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Matt Madden

comics, education, translation, oubapo

99 More Potential Exercises in Style

November 14, 2017 by matt 3 Comments

When I finished making my 99 Exercises in Style I decided I would not revisit the project again. Drawing a variation of the same comic 99 times seemed like a perfectly legitimate proof of concept and by the time I was done I was eager to move on to new projects. However, Raymond Queneau, whose Exercises in Style (which contains exactly 99 short texts) was my inspiration and model, continued to amuse himself with more exercises in the years following the initial 1947 publication of his Exercises in Style (some of these appear in the recent 65th anniversary edition of Barbara Wright’s translation for New Directions).

When I finished my book in 2004 (!), I had a short list of exercises that I had wanted to do but which either proved to difficult, impractical, or which simply didn’t make the final cut. Over the years I had occasional “woulda shoulda” moments where I thought of some obvious exercise that would have been appropriate for the book (such as re-telling the story using 99 panels). I would also occasionally think of exercises which would be near impossible to execute (a tableau vivant, a telepathic version…). I started a list which gradually approached that magic number, 99.

And so, without further ado, here’s a list, with some explanatory links, of possible further exercises in style that I have no intention of ever drawing:

  1. abstract comic
  2. ratty line (Gary Panter homage)
  3. geometric
  4. ink wash
  5. stipple
  6. watercolors
  7. paper cutouts (after Matisse)
  8. only vertical lines of varying thickness
  9. only horizontal lines of varying thickness
  10. infinite canvas
  11. motion comic
  12. braille or shapereader
  13. drawn with right hand
  14. drawn blindfolded
  15. drawn with left foot
  16. redrawn from memory, ten years later
  17. single-line drawing
  18. Hire a professional illustrator to draw, send text description panel by panel
  19. Hire a police sketch artist to draw, send text description panel by panel
  20. commission a writer to make a prose version, then have illustrator turn back into comic.
  21. fold-in
  22. airplane safety card
  23. IKEA assembly instructions
  24. Choking safety poster
  25. exploded diagram
  26. advent calendar
  27. collage: Max Ernst/Une Semaine de Bonté hommage
  28. frottage
  29. wordless comic
  30. painted comic
  31. goth
  32. steampunk
  33. J-horror
  34. ero-guro (erotic-grotesque)
  35. porno
  36. Tijuana Bible
  37. self-indulgent, mopey autobio comic
  38. 99 panels
  39. abecedary
  40. no curves
  41. no straight lines
  42. Chris Ware-style diagram
  43. haiku
  44. pantoum
  45. installation art
  46. performance art
  47. choreography
  48. fly on the wall
  49. dream
  50. musical theater
  51. courtroom drama
  52. corrected and improved drawing
  53. ten years later
  54. pop-up
  55. acrostic
  56. random order
  57. music score
  58. connect-the-dots
  59. color by numbers
  60. invisible ink
  61. children’s drawing style
  62. visual rhymes
  63. a penguin in every panel
  64. boustrophedon
  65. hologram
  66. telepathic
  67. emoji
  68. gifs
  69. tableau vivant
  70. floor plan
  71. mural
  72. cave painting
  73. land art
  74. sky writing (sky cartooning)
  75. burma shave signs
  76. wrought iron
  77. mosaic
  78. stream of consciousness
  79. surveillance footage
  80. double entrendres
  81. sitcom
  82. tragedy
  83. comedy
  84. Shakespearean
  85. gekiga
  86. kabuki
  87. Noh
  88. shadow puppets
  89. shuojo
  90. magic lantern show
  91. flip book
  92. scrimshaw
  93. quilt
  94. the Marvel way
  95. Persian miniature
  96. Chinese scroll
  97. Joseph Cornell boxes
  98. Henry Darger panorama
  99. Möbius strip

 

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Filed Under: 99X, Blog, Comics, Oubapo Tagged With: 99X, comics by Matt, constraints, Exercises in Style, oubapo, potential, Raymond Queneau, refrigeration

Comments

  1. Mother-in=Law says

    November 29, 2017 at 4:32 AM

    IN-teresting!!-
    M-in-L

    Reply
  2. Scott H Spencer says

    September 9, 2018 at 7:18 PM

    !!!

    Reply

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  1. This Week in Graphic Medicine (12/1/17) | Graphic Medicine says:
    December 1, 2017 at 5:49 PM

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