British writer.

Chapter 146 Comics
Margarita stared blankly at the landing,

"Draw? Draw what?"

His eyes were full of curiosity.

Lu Shi was embarrassed,

After he said the phrase "We can paint!", he actually regretted it a little bit.
It is true that comics ushered in a golden age with the development of the newspaper industry, but that was also the 30s and [-]s when printing technology was booming. Although today's newspapers can publish comics, there is no precedent for long-form serialization.

Now it’s 100% single-panel comics.

Lu Shi waved his hand,
"Let me think about it first."

He frowned, lost in thought.

Margarita was anxious and did not say anything to urge her. Instead, she waited quietly.

Time passes like this minute by minute,

Suddenly, Lu Shi began to rummage on his desk, took several copies of the "Illustrated London News" and read them carefully.

Her Royal Highness the Princess on the side also understood,

"Professor Lu, do you mean...comics?"

Lu Shi didn't pick up,
It's been so long since he traveled through time, and he hasn't read the comics of this era carefully, and he doesn't even know what level they are.
As a result, after looking at it, I found out that it really didn't work.

Comics in the early 20th century functioned more like illustrations, so they were mainly single-panel comics, and there were not even four-panel comics, let alone six-panel, eight-panel, and modern comic stories.

Lu Shi couldn't help but continue to meditate.

After a while, he raised his head as if remembering something,

"Your Highness, you actually know manga?"

In the English context, "comics" is actually a borrowed word.
In 1814, Katsushika Hokusai, a famous painter from the Edo period in Japan, coined a new word—

Manga,

This is "cartoon", which refers to a group of paintings with casual brushwork, concise lines, highlighting the main characteristics of the characters, and taking mythology, history and daily life as the content.

Even though this word has been around for nearly a hundred years,

But for Europeans, it is almost impossible to come into contact with this word if they are not engaged in related industries such as newspapers or art.

Margarita nodded,

"I know."

Lu Shi asked, "Where did you hear that?"

Margarita smiled and replied: "Father has received gifts from the Japanese~ Moreover, the British royal family also collected many such things. I also know that Zen paintings and Ukiyo-e were also presented by the Japanese, and the warehouse of Buckingham Palace There are quite a few."

When Her Royal Highness the Princess said this, her tone was reasonable.

Lu Shi: "..."

What can I say?

I can only say "cool!" silently in my heart.

Margarita said: "Professor Lu, do you want me to draw comics? But I can't draw..."

Don't talk about her,

Even Lu Shi, a time traveler who had eaten and met before, couldn't draw.
The so-called "every row is like a mountain".

But according to Lu Shi's understanding, comics don't have to be completed by one person.

He said: "It can be done by dividing the work. Some people are responsible for the original work and plot, some are responsible for painting, and some are responsible for assisting and painting some backgrounds and so on."

Margarita's eyes widened.
"This……"

Lu Shi nodded,

"I know, I know, I think it's complicated."

As he spoke, his eyes moved to the "Illustrated London News",
The current situation is that comics ≈ single board,
So, what's the plot?
After you get the subject matter, just draw it and you're done.

Margarita asked curiously: "Professor Lu, according to your idea, how should the plot be presented?"

Lu Shi took some paper and made some gestures.

As a result, Margarita still looked confused and confused.

Lu Shi had no choice but to take another pen and divided it into four grids.
Unexpectedly, before he could explain, Margarita clapped her hands first and said, "I know!"

Lu Shi:? ? ?
"You also know?"

Margarita nodded repeatedly and said: "Divide the paper into four grids, and then create everything in the grid~ I have seen it! There is a book in the British Museum called...um...uh...I remember it was 'Northern 'What……"

Her Royal Highness blushed, feeling a little embarrassed for her forgetfulness.

Lu Shi couldn't help but think deeply,
""Hokusai Manga"?"

Margarita nodded again and again, with adoration in her eyes,

"Yes! Yes, yes! That's it!"

Lu Shi did not expect that the British Museum also collected "Hokusai Comics".
Come to think of it, given the preference of Europeans for gold, jade, bronze, stone statues, and porcelain, they should not care much about the protection of calligraphy, paintings, and magazines. "Hokusai Manga" is probably regarded as an unimportant museum collection. Stay in the corner.

Lu Shi was curious,

"I haven't read "Hokusai Comics" either. Are there already four-panel comics on it?"

Margarita said: "It turns out that it is a 'four-frame comic'."

Both of them are laymen,
If their conversation was heard by a cartoonist who truly understands art history, they would most likely need to be educated.

