Exercises in Style was inspired by a work of the same name by the French writer Raymond Queneau. In that book, Queneau spun 99 variations out of a mundane, two-part text about two chance encounters with a mildly irritating character during the course of a day. He started by telling it in every conceivable tense, then by doing it in free verse and as a sonnet, as a telegram, in pig latin, as a series of exclamations, in an indifferent voice... you name it.The goal of this project is to apply the same principle to comics by creating as many variations as possible on a simple one-page non-story: different points of view, different genres, different formal games, and so on.
Wow. That's a far cry from the original Exercises in Style I remember reading... which was a very interesting book to read in translation, considering the entire premise was playing with the presentation and manipulation of language. Very cool.
Posted by: Anastasia Salter on April 6, 2004 12:18 AM | Permalink to CommentVERY nice. Make sure you check out the Guest Artists section- some of the style experimentation there is so wild it makes everything on the main page seem tame.
Goes in my permanent bookmarks.
Posted by: James Simonds on April 6, 2004 07:13 PM | Permalink to CommentThe Guest Artists section is pretty fun. I enjoyed the whole concept of the Exercise in Style. It gave me a good idea of the variation and the idea of seperate interpretations.
Posted by: Donald on April 9, 2004 08:52 PM | Permalink to CommentLOL, very cool! I loved the different interpretations of each poem. This collection wouldn't have been complete without the magna version, lol.
Posted by: Jadan Haddad on April 10, 2004 01:02 PM | Permalink to CommentI loved the comics. It shows how many different views and opinions and takes people can have on things. I wish they had more. I get a kick out of seeing things i wouldn' tnever have thought of
Posted by: Andrew Voxakis on April 14, 2004 03:33 PM | Permalink to Comment