Illustrated stories and an illustrious writer

No sooner than three days since I wrote my last post about the start of the 'death march' of my emotional relatives, the news came today of the demise of another illustrious member of that group - Mr. Anant Pai.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anant_Pai

Most outside India (and sadly most inside either) may not have heard of Mr. Pai but he has been a driving force in the life of children in India over the last few decades. You see, Pai was the creator of a number of comic books in India, the most popular series of them being the Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle. The books were aimed at the 8 to 14 year old group, the key age where children start understanding the world and start shaping their moral character.

The story of how Mr. Pai started his career in this field itself is fairly interesting. The story goes that the idea behind starting a comic book series devoted to Indian culture and history came to Pai from a quiz contest aired on Doordarshan in February 1967, in which participants could easily answer questions pertaining to Greek mythology, but were unable to reply to the question "In the Ramayana, who was Rama's mother?" Pai actually did something about this. He dipped into this huge treasure trove of the folklore both in India and elsewhere and converted the gems into pictorial stories in a way that could be easily digested by kids. His significant work in this field is probably the single biggest contribution in converting the traditional oral tradition of India into the more modern written format.

I have spent countless hours during my childhood days devouring many of these stories. I was happy to see that after a lull these comics are being reprinted in India and are selling like hotcakes. It is not easy to convert a story into a pictorial form without losing its integrity. Pai was a master in doing this and his creations have been cherished over the years and am sure will remain in readers' memories for years to come.
Interestingly, I am seeing the trend of visualization crossing the boundaries of 'kid magazines' and into the business world. Recent books like Back of the Napkin and Visual Meetings are bringing this concept into the business world. It takes a lot of effort to simplify a complex concept and explain it elegantly. Being visual beings, we understand and process pictures much better than words, as we are naturally born to do so. One of my hopes is to master my visual craft further and do something in this space. If you have enjoyed reading comics - be it by Pai or others - and love the simplicity and expressive nature of the medium, I encourage you to read Scott McCloud's Making Comics, where he describes the art and science of this beautiful medium.

In the meanwhile, the death march continues... My prayers for Mr. Pai and his family - for boldly going where no one dared to go and for preserving the treasures of the past for generations to come.

Comics and Presentation

In the last post, I mentioned how I felt the concepts behind a comic (strip or book) to be very similar to those behind a business presentation, when I read Scott McCloud's Making Comics book. I would like to expand on that.

In his previous book Understanding Comics - now a classic pertaining to field of comics, Scott McCloud defines the term comics as "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the reader". It sounds a little academic. The crux of the definition is that comics is sequential art, where each frame is made of pictures and words to convey a message both individually and over the entire span. This definition fits equally well for presentations as well. After all, a presentation is nothing but a series of frames where each frame is normally made of words and pictures and conveys some information to the viewer.

It looks like I was not alone in seeing the similarity. When I did a bit of research before penning this blog, I found an interview by Scott McCloud himself talking about this, as well as others.

Source: Austin Kleon

So, "What is the benefit?", you might ask. After all, comics is not necessarily associated with serious stuff - like pitch decks or lunch and learn sessions. It's supposed to be read & throw, right? Wrong. Think about this - which one have you felt is more engaging - comics or presentations? Which one has kept you on your toes, completely engaged, immersed? If the two share a number of common traits, then how come a comic is so interesting and a presentation is not? Is it just because of the relatively dry content of a presentation or is it something beyond that? After all, when we write a presentation, we don't start with the intent of boring people to do death, do we? What can we learn from the comic art that we have loved and apply to our presentations as well?

One easy and most common mistake that has been made over the years is the lack of pictures. And on occasions where there are indeed pictures, the compelling urge to drown it with words describing what the picture means.

Source: Call me Cassandra - Death by PowerPoint

Let's take a look at what Scott says on things that makes a comic and things that makes it work. A clear, persuasive, and intense comic (and from here on, you can freely replace the word 'comic' with the word 'presentation') has the following components.

1. Choice of moment: Picking what moments in a story to include and what not to
2. Choice of frame: Picking the right angle and distance. In short, the right viewpoint to provide the right emphasis
3. Choice of image: Picking the right image at the right level of detail
4. Choice of words: Picking the words that go with the image
5. Choice of flow: Picking the order of the frames that guides the readers from start to end

The same rules govern a presentation as well. I have seen numerous instances (and in early days, I have fallen prey to this as well), where the writer tends to include a few slides either because it looks cool, or because they spent hours searching the Internet to get it and just didn't want the effort to go to waste, even though it does not add to the story. This is where the Slide Sorter mode in PowerPoint comes in. It lets you take a look at all the slides at slightly higher level and let you figure which ones to keep and which to remove. Comic writers (or any writer for that matter) go through this phase, and so should a presenter, if the aim is to make the presentation crisp and to the point.

Similarly, the other aspects are equally important - picking the right bullets or emphasizing the right bullets to convey the message, picking the right images to add clarity to the text (or vice versa), and ordering the slides in such a way that it flows end to end in a cohesive manner.

