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:
- abstract comic
- ratty line (Gary Panter homage)
- geometric
- ink wash
- stipple
- watercolors
- paper cutouts (after Matisse)
- only vertical lines of varying thickness
- only horizontal lines of varying thickness
- infinite canvas
- motion comic
- braille or shapereader
- drawn with right hand
- drawn blindfolded
- drawn with left foot
- redrawn from memory, ten years later
- single-line drawing
- Hire a professional illustrator to draw, send text description panel by panel
- Hire a police sketch artist to draw, send text description panel by panel
- commission a writer to make a prose version, then have illustrator turn back into comic.
- fold-in
- airplane safety card
- IKEA assembly instructions
- Choking safety poster
- exploded diagram
- advent calendar
- collage: Max Ernst/Une Semaine de Bonté hommage
- frottage
- wordless comic
- painted comic
- goth
- steampunk
- J-horror
- ero-guro (erotic-grotesque)
- porno
- Tijuana Bible
- self-indulgent, mopey autobio comic
- 99 panels
- abecedary
- no curves
- no straight lines
- Chris Ware-style diagram
- haiku
- pantoum
- installation art
- performance art
- choreography
- fly on the wall
- dream
- musical theater
- courtroom drama
- corrected and improved drawing
- ten years later
- pop-up
- acrostic
- random order
- music score
- connect-the-dots
- color by numbers
- invisible ink
- children’s drawing style
- visual rhymes
- a penguin in every panel
- boustrophedon
- hologram
- telepathic
- emoji
- gifs
- tableau vivant
- floor plan
- mural
- cave painting
- land art
- sky writing (sky cartooning)
- burma shave signs
- wrought iron
- mosaic
- stream of consciousness
- surveillance footage
- double entrendres
- sitcom
- tragedy
- comedy
- Shakespearean
- gekiga
- kabuki
- Noh
- shadow puppets
- shuojo
- magic lantern show
- flip book
- scrimshaw
- quilt
- the Marvel way
- Persian miniature
- Chinese scroll
- Joseph Cornell boxes
- Henry Darger panorama
- Möbius strip
IN-teresting!!-
M-in-L
!!!