Customer Reviews

99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The illustrator James McMullan once said the search for style is a very personal thing, like deciding if one prefers to wear silk or cotton. Matt Madden tries on 99 shirts in 99 pages here and while the results vary, in toto, the book is quite astonishing. This is not a graphic novel, not even a collection of graphic stories, but a short visual sequence repeated 99 times with great inventiveness. Visual artists such as cartoonists and graphic designers may appreciate Madden's feat most, but anyone who takes delight in creativity will enjoy this. 99 Ways to Tell a Story is a remarkable demonstration of persistence of vision within self-imposed constraints.

I couldn't disagree more with the reviewer who dismissed this clever, funny, and insightful work as boring and unworthy. OK, it's NOT great literature and there are certainly more scholarly books out there to read if you want to work on enhancing your creativity, but let's not be snobbish about this: the book is a fast, fun read the first time through and delivers even more rewards when you go back to it. Madden is a talented cartoonist, and his purposeful imitations of the styles of other famous cartoonists is used to great effect in some of the exercises.

Did this loosen me up and make me more creative? Am I now ready to write the great American novel? Well, not yet. But it has gotten me thinking about new approaches to plotting and characterization, and I think that's the whole point. Thanks, Matt!

I teach comic art at the California State University, Fullerton and in workshops. Matt Madden's book is the best I have found to present complex ideas quickly about form in the language of comics. "99 Ways" is a perfect tool to showcase how your visual storytelling would function if you used, say, a close-up vs. a full shot, a vertical panel vs. a horizontal one, or if you used a specific genre, such as film noir, manga, and so on. People studying comics get it right away. They appreciate the strengths and limitations of each approach and device Madden presents, and his examples make the point better than long verbal discussions! What I also found very attractive is the very reasonable price (one that most students can afford). Combine it with McCloud's "Understanding Comics" and you've got a power punch of a combination for learning and teaching comic art (these two books complement each other perfectly).

I need to preface my review with this: I am not usually
a comic-book-reader. It is not that I don't appreciate
the art form, I simply never really think about comics
nor do I consider graphic novels among my preferred
genre.

I picked it off the shelf without looking inside, I
thought, "Hmmm, perspective - let me check this out"
as I had just taught a writing workshop using different
perspectives and was astonished to find the insights,
awarenesses and "a-ha's" the exercises had upon
my students.

Well, they haven't seen anything yet in comparison to
what they will be able to connect with upon experiencing
Madden's brilliance in this simple book.

This book would be excellent for people whose job includes
telling a story - it would also serve and be beneficial
for those who are wanting to increase in problem solving
ability and think differently.

One of the intriguing bonuses is learning a lot of new
words (like "Emanata" - a purely comic book term - read
the sources in the back for a complete definition.)

As a creative person, it opens up all sorts of different
approaches, thus inspiring the reader-creative-maven to
approach their art differently....which is the
foundation of any life or artistic growth and
transformation.

The first word I scribbled on my page as I was reading
this volume was "Brilliant!" and that summarizes this
book perfectly.

Brilliant!

I like Scott McCloud's 'Making Comics' as a sort of dictionary for comic making - I use it to build a knowledge base, as well as for referencing specific methods. 'Drawing Words & Writing Pictures' is a great school course and fun to do in groups - wonderful pacing and a really fun companion to Making Comics. '99 Ways' manages to provide yet another component, when it comes to exploring where to take your ideas, to think outside the box - '99 ways to tell a story' helps you explore every possible avenue to tell your visual story. If 'Making Comics' is a dictionary, giving meaning to comics, then '99 Ways To Tell A Story' would be like a book of grammar, providing an array of formulas your story could use to speak to your reader. This book will help you avoid the obvious routes in visual story telling; A must have for any visual artist.

Author Matt Madden credits Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style as the inspiration for this collection of ninety-nine variations on the same story in one-page comic strip form. Madden presents an initial comic he calls "Template" that depicts a man working at his desk, then walking downstairs to look in the refrigerator. He then presents redrawings of this story that emphasize particular points of view, themes, artistic styles or styles of specific artists, and so on.

Some of my favorite "versions" of the story:

"Voyeur" presents each panel from a perspective outside one of the windows.

