Brian Fies Talks Words and Images

Last week, my Des001 class and I had the privilege of hearing a guest lecture done by Brian Fies, the author and illustrator of Mom’s Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?.  

Left Image from 

http://sumthinblue.com/another-eisner-moms-cancer/

Copyright Brian Fies

Right Image from

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=21748

                                                          Copyright Brian Fies

Both books provide personal insights into the person Brian Fies is, but his lecture gave us some powerful insights into the artist he is, his creative process, and why comics is his medium of choice.  I truly enjoyed his lecture.  He was open to questions and honest and about where in his books he felt he may have succeeded or failed.  Plus, it is always nice to hear the perspective of someone in a creative field because that is where we all hope to be someday.     

He spoke about many different topics, but specifically regarding the topic of the relationship between words and images, he had a lot to say, implying this was one of the most important considerations in his comics.  After briefly explaining his books, one of the first things he went into is the obvious question, why comics? In the words of Brian Fies, “Comics are a combination of words and pictures that add up to more than the sum of their parts,” meaning both words and images are infinitely better when used together than when used separately. He also said comics were what he chose partly because, “the language of comics allowed him to do things that other media wouldn’t.”  For example, it allowed him to use “hard-hitting metaphors” in Mom's Cancer such as being able to draw his mother as the character in the board game Operation, but as “inoperable”.  Another example was the illustration of his mother walking a tightrope as a metaphor for her life being a constant balancing act.  Just when she would think had something figured out, something else would come along to throw her off again. With this metaphor he was able to having a serious discussion in text about his mother’s struggles with balancing medication, but still allow the image of his mother walking a tightrope to be playful.  Furthermore, comics can manipulate space and time like few other mediums can.  

Image from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/jul/14/medical-comics-patients

The language of comics being the combination of words and images also gave him the freedom to be able to show one thing in pictures and put another in text.  An example Fies pointed out was the image of Frankenstein’s laboratory in Mom's Cancer being an obvious enough reference that it didn’t even need to be mentioned in the text.  He was free to put in the text whatever he wished.

The relationship between words and images and the different ways it can be used was obviously one of the biggest and most thought-out aspects of Fies’ books.  In Fies’ comics, and all comics, it is now even more clear that neither words nor images completely tell a story without the other.