ENGL 300: The Graphic Novel

I found a journal archive that is done by Scott McCloud and he gives his thoughts about Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp.  The journal article is from 2009, but it touches upon a few things that we talked about in class on Tuesday.

 

http://scottmccloud.com/2009/07/17/some-thoughts-on-asterios-polyp/

David Mazucchelli’s Asterios Polyp defies limitations of the mind by telling a story that alters between intellectual thoughts, sentimental notions, present events, past memories. Everything from color to texture to narrative forms are used to expand the universe in which the story is told.

The first way Mazucchelli breaks from the mold of conventional storytelling is through the use of the narrator. In most cases, the narrator of a story is either the protagonist of the tale or an omniscient being who is not an actual character in the scenes. However, in Asterios Polyp the story is told through Asterios’s dead brother, Ignazio. Ignazio appears in a number of scenes throughout the graphic novel, all of which are dream sequences that occur within Asterios’s mind. Through using Ignazio as the narrator and including him in multiple dream sequences, Mazucchelli causes the line between figments of the mind and reality to become blurred. While there are certain scenes that feel real and others that seem too surreal to be reality, it is never clarified as to which sections are the truth and which sections of Asterios’s memory are stretching the truth.

The other way Mazzucchelli breaks the mold is through the use of colors and texture. While it’s not necessarily a color graphic novel, it is not a black and white novel either. The colors blue, purple, white, yellow, and pink are the only colors used throughout the course of the entire novel. This, like the use of Ignazio as narrator, helps blur lines between reality and dream. Yellow, blue, and purple seem to be used just to convey every day actions (much like black and white do in a black and white film). The pink comes into motion when there is a great deal of feeling behind the actions taking place. In the scene where Asterios is seeing his mother feed his dying father, Asterios’s shirt is pink. Whenever he talks about Hana, pink is in the scene. The scenes with Willy Ilium use pink (showing his anger and irritation toward the man).

The final thing I realized about the colors, whether it was intentional or coincidental, is that the colors used in Asterios Polyp are associated with 3D. When you think of 80s 3D glasses and 3D film reels, they are composed of the same colors this graphic novel is. Maybe Mazucchelli did this on purpose to convey to the reader that the stories within the realms of the pages have more to the eye than what appears on the 2D surface.

I enjoyed the book Asterios Polyp. Well, I’ve actually enjoyed all the books we’ve read so far so that really isn’t saying much. Anyway, I haven’t read many graphic novels, but I enjoyed the way the author used panels to show speech and action in the book. For example, whenever a character is talking over someone else their speech bubble (or in the case of Asterios his box) overlaps the other persons. He also used the panels to show how we sometimes drown out others when we’re focusing on something else. An example of this is when they’re at the parade and Ursulas speech is shifted just out of frame when Asterios is looking at something else. I also liked how Mazzucchelli turned characters into their views on life. What I mean is that Asterios was drawn with just circles and squares and Hanna was drawn cross hatched. He used this technique to show when the characters were getting close (i.e. at the party they’re drawing both cross hatched and in circles and lines) and when they’re arguing (i.e. when they’re arguing…). The story was very enjoyable and was told anachronistically.(I love Memento, 500 Days of Summer, and Annie Hall are movies that I love. So this was just down my alley.) While I did get confused a few times—I always do—the book did a great job in using it to tell the story because it could get very confusing and jumbled if not done right. The ending of the book was…depressing. I guess. They’re happy and together, but, you know, dead. Or at least about to die.

            I quickly noticed all the geometrical shapes and objects illustrated in the graphic novel and related them back to the main character being an architect. His personality is very calculating. He must always be right, and his answers always seem like they are planned or scripted. I also noticed the amount of changes in color schemes in the Graphic novel. One example that really caught my eye was the blending of blue and hot pink when Asterios and Hana meet. Asterios is usually colored blue when he is around her (he is blue for the most part, anyway). I think the color shows how cold and mechanical he is. In contrast, she is more like fire. She is often drawn with very dynamic lines, especially when she is mad at Asterios. And, when Hana is mad at him, he is usually drawn in simple geometrical blue shapes. Once again, this adds to his lack of warmth and his motorized and often emotionless attitude.

