I was watching an old Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode, and…well, if Jimmy Corrigan isn’t consciously referencing this, I’m sure Ware at least saw it at some point. It’s about two brothers who live on a peach farm and have an old pick-up truck. One goes out to avenge their father’s death, while the other, dimwitted one mostly just bites his thumb and wears overalls. It’s a good episode, anyway: here’s the link.
http://www.nbc.com/classic-tv/the-alfred-hitchcock-hour/video/episodes/#vid=917681
This is a pretty long article, but I thought it was great how many things it mentions that we’ve read. She also brings up several other great graphic novels that I’ve read outside of class.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v052/52.4chute01.html
This is Hillary Chute’s intro to the Modern Fiction Studies, the first issue of any scholarly literary journal, I believe, to focus entirely on “graphic narratives.” She goes through the basic intro and history, including extensive borrowing from Understanding Comics, and then goes on to mention some narratives, and studies of narratives, of note. I liked the idea that the form of comics challenges a binary classification, since words and images work together with neither taking precedence. Later, she talks about censorship of both photos and drawings, including the Danish Mohammad cartoon that raised so much controversy, to emphasize the power of images.
I thought this might be a good source for ideas or quotes if anyone needs some for their paper. Plus, it’s a good review of a lot of the stuff we’ve discussed.
I was glad that the first reader brought up Bechdel’s ponderings about her own objectivity in characterizing her dad, and how much of his identity is just her wishful thinking. One of the reasons I think I like this novel so much is that it doesn’t fall into the trap that many books dealing with sexuality do; excessive labeling with no thought about the labels themselves. So often, a character will decide that he or she is “gay,” with no real explanation of what they are actually naming in themselves. I’m of the opinion that human sexuality is way too complex to be accurately described by the terms “gay,” “straight,” or “bisexual,” and so most authors who use these terms are inherently problematic to me.
And at first, I felt like Fun Home was veering in that same direction. Alison of the story, in fact, discovers the label before she even has the experiences normally associated with it: “a revelation not of the flesh, but of the mind” (pg 74). But there’s a difference here; Bechdel is not, as an author, saying that lesbians are actually a discrete class of people, not suggesting that there was anything that truly seperated her from others, but simply portraying how she self-identified and how it helped her find belonging.
The reason I suspect that the Bechdel of today has a more complex view of sexuality is that she puts it in her book, but she lets this theory come from her fathers’ mouth, not hers. At one point, he asks, “Do you have to put a label on yourself?” (pg 211) Alison doesn’t seem to gain much from his words when he says them, but they’ve obviously stuck with Bechdel the author, shown in the later musing that the first reader noted: she recognizes that she may have been hasty “to claim him as ‘gay’ in the way I am ‘gay,’ as opposed to bisexual or some other category” (pg 230).
Although gay men and lesbians are largely portrayed in this book as true communities, seperate from the mainstream and with certain easy-to-identify characteristics, I appreciated that there are some glimpses of the idea that this is not the way things always are, or have to be. I also appreciated that Bechdel recognized those ideas were not hers at the time the story, and therefore attributes them appropriately to her father.
Doing the reading for today, I almost wish I had picked this section to do my presentation on, just because of page 206. I feel like what Satrapi is doing here is characterizing the mother-daughter connection she has as something distinctly Persian by couching it in terms of mythology and tradition. You certainly don’t have to be Persian to be close to your mom, but the two female friends I have from Iran have such a similar family relationship to these characters that I am constantly reminded of them as I read. I think of Satrapi and her mother’s unique relationship as a distinct cultural marker.
What first caught my attention on this page was the sentence, “I spent twenty-seven days by her side.” The combination of a very specific number of days (which contains 7 and is a multiple of 3, two numbers that are very significant in many cultures) and the idea of spending every minute learning from a wise elder made this sound like something out of a myth. The last panel, on the other hand, contrasts the first not only because the mother leaves, but because the time period given is “several months,” a much less specific and more modern phrasing. It retains the feeling of a fable, though, because the narrator is shown traveling with a gift she recieved after her twenty-seven day vigil: “a bag of affection” that seems to sparkle magically.
