Life on Another Planet 3pts & Blankets 3pts

 Life on Another Planet by Will Eisner differed greatly from Blankets by Craig Thompson. Although the Eisner work represented the sci-fi genre it felt more like a political drama with lots of gorey assassinations and murder, while the Thompson story showed the life of a teen in a very lyrical way. Even though Blankets technically had more pages, it seemed easier to read because it had a lighter mood and more approachable narrative. Besides the tones of the stories, the two artists employed drastically divergent styles. Eisner used a lot of mid-tone grays, but Thompson used only black and white with hatching to create tone. In Blankets, Thompson also drew his scenes very whimsically, with lots of interesting figurative backgrounds. On the other hand, Eisner made his character’s faces much more realistic looking with more literal settings. Both artists made good use of panel frames with interesting diversity to keep the reader engaged. Each story also had a romance element. Thompson used that as more of his focus in a character-driven story, unlike the plot-heavy Life on Another Planet. Looking more like a black-and-white film, the Eisner graphic novel used lighting to create dramatic effects with lots of exaggerated body language and facial expressions. Blankets had much subtler posing for the characters, but they were still full of emotion and meaning, more like a modern tv show. Also, the speech bubbles in Life on Another Planet seemed more expressive and diverse. Everyone basically talked the same way in Blankets and it had a very predictable structure for each type of text, unlike the Eisner book that played around a little more. These two stories contrasted in nearly every way.

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