Evaluation of my graphic novel Task 1

Vladimir prop was a Russian scholar, who analysed the plot components of multiple Russian folktales to identify the basic elements to folk tales. He looked at one hundred folk tales and came up with that they were all made up of 31 plot elements, which he called functions and despite the fact that they were a large number of characters in all the folk tales he looked at he decided there were only 8 main character types, which were the Hero, the Villain, The prize or commonly the princess, the prizes father, the donor, the hero, the false hero and the dispatcher. Im now going to write about which ones out of Props functions are present in my graphic novel. The first one, which is present in my graphic novel, is the hero who is portrayed in my graphic novel as a fish; he is the hero because he ends up saving himself and the turtle from the village people at the end of the story. The second one of the functions, which is present in my graphic novel is the villain which in my graphic novel is the chief of all the village people, Iktomi, he is portrayed as my villain because he basically instigates the capturing of the fish and the turtle and then he gets the village people to drowned the fish and the turtle in the lake. The third function which is present in my graphic novel is the false hero but he is not portrayed in the usual way, the false hero in my novel is Iya the eater because she is a hero for village people because they class her as a hero because they think they will help them capture the fish and the turtle but he is very quickly seen as a false hero because she lets they down and eventually leads to the villagers death. The prize in my graphic novel is the freedom because the fish and the turtle both want to escape from the village people. There are only three of propps functions which are present in my graphic novel so Im going to explain the other functions and use other products as examples, The donor is someone who would give the hero something special, such as weapon I could of incorporated a donor into my graphic by including a character who gave the fish the knife to stab Iya in the stomach, examples of donors in other stories would be the dragon in Shrek who appears to be a villain at first but he soon becomes close to the donkey and helps them when they need help. The helper is another on of propps character types, the helper is someone who helps the hero on their quest, the turtle could have been a helper in my graphic novel, but he doesnt really do anything apart from say a few things, the helper is usually present in the majority of fairy tales, the helper is usually the a kind of opposite of the hero e.g. if the hero is really strong the helper will usually be quite intelligent and not so strong for example the donkey is shreks helper in Shrek. The princesss father is anther one of propps character types and the princesss father is usually the one who gives the hero a task to go out on an example of this character is the king in Shrek because he sends Shrek out a task. Propp also came up with a theory about what he called functions which existed in the majority of folk tales and the functions are essentially plot elements, the functions which I could find in my graphic novel were; Departure- This is where a hero leaves on a mission and in my graphic novel the fish and the turtle had both originally left on a mission with other people to try and prove who was the strongest out of a group of people.

First function of the donor, to prove his heroic qualities- This were the hero is challenged, this is present in my story as its not really clear as a challenge but the first challenge they come across is where they have to try and avoid getting boiled alive. Heros reaction- This is where the hero responds to the first test and in my graphic novel the hero responds the first test by sucking up the boiling water and blowing it over the village people. Struggle-The struggle function is where the hero and villain do battle, this is present in my graphic novel, as the fish and the turtle have a kind of battle with the village people, in the form of then attempting to drown them in the lake. Victory-The victory is where the villain is defeated which in my graphic novel happens when the fish stabs Iya the eater in her stomach and then the water comes out and drowns the village people. Thesse are all the functions which I could find in my graphic novel as they arent really that many present. A Russian structuralist called Torodov came up with a theory that narratives all followed a simple three step path which consist of an Equilibrium, A Disequilibrium and a New Equilibrium The Equilibrium in my graphic novel is where all is well as the fish and the turtle arrive at the camp, as they dont think that the village people will be so hostile towards them. The disequilibrium is where an event usually causes a chain of events to happen, that event in my story is when the village people try and boil the fish alive, the chain of events which is then caused by this event, is that they then try and drowned the fish and the turtle in the lake. The new equilibrium is essentially the end of the story, where you usually get a character returning to a place of origin, you can see a new equilibrium in my graphic novel as the fish and the turtle after killing all the village people, they set off to return home in the story. A French theorist came up with the whole idea of binary opposites and it is essentially an idea that in every story there are two man sides and that is what drives the story, such as bad vs. evil, men vs. women, young vs. evil, humans vs. aliens and humans vs. animals. The binary which is present in my graphic novel is the idea of humans vs. animals because through out my whole graphic novel the fish and the turtle are constantly battling against the humans who are trying to kill them.

