Matt Madden's '99 Ways to tell a story: Exercises in styles'

Week 1 

Stephen Frug - Cento
Source: http://www.exercisesinstyle.com/guests/

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         I like Stephen Frug's Exercise in Style: Cento. The change of characters and styles which is taken from various comics and books fascinates me. As the character keeps changing in the comic strip, the story seems combining scenes from different time and space. For example, the first strip shows Harry Potter sitting in front of a computer and it seems like he is talking to someone else. However, the next scene shows another man standing behind the chair and the background is obviously not the same as the first scene. Even though the characters, backgrounds and moods have changed, they are connected by the dialogues and similar events and can still successfully be combined to form a whole clear story. Like the middle left strip showing the dialogue “what time is it?” can used to connect the next scene’s dialogue “it’s 1:15”.It’s interesting to notice that actually whenever we look at things that put together, we are intended to connect them by searching for the cause and effect. When we see the character standing in front of the door (top right corner) and see another character stays out of the room (middle left), we will immediately assume the character has walked out from the room even though we do not see the whole process.

          The last two strips also remind me the off-screen space of cinema. By looking from left to right, it seems that the camera pans to right to show the off-screen space and reveals the person behind the character.