            The scene when Hana is trying to explain how Mother Nature is the perfect creator by using a pine cone also points out the contrast between Hana and Asterios. He is sitting down smoking his cigarette in the park. He looks like he doesn’t belong. He is kind of at odds with nature. His apartment building is struck by lightning and goes up in flames. Apparently, it sounds like it has happened more than once. His life kind revolves around numbers and precise measurements. Hana, on the other hand, is an artist, who enjoys nature for its seemingly effortless ability to create perfectly symmetrical and beautiful objects.

Dualism is what made Asterios Polyp such an interesting book for me. Mazzucchelli is a genius at expressing dualism through out the book. One of my favorite comparison was between Asterios and Daisy, during one of their confrontations. Asterios is made up of these blue geometric figures, that create the outline of his body. They mimic the general shape of his body, and reminded me of blueprints an architect would use. Daisy is drawn completely differently. She constructed to look like she was sketched with a pink colored pencil, with heavy emphasis on the cross-hatching. They create a visual contracts but to each other, but also in the way of their lives.

This is not the only difference that was displayed visually between Daisy and Asterios. Their speech bubbles reflect who they are as people. Asterios has rectangular forms around his text, showing he is precise and sharp edged. While Daisy has loose circular forms around her text, showing she is more of a free spirit. Their living spaces are also drastically different. Asterios has a sterile modern styled living quarters, completely clean with everything in its right place and the furniture is formed perfectly to reflect his manner. While Daisy’s apartment is filled with her art work, there are messes all across the room. The contract between these two charcters and the way they are displayed makes for quite the intriguing relationship to be drawn into. I think that they were a perfect compliment to each other, and I was pretty pleased with the ending.

In Asterios Polyp, there is a juxtaposition of Apollian and Dionysian tendencies.While Asterios tends to be more Apollian, Hana is defenitely Dinoysian. I found a quick article about the two views of Apollo and dionysus on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_and_Dionysus

When the class was talking about Swallow Me Whole and the themes of madness that are present throughout, I thought it was very interesting when we considered the grandmother’s little pill-creature as not so much a negative thing, but more like something that protected her from Ruth’s madness with the side-effects of the drugs.  The entire subject of insanity is, by its nature, very controversial and I felt that Nate Powell wanted to convey just how disturbing it can be for everybody involved.  He also wanted to show that it’s not just the elderly who can lose touch with reality; it can happen to anybody,  at any age.  With Ruth, Powell explores how someone who is insane can perceive reality and if they allow their madness the “swallow them whole”, so to speak, it can consume them utterly.  All-in-all, Swallow Me Whole was a chilling graphic novel when I first read it, and while the class discussion cleared a few things up, it still left more questions unanswered.

So, as we all know, we only had one class period to discuss this really dense book.  While we got a fair amount of stuff covered in class, we also have a lot of material that we didn’t get a chance to discuss.

For one, we never got as in depth with the subject of the Schizophrenia as I would have liked.  The Wizard, the Cicadas, and the little Pill-Monster were obviously embodiments of each characters mental illness, but it would be interesting to find out if there was any sort of significance to them.  We discussed how the little Pill-Monster might have been the Grandmother’s disease triggering Ruth’s illness, or possibly representative of the ineffective medications that they were taking.  The Wizard and the Cicadas never really came up though, so it will be interesting if anyone has anything to say about them next Tuesday.

The other big thing that we didn’t really get to was the end of the book.  The ending was very confusing as to what was actually happening.  I doubt that Ruth was actually buried by a swarm of Cicadas, and personally think it was representative of her disease overtaking her.  But it gets really weird after that section because it appears that she actually has died as evidenced by Peri and her boyfriend digging through piles of dead bugs and her parents seemingly identifying a body based on a picture.  Peri then seems to slip into Ruth’s world, and ends up in the same realm with Ruth and the Grandmother.  This could be taken as his succumbing to his disease, or possibly dying, or some other equally valid interpretation.  In any event, that was a pretty awesome way to end the book… even if it was really weird.