and thicknesses. There are five kinds of metal pens in cartoons made all over the sky, which can speed up our practice and master the line drawing skills in cartoons in a short time, laying a good foundation for us to make our own comic stories.

Types and uses of pen tips:

Student pen tip: the pen holder is hard, the line elasticity is small, and it is thin and unchanged. Can be used to draw landscape backgrounds and patterns.

Pen: between G and student pen, the lines are easy to control, and you can draw background and effect lines.

Round pen: The pen tip is very sharp, and the lines drawn are very thin, which is suitable for drawing facial features and hair.

Soft g: tough, thick and thin, but difficult to control, often used to draw the outline and effect line of characters.

Hard G: Toughness is not as good as soft G, but it is easy to control and can be used to draw clothes. Figure outline.

2, set of pens

The pen tip can't match the pen holder, so it is also very skillful to choose the pen holder that suits you best. Don't feel too heavy at the end of the pen. Holding the pen without too much force is the best choice. If you are used to using several types of pens at the same time when drawing, you'd better prepare more pens for easy use.

Comic book set: two pens and five nib.

These five pens are the best combination, namely, student pen, small round pen, cymbal pen, soft G pen and hard G pen. )

Comic ink

There are many kinds of inks and pigments used in comics, which can be roughly divided into:

Black tracing ink

White Description' Bai Mo Finishing'

Color ink

Four Kinds of Special Purpose Ink

According to the properties of ink, it can be divided into water-soluble, water-resistant, bright and quick-drying types.

Because of the rich forms of comics, different concentrations, viscosity, drying speed and nature will make the comic effect very different. Therefore, choosing the right ink is the key factor to measure the quality of works.

1, black and white ink

White (waterproof)

Because of its water resistance after drying, it is also known as whitening ink, which is often used when modifying drafts, and can also be used for screen effects such as highlights.

Black ink "quick drying"

Quick-drying black ink often needs to be blackened in a large area when drawing cartoons, which can ensure the need of quick drying and is of great help to save time.

Black ink "brightness"

Bright black ink can have a good printing effect when submitted for printing because of its high concentration and bright color.

Water resistance of black ink

This kind of ink is often used in comics. Because of its water resistance, it will not faint when copying or tracing lines on the original paper, making the manuscript clear and tidy. It is more convenient to use because of the straw.

Black ink "water solubility"

This kind of ink is water soluble, so it has good permeability and variability. Adding water can adjust different concentrations to meet the needs of the picture.

2, color ink

Black-and-white cartoons are mostly used to express complete stories, and the cost is relatively low, while color cartoons are rich in expressive force, high in appreciation and authenticity, so drawing good color cartoons is regarded as an important symbol and the highest realm of debut by many cartoonists. At the same time, good color works are highly expressive, versatile and of great commercial value. Therefore, it is very important to choose suitable pigments or convenient color inks.

It doesn't matter if your interest is drawing cartoon illustrations, or if you want to make your own color cartoon serials. We also recommend Mantian series of special color ink for animation, which is pure in color and suitable for printing. To be a real cartoonist, of course, you have to use professional things ~ ~ ~

Special ink for four-color comics

Select red, yellow, blue and white (or black) to bring up all the colors you need. According to the different properties of three primary colors, they can be divided into water solubility and transparency.

24-color comic ink

24-color hardcover, special color ink, transparent all over the sky (a good choice for gifts)

24-color comic ink

Mantianxing water-soluble special color ink 24-color hardcover (a good choice for gifts)

Comic paper

The process of cartoon creation:

Use pencil (2B or HB) to design line draft on ordinary paper;

After the line drawing is completed, it needs to be written on the original paper for further processing and stroke coloring.

Different lines are treated with different cartoon pen tips and black ink.

Different elements on the screen are colored with various tips of cartoon pens and colored ink respectively.

Finally, it is decorated with whitening ink to draw highlights and other picture effects.

After painting, you can use the original paper for printing, publishing, scanning and other technical processing, and the final picture effect will become very professional and very ornamental!

The manuscript paper of Mantian comics is very suitable for users to stroke and color when creating comics. High quality paper and special production technology are also very suitable for post-printing, publishing and scanning printing.

Sky animation positioning manuscript paper

Imported pulp has good transparency, no pilling when wiping, and excellent effect when copying and backing up.

Special manuscript paper for comics

Product specifications: (B4 with 40 frames/copy) (A4 with 40 frames/copy)