Because real four-frame comics were born in Japan in 1902, although previous comics were also created with four frames, they either lacked layout or dialogue, and were not mature works.

Margarita asked: "Why 'four grids'?"

This question is not a professional one. As a layman, Lu Shi can still answer it.

He said: "Because it has to cover an entire event: beginning, development, climax, and end, just like the structure of a novel, it is divided into four frames. Of course, this is a last resort due to the limitations of current printing technology. If we can keep the cost down, Going on, there is actually no limit to the number of frames in comics.”

Margarita was puzzled;

"Cost? Is the cost high now?"

I don’t know that chai rice is expensive if I’m not in charge,

Lu Shi had no idea about this kind of thing before. He only understood it after running "Mirror".

He introduced: "Buckingham Palace should subscribe to the American "New York World", so you may have seen a color comic called "Yellow Child"."

Margarita nodded,

"Mickey, that kid with a friendly nature."

Mickey Duggan, also known as the main character of the comics "Yellow Kid",
He is bald, buck-toothed, and always appears in slum alleys wearing an oversized yellow pajamas.

Lu Shi continued: ""Yellow Boy" is a single-board comic, and it only appears in the newspaper's Sunday supplement, occupying a page. And "Mirror" is a daily newspaper. If it is serialized every day, the cost will definitely explode. "

Margarita understood, picked up the pen and wrote in the four boxes:

-

Beginning of development
climax ending
-

Just four frames cover the occurrence, plot twist and ending of an event.

This shows that four-frame comics focus on creativity. The pictures cannot be too complicated, and the characters cannot be accommodated. The dialogue must be concise and easy to read.

Margarita frowned,

"Is this possible? Draw "Jane Eyre" using four-panel comics."

"puff!"

Lu Shi squirted,

"What did you just say!? You said you wanted to paint "Jane Eyre"!?"

Margarita looked at Lu Shi in surprise, and asked, "Isn't that what Professor Lu meant? What you said just now meant that I was in charge of the original story, didn't you?"

Lu Shi felt like he was going bald.

"Well... isn't there an original work for "Jane Eyre"? Ms. Charlotte Brontë..."

Margarita asked, "Are you worried about copyright?"

Lu Shi shook his head,

"No, I mean...sigh..."

Thousands of words turned into sighs.

He didn't think about "Jane Eyre" at all, but Margarita got him involved.In that case, let's listen to Margarita's thoughts,
Anyway, it doesn’t cost anything to listen to it.

Lu Shi continued the topic just now and said, "There is an original work on "Jane Eyre". What else do you need to do?"

Margarita chuckled,

"Professor Lu, you must have read "Jane Eyre". Why do you test me like this? For example, before Mr. Rochester confessed to her, she sincerely and eagerly confessed to her sweetheart. The original words were, 'Do you think Am I a machine without feelings? Do you think that I am poor, humble, unbeautiful, and thin, and that I am soulless and heartless? You are wrong!  …'”

After that, more than a hundred words are omitted.

This paragraph is very long, and Her Royal Highness actually memorized it word for word.

Lu Shi said: "This passage is really heart-wrenching."

Margarita spread hands,

"More than 100 words, how to put them in the manga? The capacity of the frame is limited."

Lu Shi was instantly stunned by the question.

"This……"

Margarita said: "So, this requires a person who is proficient in the original work to adapt it. On the one hand, it must not lose the essence of the original work; on the other hand, it will become more suitable for comics."

Lu Shi actually had a feeling of being persuaded,
"What are you going to do?" he asked.

Margarita smiled and said: "I can adapt it, but I'm not good at painting, so I'm going to ask someone from the School of Crafts and Entertainment for help."

The School of Crafts and Entertainment later became Goldsmiths College, or Goldsmiths College.

In modern times, with the QS World University Rankings, the school's art and design majors rank very high. The fine arts department has nurtured many young artists. Its graduates have been nominated for the Turner Prize more than 30 times and produced 9 winners.

Lu Shi nodded,

"This is indeed an idea that can be tried."

That's true, but I don't think so in my heart.

Because the cartoons in the early 20th century still lacked an extremely important element——

Storyboard.

Storyboarding is Osamu Tezuka’s innovation in comics.
He incorporates various film expression techniques such as zoom, wide angle, and bird's-eye view into comics, giving comics a dynamic feel like a movie.

The emergence of storyboards brought comics into a new period of development, laying the foundation for the take-off of the comics industry.

A novel like "Jane Eyre" has no storyboards...

Lu Shi couldn't imagine it.

