Month: November 2019

Japanese Notebook: a Journey Into the Empire of Signs is a graphic novel by Igort. As the subtitle suggests (the reference is to the Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes), the book is a visual encyclopedia of semiotic fragments. The story covers different manifestations of the country’s culture in its diverse forms from Zen Philosophy to manga. In doing so, it produces a sort of visual meta-discourse in which semantic reiteration becomes a visual reflection on the drawing medium seen through the lens of memory.

Here are some character sheets from my new short ‘Seguidilla of the Femminiello’. The aesthetic is a mix inspired by classic 90s Disney characters and Sylvain Chomet’s masterwork, The Triplets of Belleville. However, most of the characters are based on real life people, like the two Godmothers below.

I have been developing the facial expressions and body language of the main character in the short I am currently producing for the English National Opera.