Brandon Graham

Brandon Graham is an illustrator probably best known for his comics King City and Multiple Warheads. I haven't seen someone illustrate humour quite like he does, so I felt he was certainly worth a look at for my project.

Both from Brandon Graham's published sketchbook Walrus

From Brandon Graham's King City

From what I've seen, Graham has two ways of illustrating humour. Either through puns, or less commonly through giving a serious looking scene ridiculous dialogue.

For the puns, they really add to the worlds he creates. Usually there is not much humour happening in the story, which usually tends to be more adventure focused, so what humour there is tends to come almost entirely from the puns... and what's more they tend to add to the surreal nature of the worlds he creates. Having a gang named after a pun on 'Bad omen' doesn't hinder the setting, it adds to it.

The other kind of humour he uses is a simple subversion of the readers expectations, but I think it works. The clash between silly dialogue and serious characters is quite memorable, and the dull colour palette adds to that clash too. At a first glance you expect something sombre or quite dull, and instead you get what is essentially toilet humour.

I did two experiments, one for each different style of humour. All in all I think the second one (serious illustrations with an immature joke) works much better. The puns of the first one dont seem as visual as Graham's, relying on the text to explain what's going on. The second illustration however was much simpler to illustrate (despite being more detailed). I feel like I made it clear what was going on unlike the first one.