Classic Examples of Storytelling in a Single Image
A follow-up to yesterday's post about storytelling in a single image. It is interesting to look at these stunning examples while thinking of my friend Dirk's comments on how tell a story in one single image.
There are usually three things going on: there's an action, there's a reaction and there's a location. There is also an emotional message, that will be located in either the action or the reaction and the point is to make sure that this message lands with the audience. So the artist will use their tools: composition, value, contrast -to make sure that the audience gets the point of the story.
I don't want to waste to many words on these examples, because I believe they speak for themselves. I'm sure not gonna explain what is going on and why it works. But the one thing I noticed is how important the location is in most of these cartoons and illustrations. Many of these gags wouldn't work if you changed the location and in more than one example I think that the location is actually the punchline of the joke.
Also, make sure to look up some of these artists for inspiration!
