Jim Smith - Barry Loser Total Winner Bookbuzz Blog

I always thought a parallelogram was a wonky rectangle. But it turns out ‘parallelogram’ is the name for any quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides – AKA a square or rectangle.  

Why am I telling you how stupid I am? Because recently, I’ve got really into parallelograms! 

If you think about it, life is all about parallelograms. You wake up in a parallelogram bed, you get up, open the curtains and look out of a parallelogram window. You walk through a parallelogram doorway into a parallelogram bathroom and try not to look in a parallelogram mirror.  

Why are we so obsessed with parallelograms? I googled it and the first site I clicked on said it’s because our eyesight is shaped like a parallelogram– specifically a horizontal rectangle like an A4 piece of paper.  

Have a look and see if you can see what I’m saying: side to side, our vision is pretty much clear– we can see everything until it fades out at the edges. But up and down, the view’s blocked by our foreheads above and our giant sticking-out noses below. 

So that’s why we’re obsessed with rectangles – cos it’s how we see the world! 

Anyway, what am I talking about this for? Because I love making comics. And comics are all about parallelograms. 

Firstly, a comic book itself is a parallelogram. But open it up and that’s when the fun really starts. Every page of a comic book is completely filled with parallelograms!  

Your basic comic book page is six squares, or ‘panels' as some losers call them. I can think of nothing more enjoyable than the process of drawing six blank squares on a page and then filling them up with a silly little story. It’s how I start every day. 

Sometimes, I treat myself to two little squares at the top of the page and a big one underneath it. Three squares. Two to set up a joke and a biggun to finish it off. 

Then there’s your three rectangle pages. One on top of another, then a third underneath. OK this is getting boring now. 

Sometimes, I like to start two sentences in one short blog with the word ‘sometimes’. Other times, I wish I was inside a parallelogram myself. Like when I’m at a party and I vaguely know two people and they’re both chatting to someone else each. If there was a comic book square floating next to me right then, I’d jump straight into it and plop a bubble out of my head with a question mark inside. 

But seriously, guys –there’s a serious side to parallelograms. And this is it: boxing yourself in is good for creativity.  

I used to have this deep-down urge to make a story that contained everything I ever thought or felt about the world. Obviously, it was impossible and I was an idiot. A story has to be about a few little things. And once you’ve decided on those few little things (AKA boxed yourself in), then you’re off and running with your story! 

So next time you’re thinking how much you hate parallelograms, stop yourself and remember this – without them, your bed would be a circle and there’d be a massive triangle gap in the corner of your bedroom where it didn’t push up against the wall properly. 

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