Task 4 (Illustration)

Cover
Covers of the 8 page lyric book, song chosen was shipbuilding by Elvis Castello. The front cover is a play on the Elvis Castello album the song is from. Except instead of it just having one portrait of Elvis, it's the 5 presidents who were in office during the Vietnam war. Due to the Song being an anti-War song.

Page 1
The song is about the Falkland's, but quite honestly, I know a bit about history and Elvis' take on the war just doesn't make sense to me. However I feel like it could be applied more to Vietnam and so I shall do just that since I can Interpret it however I wish. here we see Robert McNamara , JFK's secretary of defense and classified documents of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Page 2
Pictures of troops walking through fields. pictures of bombs dropping, people dying. Shipbuilding, M16s (the assault rifle used by Americans).
Also someone walking in the snow. I thought that would be an analogy for the cold war but also would set this lumbering tone of marching on into the freezing cold.

Page 3
This is the first one in color. Why? to show the change from black and white TV to color TV. Now Americans can watch the war in vivid color. A depressed man lying in a bed staring at the ceiling. eyes, skull, skeletons on spikes. Bombs and guns. It's meant to give the feeling of awakening and sadness or trauma.

Page 4
Troops with immense facial damage, classified images, a woman lying down in blood. Soviet-esc buildings. A scope. Vietnamese people pushing a boat out from a shore.
The wood in the background meant to be a grim reminder of the last page like it's a flashback. Since as the war went on Americans found out about atrocities they'd done which they'd attempted to hide from the public.

Page 5
A map of the united states, a Vietnamese woman with a blur on her face. Meant to be reminiscent of 'Jacob's ladder' which explores the traumatized mind of a Vietnam war veteran who sees people's heads shake quickly in his nightmarish visions. The red eye next to her implies a link to the last page with the woman in the red box, who's dead. the rest is pictures of Asian art of a ship, American troops and an aerial view of a built up town.

Page 6
People in the water with blood rising to the surface, an American man pointing a gun, Vietnamese rat tunnels. The point of the soldier is to point to us right at the very last page of the boo before the back of the book. right in the bottom corner where I expect the eye to go last since we read from top left to bottom right. Much of this page is used to go through a lot of lyrics as well sine there were a lot left.

Back
The back shows a relaxing scene. The jungle at night with leaves wrapping around the back within a frame, much like the front but with opposite colors. The back has a bibliography and has a warm scene of a sunset to signify the end and 2 troops playing basketball near a jet. It's mainly cut off and obscured to challenge the viewer and be more visually interesting but it still hammers home this warm note of optimism and relaxation. I feel like it represents the war ending and the book ending.