lumber janes cover analysis

 

Composition

The first thing I noticed about this is how the use of straight versus curve lines work in the image in ways I wouldnt have thought of had I not written an analysis. For starters at the top of the image we see a figure who is turned away from us pointing an arrow off to the left of the page, this is important because this gesture becomes a straight line if we follow the arrow to the shoulder and the arm in the back. Its almost as if this upper part of the picture is meant to underline the title of the comic "Lumberjane" and is probably the reason why we see the back of her head instead of the front since it would make it hard to read if she was looking at us.

Just like how this line is underling the name of the comic we can see there are a few other leading lines and gestures throughout the piece  that makes the whole thing feel organized yet dynamic. If we start at the top we can notice almost immediately the zig zag positioning of not only each person but notice how the shapes of the elbows all jut out of their silhouettes and we can almost see a very strong grouping of the top 3 figures which is broken by the middle girls use of the flashlight. 

The bottom two figures feel more relaxed in their posture and we can see that the bottom figure is speaking into the can while the other ones try to hear and see from it. If we were to trace out the gestures of the hair we would find they either connect to shapes below them or gently push us like waves in the ocean towards the next person further down in the image. Is this any surprise then that the figure on the bottom is more defined with more detail and the hair is not as pronounced. 

Some other things I noticed: The redline is also obviously taking us through the image and it pops up behind each character. Also all the characters white silhouettes are connected together and patterns around them add visual interest. Its also interesting to point out how simple the gestures of each figure are and what they communicate. 

You can find more of this artist here