Storytelling through imagery is one of the most ancient arts. The very first examples can be named and produced during the Stone Age. Of course, pictures of hunting parties do not entertain viewers, but they can help us understand our ancestors’ ways of life.
If we follow the historical course, we will see that visual narrative continued its journey – Medieval stained glass, book illustration, posters, and many other forms allowed it to evolve into a more contemporary form of creativity as comic books. Through them, many children and young adults become familiar with visual arts. Furthermore, today’s comics are not just simple imagery for entertainment; their viewers seek outstanding artists with unique styles, like our heroine.
Nina Vakueva is a Russian-born comic book artist based in Montenegro. Her style is a wild blend of manga and academic drawing, which she adopted and mastered at the Moscow Architectural University. The artist’s style is truly breathtaking. Vakueva managed to take the best from all those artists with whom she had been inspired while a student. She considers Impressionist artists her primary teachers. Through them, she learned how to grasp and transfer an emotion onto the surface where the image will appear.
However, Vakueva adopted much from the pre-Raphaelites’ heritage in her oeuvre. The artist was fascinated by the way they worked with imagery. It made her understand that illustrating a text is not just a mechanical craft but a pure creative gesture. Not once did she mention that mentioned while answering questions from her audience.
Her artwork for the Legends of the Dark Knight: Healing (2021) is a brilliant example of how the artist can depict a narrative without text. Her ability to manipulate the characters so that the viewer does not need additional hints to understand the story’s plot. The monochromatic palette that Vakueva applies here adds more drama than any riot of colors could ever deal with. The poly-composition structure is also dynamic because the artist wanted to show how fast the events happened in this particular part of the graphic novel.