"Reframing" tells the story entirely with hands and punctuation marks.

"What Happens When the Ice Truck Comes to Hogan's Alley" pays tribute to Richard Outcault.

"A Lifetime to Get to the Refrigerator" ages the main character as he progresses through the panels.

"Actor's Studio II" has the story's character exaggerate the relevant emotion in each panel.

The story variations are interesting and clever. This book can be read for entertainment or as a stimulus for developing a less constrained writing style. It's also fun to pass around the office.

A book on comic book styles doesn't have to be wordy. It's a fact that Mr. Madden elegantly shows. The target audience is for people who like to draw comic strips or comic books, or anyone intrigued with different ways to tell the same story. This is not for the casual reader. It's not for someone that's expecting a story or just wants to casually read a comic book. Based on the reviews, some people see this book, see the premise and still complain when they thought it would be something else.

The setup is simple: a one page comic done different ways. If seeing the same one page story told 99 different ways sounds boring, it will be boring. Obviously you are not the target audience.

For those that don't study style, it's best to take the same scenario and do it a different way to demonstrate that different way of doing it. If you use different stories throughout the process, part of the comparison in styles is loss because you're now comparing apples with watermellons.

This book is meant to inspire you to try out different styles or come up with your own. The art is typical indie comic book art. So, if your only exposure to comic book art are Superhero comics, you will be disappointed. You won't see Superheroes with muscles where anotomically muscles don't exist. These are everyday people in a normal situation and it shows how even with a simple story, changing the style gives a different feel to it. So, extending the premise, if you took a more interesting story, imagine the impact it would have if you just simply change the style.

Some of the styles are playful like the palindrome one. You have concepts like telling the story from one angle or one location or with minimalistic drawings or exceptionally detailed drawings. Some of the styles plays homage to other comic book greats to show how changing that changes how the story feels. It also includes: same story and different art, same art and different story, a rude roommate, the story if one person is not there (and one if the other isn't there), the same story minus one of the props, the story shown from the other person's perspective, a narrative, and so on.

I stumbled on this at the library and even though "it's a quick read", I had to borrow it and I know I'm going to have to buy a copy once I reluctantly return it. The fact that this book is quick to look through also means it's quick to browse for inspiration or ideas. Typically most artists that are new to making comics only draw things one way: the side view looking straight at the characters. Sure, the person may be turned facing the other, but that's it. If this sounds like you and you're looking for some ideas to add some variety to your perspectives and style, this is a good book to pick up. As for myself, this will not only encourage me to use the examples to play around with my stories but it will also inspire to to perhaps come up with a few of my own.

This is a different book, that can really open the mind of inspiring writers (or anybody else in fact). You need to read it only once, and it takes one hour or so. I recommend it as an educational gift (and it is fun as well).

The story: A man rises from his desk, answers an off-screen question about the time, and forgets what he was looking for when he opens the fridge.

The story itself is breaking no new ground. The fact of exploring different ways to examine the mundane is not new; the author concedes his debt to Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style.

I am glad that I picked up this little volume. It is visually interesting, thought-provoking, and at times laugh-out-loud funny. The structure of the book is that the style of the story is laid bare on the left-hand page and executed on the right hand page. The structure allows for quick reading as if each set of pages were the set-up and the punchline of a joke. You can ponder the deeper meaning, or just as easily you can move on. This makes for quick reading, and is why I am glad I borrowed the text from a library. As a reader but not a scholar of the form I won't return to or meditate over the work and the list price versus the time I spent is a poor ROI.

The same one page action, told 99 times in 99 different ways (aka an exercise in style the Queneau way).
When "99 ways..." got out, I was curious enough to buy it (and obviously read it). Also, I liked the idea at the base, and I usually love "style exercises". But. Matt Madden fails completely at this divertissement. After a few pages, the exercise becomes rhetorical, and it lacks the imagination and creativity it would need. Yes, there are many ideas, but almost all of them are carried out in a rather mechanical (and possibly dull) way. And even the few good ones look highly undeveloped. In the end it was not only boring to read, but worst: it was annoying.
I would indeed recommend this book to people learning to make comics, but only to them. Though, given all the good reviews "99 ways..." got, maybe it's just me.