Review by Matthew Nielsen
99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden is an exercise in taking a simple one-page comic and reinterpreting, reinventing, and even reincarnating it in many different ways. The template comic is 8 panels long. It depicts a man working at his desk, heading downstairs, answering a question from his girlfriend, and then opening his refrigerator. Pretty straightforward, right?
However, the ways in which Madden adapts this template comic make each reiteration feel very different. These changes include simple perspective switches (such as the characters’ girlfriend’s point of view), rearrangements (making anagrams of the template’s speech text), stylistic changes (turning the whole thing into a single political cartoon), tributes to other artists, changing the emotions of the characters, changing the narration technique, and so many more.
Whilst the book is technically 224 pages long, there are only about 99 pages of comic; the rest is reserved for text and the titles of the sample itself. This was a wise choice, as it gives each example its own space and allows the reader to fully experience each version properly.
99 Ways is definitely worth a look, and will most likely provide some good laughs. I’d also highly recommend the book to any artists who are either highly experimental or explorative in their styles, as 99 Ways provides many different points of inspiration. To learn more, visit the author’s website.