Just looking at all the pictures in between, especially those with the black backgrounds, the page seems to tell a story that combines many elements of quest stories and fairy tales. I am not very familiar with Persian stories, but I am sure they retain some of these archetypal scenes, and anyway Satrapi is a product of the West as much as the East. The weary traveler is given a safe place to rest by the older woman who takes her in; they talk in a secret language that the reader is never privy to; the traveler aids the older woman; she recieves in turn traditional warnings and advice; she is given gifts that she will carry with her as she continues her journey. The panel at the lower left-hand corner switches back to a white background, and in my opinion back to the modern day. There is an airport in the background, which is not extremely realistically drawn but is more concrete than in the previous panels. The narrator and her mother are not archetypal characters anymore, but real people with real emotions.
I’m not sure if anyone is doing this page for their presentation, but it would be interesting to see how anyone else’s interpretation differs from mine.
Respondent
Reading Leon’s post, I found I had a similar reaction to the almost child-like drawings the first time I read Persepolis, when I was much less familiar with graphic novels. In fact, as I was rereading this over lunch, my friend had a reaction that I’m sure Satrapi comes across all the time: with such straightforward art and so much text, why isn’t this just a regular novel? (Of course, you can always argue back, what’s not normal about drawing? Why does word-only have to be the norm? But I think I understand what he means.)
Well, it seems to me that as the narrator matures, the art does tend to “grow up” with her. If you check out the last two panels on page 3 (the first page), it looks very much like what a kid might draw when asked to describe her school: there are a lot of little pictures within the big one; faces are just eyes, mouth and a triangle nose; and sizing of different things has more to do with their detail and importance than any sense of perspective. What this suggested to me at first was, in fact, that the story could be framed as a sort of school assignment–tell us your life–and that an imaginative girl like the narrator might choose to do this in pictures. Turning to any given page later on in the novel (and trying not to spoil anything), you can see a bit more realism in most panels, and I would argue that the fantasy scenes get even more expressionistic and wild.
There are many reasons that Satrapi may have decided to draw her autobiography, including the disparities and hints at Persian art we’ve discussed in class. To this I’d add the ability of visual art to instantly display the narrator’s different mental states at different points in her life.
First of all, I’d just like to point out that anything can be made into merchandise. How disturbing would it be to have a Jimmy doll standing on your shelf? And would you pay 45 Euro for it?
On to my main link, the Acme Novelty Archive. This will show you exerpts from most of Ware’s work, which seems to always feature lots of small boxes, cut-out models, and other interesting parallels to Jimmy Corrigan. It makes me wonder whether such things have any particular symbolism in the novel, or if they are just stylistic preferences for Ware. In the archive, you can search for anything that features Jimmy Corrigan, but, as the site itself tells you, it’s “not particularly useful if you’re trying to narrow your search.” I hadn’t realized this, but Jimmy appears in much of Ware’s artwork, often simply as an icon (I assume for depression or childhood fantasies or bleakness). In fact, the character was around before the novel. You can view an issue of the New Yorker that uses him to represent American fiction as it currently stands. It seems like a full understanding of Jimmy Corrigan requires viewing it in the context of all of Ware’s work.
When I was in ninth grade, I tried reading Maus. I think I got through about the first chapter before putting it down and picking up The Sandman instead (we had such a wonderful high school library). I wasn’t too experienced with comic books those days, and I guess I didn’t really get why it was in graphic novel form, since the actions are pretty straightforward, and the dialogue is colorful enough to tell us what we need to know. The question I’d ask my ninth grade self today, of course, is, “Why not a graphic novel?” I’ve since come to appreciate more the subtle visual effects, from the overt metaphor of wearing a Polish mask on page 64, to the fact that the hanged mice at the start of chapter four really do look like dead mice, perhaps bringing to mind phrases like “getting rid of vermin” or “mouse trap.” I also appreciate the attention to detail in period costumes and backgrounds, and the moody shading that turns the father’s narration into a war movie. I’d still like to know Spiegelman’s rationale behind choosing this medium, but I’m no longer surprised or turned off by it.
