In yesterday’s class, we discussed page 25, where the rat with the drill attached to its head attacks a fellow rat. The observations in class made where how the comic panels focused in on the rat from three different view points. At one point, the terror in the rat’s eyes is seen as it is about to be attacked, along with it dropping a nail from the shock of what is about to occur. The close ups and the almost human actions this rat makes displays how unnatural this occurrence is.
I was flipping through the pages to see which one I wished to discuss when I came across page 112. In these events, a rat is shown and Tinker pounces on it, right after her body suit had been shed. She then caries it back to where Bandit is laying. What caught my interest about this page is how different it is from the page with the rat being attacked by the drill-head rat. Not just in the events occurring, but in the way the pages themselves are set up. In the drill rat page, the expressions and gestures of the rat become more and more close-up with more detail as the events progress. in the page with Tinker attacking the rat, the panels actually zoom out rather than zoom in on the rat. It is almost a relief to see Tinker after all the prior events, just attacking a rat and bringing it back in her mouth, just as a cat is meant to do. The rat is not humanized, nor is it the main focus. The blood is minimal and the coloring and lighting doesn’t spell out doom. It is a great example of the many contrasts this graphic novel illustrates, something that this graphic novel has proven to be exceptional at.