So even almost a week after watching it, I’m still thinking about just how cool Kill Bill was. Its hard for me to think a better film pushes the boundaries of the traditional medium while still maintaining an easily understandable narrative flow. It got me thinking of how we can expand the horizons of other forms of art as well. As far as visual story telling is concerned, to me the next best thing to film (and by film, I mean movies, TV, animation, etc) is comics (or graphic novel for the elitists out there... whatever)

Now keep in mind, that in my comic-reading career I’ve mainly stuck to mainstream superhero tales (I’m trying to change, I swear), but still, thus far I’ve never seen anything that I’d call truly mind blowing when it comes to technique, although some have come close. Aside from just the artist style, most books simply follow the story and offer little else in terms of style. Sure, sometimes the artwork has more to offer. The crazy paint/ink styles of artists like Ashley Wood, or Bill Sienkiewicz offer trippy visuals which are great, but often times come off as unimportant to the story and just plain weird. Plus, since there is such consistency in the art, it can be further trivialized because, well, that’s just how their art looks. I much prefer the kind of intercutting of art styles such as the way Wood's art was used for specific scenes in Uncanny X-men #400 and the pencil/painted style of Jim Lee's art in the Batman storyline, Hush for the flashback sequences. These exhibited, how do I say this, stylistic importance.

Other than what I just mentioned , there are only a few other works off the top of my head that come to mind when that I think have made headway in really playing with what you can do with technique to enhance the reading experience...

Black Panther - Enemy of the State II - Artist Sal Velluto (with inker Bob Almond) did a cool thing with Priest's storyline involving an out-of-time Black Panther. Basically, the story had two casts of characters, Priest's usual bunch of crazies, and then several of the even-craziers from the time when comic book legend Jack "The King" Kirby was writing/drawing the book. Velluto drew most of the book in his usual style, but when it came to the Kirby character, everything was done in the King's style. The combination worked brilliantly, never taking away from the story, and in my opinion, made the whole thing so much cooler than it would have been with out it.

Punisher - Roots - I don't know who deserves the credit more, writer Garth Ennis or artist Joe Quesada. This piece is one of the finest examples of how unexplored camera angles are in comics. The whole story is done from the perspective of a mob bosses mouth as the Punisher is pulling his teeth. There is a script in there somewhere, but it really plays second to the art. Had the art been done any other way, this wouldn't even be worth a look at. But instead, what we have here is one of the finer pieces of art in the comics medium.

Watchmen - Watchmen deserves mentioning for two reasons. One is that its one of the few comics I’ve read that the writer and artist seem truly in sync. Everything on the page feels like its there because Moore (the writer) wanted it there. Like the exact image in his brain was put in print. I know this can sounds obvious, but when you've read a lot of the mainstream trash that I’ve read, you'll see how this is not always the case, and you'll know how important it is for the artist and writer to see eye to eye. Anyway, the second reason for Watchmen's inclusion is because of non graphic story telling into the book to further flesh out the story. This pushes Watchmen to the realm of more than a comic book / less than a novel. This kind of blurring changes the perception from comics as "stupid kid shit" to something actually worth reading.

Anyway, all these things are certainly steps in the right direction. What I’m waiting for is a book that uses the full spectrum of color, style, and story telling possibilities. Japanese manga plays the style card a lot more than American comics do which I like. The problem is that this technique seems fairly consistent through out all manga (why do you think they call it Manga style... it aint just the big eyes that are similar). The other thing too, is that most of it is all black in white. Its not that I don't like black and white, but without the possibility of color, it cuts the potential for style differentiation. I love to see black and white used as a style decision and not a cost cutting one.

So I began to think of different ways that would push the medium, well, questions really. How far can we go with art style? In a static environment, its nigh impossible to portray camera movement, but could this be compensated by other means? What more can be done with paneling? How abstract can we make art so that it can still relate a story? How detailed can we get? Can we use photographs without making things look silly or out of place, or are we limited to just realistic painting like the works of Alex Ross or Tim Bradstreet? How can we more effectively use color? How can we change the flow or continuity of the writing to create a unique experience. Is it possible to write the narrative in a more conceptual fashion (like a novel)? Whatever. I wish I was a better writer and artist to play around with some of these ideas.

I don't know, maybe this stuff is already out there and I’m just showing my inexperience here. Maybe if I were to step outside my world of fanboys ranting about how The Dark Knight Returns is the best story ever, I’d be staring at exactly what I’m looking for. But from all indication, its just too rare, or too out of the mainstream for the majority of fandom to care about. But by all means, if there’s anything out there you found stylistically mindblowing, or even just worth mentioning... please let me know.