Weekly Roundup: Swallow Me Whole, Asterios Polyp

While reading both Asterios Polyp and Swallow Me Whole I found myself constantly drawn to the way the authors incorporated much ambiguity within their stories. This left the reader constantly wondering what the true hidden meaning behind the piece was. This led to much discussion on both pieces of work as there were many questions to and thoughts to what these hidden meanings could be. I was interested at how we looked at how in Swallow Me Whole we couldn’t exactly tell if we were in real life or if the visions were schizophrenic episodes. I constantly wondered these things while I was reading through the novel and love the fact that I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it. This will allow me to enjoy the graphic novel many more times as I attempt to find the meaning of the piece. The same can be said of Asterios Polyp. We also looked at the used of empty space in Asterios Polyp. This was incorporated into the overall meaning of the piece which allowed us to look at negative space and reference that to Gods’ Man. I liked how off the wall the story was and wasn’t the same as graphic novels like We3 or The Dark Knight Returns. I really enjoyed getting to look at the graphic novels and see what other people thought the hidden meanings were within these pieces. I really enjoy ambiguity as it keeps a story fresh for many reads to come.