Tag: tracing pages

Assignment Prompt / Project Thesis: My thesis for my project was (in and, but, therefore structure): The organization of panels to manipulate time and disposition of images to stimulate emotion are formal tools within the production of comics, but their subtle integration allows readers to unconsciously dwell on a scene which the author wants to emphasize, therefore catalyzing a deeper interpretive engagement between the reader and the text. Argument Preview: My argument for my project was that both David Small and Tillie Walden effectively used the unique format of comics to deeper engage readers and allow them to analyze the novel in a way that was beyond simply pictures. Reflection Questions:
– The process of tracing and annotating was useful and engaging for me. I have never traced a page like that before, mainly because I am only used to reading prose literature. However, in terms of annotating, it is a process that I am used to doing within my own reading. It helps me gain an understanding of a page or a piece of text beyond its surface level, and with that it becomes easier to recognize clear patterns, similarities, and differences.
– My writing process itself didn’t necessarily change with the inductive ABT structure, but I did have to go back and revise my essay much more often than usual. Especially in writing the first paragraph, I had a lot of trouble differentiating between a topic sentence/opening, and a thesis statement. Countless times, I accidentally opened the paragraph with something that was too close to a thesis, resulting in constant editing and revision.
– This project certainly helped me understand the secret language of comics in a better way. I wouldn’t say it necessarily helped me understand the stories themselves, but more so how they were structured. I think the biggest thing for me was that the intentionality behind the disposition of every scene and panel shone through to me. Generally, when reading prose literature, especially poems, everything is already intentional. However, with comics, I now understand how that intention carries through to the panels, the gutters, the structuring of these elements, the art, the style of the art, and all of these parts to consider.

In David Small’s Stitches and Tillie Walden’s Spinning, both authors use the intentional organization of panels as a way to manipulate the passage of time within a scene. Both novels include pages in which a single moment is divided into three panels, each depicting that moment from a different perspective. In these instances, Stitches and Spinning follow similar patterns in the way their panels are layered. The first panel on each page zooms into a certain aspect scene from a certain perspective. For example, on page 22 of Stitches, the first panel is a zoomed-in image of the x-ray machine from beneath, likely being the from David’s perspective on the table. On page 41 of Spinning, there is a similarly zoomed-in image of Tillie, from the perspective of her glasses which are laying on the ice. The second panel on both pages acts as a reciprocity in perspective of the first one. Still zoomed-in, but this time an image of David’s face from the perspective of the x-ray machine, or Tillie’s glasses from Tillie’s perspective. Finally, the third panel on both pages is a completely zoomed-out image of both entire scenes, ‘closing out’ the scene in a sense. Through this tri-panel organization, both scenes become elastic and elongated in time, and their importance is emphasized without any additional words or details.  

Within these scenes and panels, the disposition of elements in each panel also assists in manipulating the passage of time within a scene, along with stimulating emotion despite a lack of text. Within the second scene of both pages, both Small and Walden purposefully display the contents of a page in a specific manner. In Stitches, David’s facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) are extremely detailed, yet they are placed on a white background. The rest of his face, or any other details for that matter, are not included in the illustration. Similarly, in Spinning, the second scene is a very bleak illustration of Tillie’s glasses laying still on the ice, with no other details included on the page. The overpowering of white background space in respect to detailed illustrations in the panel is a major conductor of the tempo within the page. Both central panels slow the reader down when analyzing the page, as the white space leaves room for interpretation and leads the reader to evoke their own thoughts and derive their own emotions from the scene. 

The organization of panels to manipulate time and disposition of images to stimulate emotion are formal tools within the production of comics, but their subtle integration allows readers to unconsciously dwell on a scene which the author wants to emphasize, therefore catalyzing a deeper interpretive engagement between the reader and the text. Small and Walden capitalize on the unique structure of comics in order to make these techniques possible, as further described in Hilary Chute’s “Risk of Representation” essay. Essentially, “comics [are] composed in frames-also called panels-and in gutters. The effect of the gutter, the rich empty space between the selected moments that direct our interpretation, is for the reader to project causality in these gaps that exist between the punctual moments of the frames.” (Chute 8). Both authors take advantage of these distinctive principles of comics within their respective works, encouraging a deeper engagement between the reader and the text and forging ideas beyond the mere images on the page.   Click here to see the annotations for Stiches, and here for the annotations for Spinning. Chute, Hillary. “The Risk of Representation.” Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics, Columbia University Press, 2010, p. 8.