Task 2
In task two Im going to cover the different types of narrative structures and explain which ones will fit my graphic novel the best. There are two main types of narrative structures when it comes to the general timeline of folk tales, they are linear and non-linear structures, a linear structure is where the stories starts at the beginning and just goes straight through the story to end, so basically linear is our perception of time, examples of linear graphic novels are the majority of novels which are created with children in mind because they are easier to follow than a story which is constantly going to different times such as Hansel and Gretel, snow white and the return of jabberwock. Non-linear is where the stories dont go in a straight line so it might include flashbacks or scenes from the future or the past

examples of non-linear graphic novels are Watchmen and Batman Begins. My graphic novel has a linear structure to it because it starts with the fish and the turtle arriving at the camp and then finishes with them leaving the camp and it doesnt include any form of flashbacks or scenes from the future. Another type of graphic narrative structure is an open and closed narrative, an open narrative is where the story doesnt ever seem to reach a conclusion and just seem to go on and on examples of open narrative work is the majority of comic books such as the Batman Series, the Avengers series and the Superman series as well, so basically the majority of novels produced by companies such as DC. A closed narrative is where the story does seem to come to a conclusion examples of closed narratives are V for Vendetta, Alice in Sunderland and 300. My graphic would be classed as a closed narrative because it does come to a definite finish with the fish and the turtle leaving the camp and it doesnt really leave the story open to lead on to another story, even though the character Iktomi (The chief) and Iya the eater are included in about five other Indian folk tales, so it could be classed as an open narrative in the terms that the characters are included in other folk tales. Thirdly there are two different types of strands, a single strand and a multi strand narrative a single strand narrative just has one storyline and is usually very simple and easy to follow, examples of single strand narratives are usually the majority of childrens books and a few graphic novels. A multi strand narrative has many different storyline included into it, for example a narrative where it follow multiple different characters and follows their story, examples are the majority of graphic novels such as Maus, which is a graphic novel about concentration camps and it includes stories about the numerous members of the concentration camps and their history etc... My graphic novel is a single strand narrative because it has a very simple storyline with not many complications or twists included and even though it had a few characters in it, it doesnt cover the characters personally stories an example is the character Iya the eater she just appears towards the end and it doesnt really explain who she is or why the village people have control over her. Finally there are two terms when it comes to explaining the realism of the story, realistic, which is where the narrative is essentially a reflection of events or things which are possible and could happen in real life examples of realistic storylines are The Photographer which is a graphic novel about a photographer in Afghanistan and Anne Frank the graphic novel. Anti-realistic which is just the opposite of the realistic storyline, so it would include events which were either highly unlikely or impossible examples of graphic novels which are anti-realistic are basically the majority of sci-fi graphic novels such as Aliens, the star wars graphic novel and the Doctor Who graphic novels. My graphic novel will come under the anti-realistic storyline because it has very unrealistic scenarios such as talking fish and a turtle and someone who can drink an entire lake. The majority of folk tales are usually in the anti-realistic class because they will include a talking animal or impossible events which happen.

Task 3
Task 3 is the overall evaluation of my graphic novel, Im going to evaluate it on six sub heading which are; Image construction, Anchorage, Signification, Representation, Historical and cultural context and Production process Image Construction I think that I have managed to construct my images fairly well, as I managed to do rough versions of all the scenes I needed then transferred them into to Photoshop to add colour and all the other detail which I co uldnt really add that well by hand and Im happy with the overall outcome of my images even though they are all very simple I think it fits in with the style what I wanted to use for my whole graphic novel. I have used a very simple scheme of colour throughout my whole graphic novel with the characters and objects just consisting of two or three colours, so there isnt really much texture on my created objects as well, looking back at my graphic novel I wish I had included more detail on the lake as it is just one solid colour and doesnt really come across that it is filled with water there are two other scenes which I also feel I could of included more detail on is the scene where the fish spits water out of its mouth and the scene where the water spills out of Iyas stomach it just comes out as one solid colour and I feel I could included more detail on the water in these scenes as well. Anchorage I think I have used text well to help and tell the story, but I have tried to make the text very simple so it fits in with the simple design and colour scheme I have used throughout. Also I may have used abit too much text though because its a graphic novel which is supposed to be told primarily by using images and I have used quite a lot of text because its in the majority of scenes although if I took text out of the scenes it would be really hard to try and follow my story and understand what is fully going on. I have only used captions in my graphic novel once and that is in the second to last scene to, I used it to emphasise the popping of Iyas stomach as I didnt feel the image would make it that clear. Signification Theres only really one image in my graphic novel, where colour has been used to signify something is the colour I used for Iya the eater, which I used a dark grey colour for I used this as suppose to a light vibrant colour, to represent Iyas evilness through out the graphic novel. I have used connotations in my work, for example I have the put the feathers on the chiefs headdress, to show his authority over the village people so he looks superior to everyone. I have also Representation There are only two groups which can be represented in my work and that are the fish and the turtle and the village people. The village people are all represented as the same people with a frown on their face, I did this because I wanted to be portrayed in a negative light all the way throughout the novel and this negative representation is created by taking away their individuality because they all look the same and a negative image is created as because they become hostile towards the fish and the turtle in the second scene where they are introduced.

I have represented the fish and the turtle in a positive light all the way through as they arent portrayed as aggressive, they come off as quite passive all the way through and confused. I have also used bright vibrant colours for the characters to play upon the fact that they are the good guys all the way through.