My first reaction to Batman: the Dark Knight Returns was that there were too many words. I felt as though I couldn’t pay enough attention to the images in each panel, especially when the text was located in the white areas outside of the panels. The text was too distracting and I found myself paying too much attention to the text and skimming over the pictures. The best comparison I can give of my reading experience of Batman is to that of reading a picture book because generally when reading a picture book I read the text and expect the pictures to just reinforce what the text is saying instead of providing additional information. Also the text is mainly what’s needed in order to understand the story. The narrative in Batman seemed overwhelming to me and I believe that there is no way I would have been able to follow the storyline if the words were removed. I think that compared to God’s man the images used in Batman contained less information and narrative even though artistically the images weren’t any less detailed. My reading experience felt choppy but I don’t think that only had to do with the fact that there were too many words. I think that the extreme changes in the format and sizes of the panels between each page caused some of the incongruity. Some pages had 6 panels while others had sixteen. Some panels overlapped while others had large gaps between them. Then there were some pages that were filled with what might amount to paragraphs of texts and others that only contained 2 words. Although there may have been many hiccups during my reading I realize that this situation may be a storytelling technique used by the author. For example the author might have purposefully started the novel off on such disjointed way in order to depict Bruce Wayne’s struggle with the revival of Batman. Or maybe I’m just not used to the style of American graphic novels and this feeling of incongruity comes from that fact.
3 thoughts on “A Bumpy Ride Through Gotham City”
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Let me tell you, the first time I read DKR I was pretty pissed at the whole words-are-in-the-gutters-not-just-the-panels deal. Even trying to read the first page I was continually confused as to whether I should read the text over the panel then the text under the panel, or whether that text went with another panel, and then there are the times where there is text over the panel AND in the panel and no indication which to read first. And, of course, I kind of put off from the text for that reason; however, like you said, “this situation may be a storytelling technique used by the author.” We’ve got to assume that there is some reason for all this confusing text, all the different page layouts, and the ever chaotic images, right?
In that spirit, I thought I might point out an instance where the images don’t “just reinforce what the text is saying,” but work with it in order to produce something that would have been impossible without both elements. One example I really like is early on in the book on page 15: We are meeting Harvey Dent/Two Face for the first time. The first row of panels on the page are all equally sized and spaced, as are the first three panels in the second row. This sets up a sense of continuity and regularity; however, as soon as we get to Dent’s room, the panel suddenly becomes split in two. And it’s not just that the panel gets split in two, it is equally divided, occupying only the same amount of space that a single panel like the ones before it would have occupied. All the subsequent panels on the page also use this halving technique in order to immediately associate Harvey Dent and halving/doubling/split-personality to the reader. Also, in the panels that are halved, each half always gets its own text bubble, and with the exception of Harvey’s speech, the text from one side of the half is always spoken by a different person that on the opposite side (though, one could argue this is true of Harvey’s speech as well if you looked at him as two people). So, while the text is simply two doctors arguing back and forth somewhat unimportantly, the placement of the text (one side of the argument on one side and the other on another side) is very telling in that Dent is constantly surrounded by warring sides. Even when it’s not him speaking, there is tension between two opposite (the doctors seem to be good foils for each other) and equal (the panel size helps show the equality of each speech’s value) parts. In some ways, I think Frank Miller missed an opportunity by suddenly making the panel whole again once we see Dent’s face is “whole” again; I feel like if he had kept the panels split it would have been more consistent with Harvey’s reality–that no matter whether his face is scarred or not, he is a man with two faces.
In this way, I think what you’ve said about not being “able to follow the storyline if the words were removed” is totally legitimate. If the words were removed I wouldn’t want to read the story, it would not be near clear enough to decipher with pictured alone. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want to read this story if it were just words either. I think sometimes we subconsciously notice the interactions between the text and the pictures so it appears like one is simply a copy of the other, but when you really get down to analyzing the individual aspects of the page, or even a single panel, one can come to a greater appreciation for the little things the artist and writer have included.
I’d agree that nearly all of the unsettling, confusing, or overwhelming graphical elements of The Dark Knight Returns are there for a reason. We’ll look more closely at a few more examples today in class.
I agree that the wordiness of DKR turned me off from the reading at first. I attributed this mainly to the transition from the linguistically-void “Gods’ Man” to a graphic novel that actually employs text bubbles and the like. Reading Gods’ Man had gotten me used to spending approximately 30 seconds per panel–obviously, this wasn’t possible with DKR, though I tried to at first.
As I read on, I fell into the habit of spending more time analyzing the larger panels, and basically glancing over the smaller panels (for example, the “TV screens”) much more quickly. This put me in a reading style that felt comfortable and natural, and I think maybe that’s what Miller was aiming for. After all, the detail on the smaller panels, while still impressive, is much less elaborate than on the big panels like the ones that take up a whole page. I think Miller would probably want the reader to let the impact of the bigger panels “sink in” for a little longer.
And Kristine, I had the exact same frustration with the first page. It took me a while to get it right, and even then, I was still worried that I was reading it wrong. There were definitely some panels later in the book that I know I read out of order, and didn’t even realize it until they were discussed in class or in the assigned articles.