Another thing that initially confused me was, well, probably the most important part of the book: why were different races being depicted as different species? Isn’t that a kind of racist, Nazi-ish way of thinking? I guess I was envisioning the type of Nazi rationale depicted in Inglourious Basterds (yes, I’m referencing two Tarantino movies in as many posts), where the German is the aggressive predator and the Jews are cunning prey. And I’d like to take this opportunity to slap my ninth-grade self on the back of the head, because of course that’s what Spiegelman is making us think of. The fact that normal Germans going about their everyday lives are still cats, and even the sympathetic, helpful Poles are still pigs–see Janina, pg 37–shows that he is aware of the problematic nature of such characterizations and is forcing us to think of it too.
The only thing I still don’t really get is why Polish people are depicted as pigs. To me, the immediate connotations with that animal would be cute, smart and helpful, but I doubt that’s what Spiegelman’s going for. Is the idea that they are unclean? Greedy? Domesticated so that they can be manipulated? Maybe it was a cultural stereotype at the time that I am just unaware of, or maybe the answer is coming. Anyway, I’m more excited to learn how Spiegelman will play with the story, than to find out how the story actually ends.
In the two first readers’ posts dealing with chapter seven, there seems to be a common theme of the struggle between finding one’s identity by taking on an alter ego, and finding one’s identity by escaping an alter ego. One of the oldest questions for superheroes is, which one is really him or her? The day job or the mask? I love the discussion of this in Kill Bill Vol. 2, when Bill argues that Superman is Superman’s identity, and Clark Kent is the alter ego he takes on to deal with us lowly mortals. Rorschach embodies this idea by calling his mask his face, or skin (ex. Ch 10, pg. 6, panel 2).
Other characters are not so settled in how they as people relate to their masks. As both posts pointed out, Dan seems more confident and “himself” in his suit; the dream in chapter seven is a great example. But I’m sure the character would never say that Nite Owl is “him” and Dan is a false identity, no matter how true that sometimes seems. Laurie is even less comfortable with her superhero identity, and indeed, “Silk Spectre” seems like a personality that suits her mother much better than it suits her. Crimefighting itself, however, is very much a part of who Laurie is. We see the ease with which she slips back into it when she fights the gang in chapter three, and again when she’s taking out guards and inmates alike in chapter eight. In the end, Laurie seems to recognize that she is equal parts her mother and father, and plans to incoporate more of Blake into her costume to better reflect her new-found identity (Ch 12, pg. 30, panel 3).
I think it’s also interesting to consider how the medium of comic books relates to everything both posters were saying. A lot of it has to do with changes in physical appearance, which can happen almost instantly in a comic. Imagine how long it would take to accurately explain Dan’s dream if this were a words-only novel.
I found an interesting link so I decided I might as well post it: http://bit.ly/zJYrk
This link should lead to an interesting article I came across; if the link fails, searching for “Dark Knight Returns” on JSTOR or Google Scholar should take you to it. The article is called “Splash Panel Adventures!” by W. Robert Johnson, published in 1989. I chose it because it relates to a lot of what we’ve discussed in class; the first half analyzes certain comic books based on criteria that are specific to the medium, like how panels are shaped and how the words relate to the pictures. The second half offers a short history of major and underground comic book companies. I think it the author’s tone is interesting given the year it was published. I feel like he still needs to defend the study of comics itself, giving them a criteria for analysis and a history. The second paragraph on the third page basically declares, “it’s not just adolescent boys reading/writing/publishing these things, really!”
Page 43 and 44 (don’t worry, it doesn’t start on page one) are especially interesting because he uses cinematic terms to describe The Dark Knight Returns, but goes on to describe panels and coloring specifically. His comparison of one scene to a “flip book” is, I think, the same concept that McCloud calls “Moment-to-Moment” and “Action-to-Action” progressions (McCloud, pg. 70). Of course, as the title suggests, Johnson focuses on the uses and importance of splash panels: individual pictures that take up most or all of the page.
A few more notes: if you want to see an actual comic by Scott McCloud, Johnson includes some panels from Zot on page 48. And if you haven’t read Watchmen yet, for goodness sake don’t read page 51, left column. He gives away the entire twist for no real reason.