Dockwood- Jon McNaught

Today my classmate bought in this book entitled 'Dockwood' by Illustrator and printmaker Jon McNaught; I was immediately attracted to it due to the beautiful colours of the leaf print. 

I was interested in the layout of the book, each delicately composed image in chronological little squares, almost like a comic. I've not really looked at many illustrated comics before, but there was something so charming about dock wood that I was completely in tuned with the story whilst reading it. The fact that the sequence consists in so many tiny squares, with movements broken into more stages makes it almost feel like I was watching an animation rather than reading a book.

The two stories were extremely simple; one being about a young man working at a care home, and the other about two schoolboys on a paper round. These could have been executed in a really boring simple way, but McNaught has really bought them to live by informing the viewer about the beautiful aspects of the surrounding environment in the Autumnal season. For example one line of the comic (four sequential images) would be a squirrel hopping along a tree, a leaf falling from a tree or a bird taking off to fly. They diverted away from the actual plot of the story a tiny bit, but made me feel aware of what was going on in nature surrounding the every day life of the people in the story. 

Reading Dockwood has not only further fed my enthusiasm for the beauty of screen print and the use of flat shape, but informed me of how intricate comics can actually be without the heavy dependance of language. Displaying a series of sequential images to do with one action can really make it feel like you are heavily involved in the atmosphere of the story, which is such a powerful tool for an illustrator to use.

I will continue to read comic stories like this one, and look further into the Nobrow press to inform my knowledge of the illustrators associated with the publisher.