Fransman's best known for her graphic novels "The House That Groaned" and "Death of an Artist", the latter of which I've discussed elsewhere. She made a very good point that the approach she took to that book - of narrating via multiple fictional voices - is relatively common in literature, but completely unexplored in comics. And there's a lot of this unexplored territory out there, excitingly.
She also talked us through a number of her other, smaller experiments in form, including
- a blank "self portrait" in which her multiple creative selves are depicted in the ornate frame, battling for control
- a tilt-to-view ipad app (predating comixology, sequential & electricomics)
- a sequential art jewellery box telling a story of love, loss and taxidermy!
(Her website appears to be having some intermittent issues right now, so I've provided links elsewhere. Check out http://karrieransman.com, I'm sure it'll be back on its feet soon.)
The big takeaway from the talk, for me, was a reaffirmation that comics are in their infancy, and that there is plenty of uncharted territory to explore. Karrie's doing a great job at charting some of this, and does so without sacrificing the fun element (her humour is often quite dark, but not far below the surface). I came away feeling challenged to up my game as a formalist, which is great.
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