Comic writers can tell you how much work goes to creating a newspaper comic strip or a full-fledged novel. It takes weeks of preparation and work to produce a comic that is typically devoured in 30 minutes or so. The same unfortunately, applies to a presentation as well. While it may not take a few weeks, it will at least take a few hours if not, a couple of days to refine a deck - but at the end of the day, if it gives the same level of immersion as a comic strip or a graphic novel, I think the effort spent is worth it.

He goes into a number of other details too long to mention in a simple blog entry, but definitely worth reading. Here's another example that pertains to the interaction between the words and pictures. Scott classifies the interaction into seven categories.

1. Word-Specific: Words provide the information with pictures accentuating what the words say
2. Picture-Specific: Pictures provide the information with words accentuating what the pictures say
3. Duo-Specific: Both words and pictures say the same thing (added emphasis)
4. Intersecting: Both work together, but also provide information independently
5. Interdependent: Both work to provide meaning, but neither will provide the information alone
6. Parallel: Each provide seemingly differing message that do not seem to converge
7. Montage: Words conveyed as pictures

In your next presentation, see if you can spot these variations. While each has its own purpose in life, most often we tend to overuse a few of the categories and more often than not, use one in place of another, thereby resulting in a poor presentation as a whole.

I feel that a little extra effort and some understanding of the basics, even if not from the same field, can go a long way in making one's craft far more superior than where it currently is. I know I myself am not there yet, but hope to get there soon. After all, how awesome it will be if we can immerse our PowerPoint-viewing audience in the same way as a comics immerses a kid?

Making Comics - A Review and a Teaser

Last week, I read a very interesting book - Making Comics by Scott McCloud. The author, I later came to know, is also the one behind the Google Chrome manual, which caused quite a sensation when it came out. The book itself is written in a comic format, true to the message it conveyed. Like any typical comic book, this was very easy to read and to understand, even though it covered much heavier concepts.

As a kid, and probably like any other kid of my time, I enjoyed reading comics, and still do. In India, the concept of a 'lending library' is quite popular - it's akin to a video library (such as Blockbuster) but for books. You become a member by paying a nominal fee and can borrow books - anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on the nature of the book - for a fraction of the actual price of the book. I am still not exactly sure if it violated copyrights of the book (although the model is similar to video libraries - so I guess it's OK) but it did expose me to a wide range of books to which I would otherwise have not had access.

In fact, so much was my craze that whenever our family moved to a new city, the first thing I would do is become a member of the nearest lending library (sometimes three or four). The comics available in India were primarily European (Tintin, Asterix, and the like), American (Archie, Disney, and a few such as Mandrake and Phantom imported via Indrajal comics) and local flavors like Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha (ACK).

Comics were always an interesting read, primarily because of the mix of visuals and text, which suited my level of concentration as a tween. It was short, to the point, and fun. When I came to US, I was disappointed to find that most European comics were simply not available. I don't know if it was because of the tendency in USA to distinguish themselves from Europe (manifested in a number of ways) or just plain preference, but all I could find in bookshelves were either Marvel Comics (---man, fill the blanks for any word) or super-contemporary ones that I did not get. Recently, Japanese comics (Manga) seems to be the only non-US genre that has broken this barrier, and that too in a big way.

Of late, I have been wondering why Indian comics has not blossomed beyond Tinkle and ACK despite access to a rich treasure of stories from generations past. One thing led to another, and I started exploring the world of comics - to understand what makes a comic instead of just reading them, which led me to the book in question.

One of the general dilemmas one has when looking for a book about writing is the credibility of the author. If I want to read a book about comics, I expect the book to be written by an established comic writer. Same for a book on movie direction or story writing. However, I feel that this is wrong. Not all teachers of an art are accomplished in their area of expertise or vice versa (accomplished persons may not be good teachers). Barring a few (like Richard Feynman on teaching itself, or Stephen King and Ray Bradbury on writing), these two don't tend to meet and that is no reason to discredit a person's work.

Frankly, I had not heard of Scott McCloud till I read this book. Regardless of whether he is an accomplished comic writer himself, he seems to have an excellent grasp of the theory behind writing comics. He breaks down the concepts behind a comic in a simple yet profound manner. My only pet peeve with this book, probably due to my background as mentioned earlier, is that the book focuses primarily on the genre of comics sold in USA (graphic novels, manga, and contemporary comics) and skips almost entirely the European style of comics. I wish he had at least dedicated a chapter on it, given that it shaped the thoughts of the world outside USA.

Interestingly, as I got deeper into the book, I found myself increasingly comparing the concepts behind a comic book to those behind developing business presentations. Stretching it a little, I feel that some may even extend to the area of User Interface and User Experience.

I will expand on this correlation between comics and presentations in my next blog (hence the teaser part). In the meanwhile, if you are curious enough, I would definitely recommend picking up the book from your friendly neighborhood bookstore. It's an easy, fun, and thought provoking read. If you are more interested in knowing Scott McCloud a bit more, you can also view his TED presentation on comics.