Dreamkeepers By David and Elizabeth Lillie ( Review #1 by Usman Rashid)

Hello everyone, in today’s blog post, I will be discussing about an online graphic novel called Dreamkeepers and how it can contribute to the creative freedom that graphic novels can inspire in others. Dave and Liz, founders of Vivid Publication Ltd, wrote this online graphic novel, to show others about how creative freedom can inspire others to create their own work and how it can influence the rest of the world. This graphic novel can be found at http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/.

Summary. This graphic novel revolves around two orphans named Mace and Whip, who live in poverty and get themselves into trouble with both the teachers at the Social Learning Center and with Grunn, a ruthless caretaker at their orphanage at the docks. It includes two privileged daughters of the Viscount named Lilith and Namah, one being the shunned illegitimate child locked away from society and the other having to deal with studies and looking after her sister. (Lillie, David and Lillie, Liz; Dreamkeepers)

Opinion. When I was reading this graphic novel, I saw how their style of both artwork and writing helped show their creative freedom in the form of pictures and words, and how this can inspire others to do the same thing when trying to express oneself.

Literary and Visual components. Some of the literary and visual components used between the transitions from Scott Mcloud’s Understanding Comics, were mostly moment-to-moment, subject-to-subject with it being quiet and collective throughout the panels, then with something unexpected happening in another panel, scene-to-scene in terms with locations in each panel of the graphic novel, and action-to-action. The time between panels was about 5 seconds in length and space between the gutters was very minimal, which was very close and not too far apart, but it created a continuous flow to keep the reader from stopping throughout the story. The uses of the actions or major sounds such as “whoosh” or “bamm” were applied when describing the character’s movements, objects being destroyed or other events throughout the graphic novel. Also, the use of color was applied to help show the characters, the setting and the atmosphere of the story in better limelight and to create a sense of mood, for example the color black was used to show a sad or dark moment. No page marker was shown in this graphic novel but it was organized in both chapter # and Volumes.

Overall, this comic shows how graphic novels can inspire creative freedom and how they can show it through the artwork in each panel.

Lillie, Dave and Liz Lillie. "Dreamkeepers." Dreamkeepers.com. Vivid Independent Publishing LLC. 3 August 2014 <http://www.dreamkeeperscomic.com/PreludeAbout.htm>.