But he decided to let Margarita try it anyway,
After all, he just traveled through time and did not become an omniscient and omnipotent god.

Cross-category literary creation has reached its limit;
Let’s leave things like drawing comics to real professionals.

Moreover, the "Mirror" really needs a comic version, but it cannot be too homogeneous and overlap with the "Illustrated London News" and "Berlin Illustrated" in ecological niches, so it needs to innovate in content and form.

The four-frame comic is undoubtedly a good attempt.

Most people have a few pages of four-frame comics in their childhood.
"Old Master Q" by Mr. Wang Ze,

"Oolong Courtyard" by Ao Youxiang,

Overseas, there are even "Garfield", "Snoopy", and "Father and Son".
The success of these comics is the best proof.

Lu Shi said: "In that case, let's do what we just discussed. I hope you can succeed."

What he didn't know was that he had unintentionally gained another identity——

A leader in manga innovation.

Margarita couldn't help but look excited. She didn't expect that when she came to "Mirror" to submit an article, she would bring back such an innovative job.

Because she was happy, she bent down and rubbed my big face.
My generation: "Meow!"

Helplessly ravaged.

Margarita smiled and patted the little guy's head, then came to the door and opened it, ready to leave.

At this moment, her hand holding the doorknob paused.

"Professor Lu, your office is so messy."

Lu Shi looked around,
"Indeed. I'll tidy up and go later."

The voice just fell,

boom--

Margarita closed the door.

She said: "Professor Lu, let me help you!"

Based on the education of the aristocracy, Her Royal Highness should not have done such an unethical thing.
But getting the comic job today made Margarita very excited, and she was a little carried away for a while, so she said such unreliable words.

Lu Shi looked at the other party's luxurious clothes and really didn't know how to complain.

Margarita also realized it. After rummaging in the cupboard for a while, she actually pulled out a curtain that had been replaced and tied it like an apron. It looked very durable.

Lu Shi was shocked,

"Your Highness, are you really doing this?"

Margarita smiled and said: "Don't look at me like this, I am very good at cleaning. And your office is not big. As long as you plan it properly, it can be cleaned in less than half an hour."

Lu Shi: "..."

Good at cleaning?

This advantage seems to have nothing to do with the status of the princess.

He was about to speak, but Margarita interrupted him with instructions: "Professor Lu, go and prepare a bucket and a towel."

Lu Shi looked at my fellow next to him,
I also looked at him with a confused expression,
Neither one person nor the cat can understand the behavior of Her Highness the Princess.

Margarita urged: "Professor Lu, go quickly."

Lu Shi had no choice but to go out to get a basin of water and a rag for cleaning.

As a result, as soon as he returned to the office, he discovered that Margarita had moved a chair to the window, and she was standing on the chair, standing on tiptoes, squinting at the seams between the ceiling and the upper edge of the window.

I was standing there with my head raised, my big eyes full of question marks.

"Meow?"

As if to say: “What kind of human obfuscation is this?”

Lu Shi asked: "Your Highness, do you want to clean the ceiling?"

Margarita nodded,

"Well, the order of cleaning should be from top to bottom and from the inside to the inside. Forget it, you don't understand even if I tell you, just give me the towel."

Lu Shi raised his head,

I saw that there was indeed a thin layer of dust on the ceiling.
"Is there really a need to clean up there?"

Margarita looked back,

"Professor Lu, take action!"

Lu Shi was at a loss and muttered: "Okay, okay! My respected princess."

As he spoke, he held up a towel soaked in water and leaned over.

Margarita showed a satisfied smile at first, but then she seemed to think of something again, her face turned red, and she subconsciously suppressed the hem of her skirt.

Lu Shi didn't come and didn't think much about it.
But Margarita's actions were almost a reminder, and he couldn't help but think more about it.

He quickly looked away and thought silently:

"See no evil!"

But this tilt of the head made Margarita even more shy, and she didn’t know where to put her hands.

She quickly jumped off the chair,
"Professor Lu, I have to leave!"

Seeing that the other person's face was so red that he could squeeze out ketchup, Lu Shi quickly stopped him and said, "Wait a minute! If you go out in this state, people who don't know will think that I... think that I..."

After all, the words "workplace harassment" couldn't be uttered.

Margarita stood for a while and couldn't explain why when she saw Lu Shi, so she ran towards the door like flying.
She put her hand on the doorknob and turned around,

"Professor Lu, I heard that you are going to be knighted? Congratulations!"

After saying that, Her Royal Highness the Princess rushed out of the door.

(End of this chapter)