Author: Phineas Dowling

Hit Counts and Comics

I’ve read several different types of webcomics before but what struck me as a somewhat different with Shooting War was the fact that each “page” was essentially a single panel. Some of them obviously were broken up into several panels, but the experience of reading this comic online is completely different from reading a physical comic. With this webcomic in particular I found I had to wait for a new page load almost every panel, which makes a smooth reading especially complicated. I agree with many of Josh’s comments about this particular medium and his impressions, but I found Shooting War more frustrating than any other webcomic I’ve dealt with.

With a physical comic, you can see what is going on peripherally on the page which adds to the general impression of each page, putting the panel in a larger context. Even most webcomics I’ve experienced follow this kind of flow, but you still have to click over to the next page. As with any website, it is always about generating higher hit counts and increasing ad value. I accept this without complaint (free material is never without a price), but in the case of this particular webcomic I found it very disruptive to the reading.

I’m not sure why, though. Maybe it’s because it slowed me down considerably. I found myself eventually just clicking “Next Page” almost immediately and reading the panel as the next one started to load. This made me feel pulled out of the reading experience because I had to be consciously aware of what I was doing and when I needed to click.

Or, perhaps it was that the stutter-like flow of having to switch pages made it difficult to get into the story. I did not find the character uninteresting per se, but I did find it hard to get interested in what was going on because of the way the material flowed.

On the other hand, I found Bayou very easy to read. Even with the clicking from one page to the next, because of the pacing of each page it did not feel like an imposition in any way. The story flowed from page to page pretty evenly and I was able to get absorbed into the text as I would with a physical book. I agree with Josh the the navigation bar could be a nuisance, but there were only a few places where I felt it impacted the reading experience. Maybe it is as simple as this being essentially a comic “viewer” displaying a webcomic, rather than a webpage, but I found Bayou‘s page flow much more conducive to the story  than Shooting War‘s.

I am curious if the creators planned Shooting War around this page break idea or if it was merely a limitation they butted up against. If the former, I would question its usage. More likely is that it is a technical limitation and I am just a jerk for ragging on their comic, but I’ve seen similar limitations used to significant effect.

Wounds from Exiting

From Wikipedia: “An injury in which an object enters the body or a structure and passes all the way through is called a perforating injury, while penetrating trauma implies that the object does not pass through.[2] Perforating trauma is associated with an entrance wound and an often larger exit wound.” Source

This is what I assumed the title of Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds referred to. I guess given the cover and images of explosions and Israel and my general knowledge of what an “exit wound” is, I made the assumption that there would be some kind of physical trauma. When I reached the end of the book, I’d completely forgotten about the title because it did not seem applicable to my reading until I looked back at it afterward.

Rereading the title suddenly put an interesting framework around the entire story for me: The novel is about the wounds left behind by someone’s exit from out lives. Perhaps this was obvious to everyone else immediately and I’m just a total idiot who wasn’t paying attention, but it really changed my view of the whole piece. In reading the Twitter feed and some of the posts prior to mine, it seemed that many people had a similar reaction to me in that I wasn’t quite sure what the story was about. Like Kelly there didn’t seem to be any closure for me. However, my new-found insight from the title does give me closure.

Essentially the whole book isn’t about Koby and Numi searching for Gabriel and finding him (as others have pointed out already), but is instead about the effects Gabriel’s exit has had on them. The ramifications of his abandonment of his family and various lovers is the central theme of the story. But it is more than just Gabriel’s abandonment, but also Koby’s mother Aviva’s death. The exits of these characters (or are they non-characters since we never meet them?) leave everyone that’s left in a completely different world.

I think the term “exit wound” is appropriate for this kind of psychological trauma, the after effects of the initial entrance wound are often much larger. In the case of Modan’s book, the ramifications of Aviva’s death continue to expand outward, injuring more and more people as Gabriel and Koby’s suffering continues and is projected, creating more and more exits and subsequent wounds. In this context, the ending does provide some closure, since both Koby and Numi choose not to make additional exits. Koby comes back and Numi doesn’t walk away like she says she will. In some ways this potential relationship (though clearly not solidified yet) closes the exit wounds both characters are suffering from.

Unimpressed

I’m not sure what to make of In My Darkest Hour. Overall I found the narrative dry and non-compelling and the characters completely uninteresting and unsympathetic. I wish to clarify this last point. I’m not saying that I disliked the characters (I did, but that isn’t really pertinent), but instead I am saying that there was nothing in the narrative or the characters that made me care one way or the other what happened to them.

I have the biggest beef with Omar, however, since he is the protagonist and “narrator.” The book is essentially from his perspective, so we are forced to move along with him, but I frankly struggled a lot with finishing this book because I did not care about this character. Omar embodies the classic and pervasive narcissism of manic depression. He does not care about Lucinda or any of the women in his life. He is focused solely on himself and what others can provide for him, all while blaming others for the things that are going wrong in his life. Even after 9/11, all he can think about is how it affects him and how he “doesn’t feel anything anymore.”

Are we supposed to care about what this character does or what happens to him? Presumably we are, since someone took the time to write a whole book about him, but I honestly cannot find a compelling reason to do so. His depression and some of the thoughts he has are relatbable to people with bi-polar disorder or similar problems, but having depression is not a character arc. He’s narcissitic and a jerk because of his depression, but so what? Lots of people suffer from the same type of disorder and feel the same accute feelings of depression, self-loathing, and self-destruction but are not jerks. Omar does not face any major existential questions or grapple with his depression, or really do anything. Things happen around him. He is just floating around. Any improvement in his condition, or regression, seems completely coincidental and does not appear to have any connection to his actions.There was nothing compelling about this character, and as such, there was very little compelling about the book as a whole.

Visual Identity

In Asterios Polyp, Mazzuchelli uses visual motifs to characterize individuals. We have  seen similar devices used by other authors/artists but not to this extent.

Mazzuchelli uses  changes in dialogue boxes and in how characters are drawn to create visual identities. This is part of the.larger theme of the novel: that reality is in some ways an extension of the self. Hence each character is completely unique visually.

Entwined

What struck me as interesting in reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was how her memoir seemed to be focused on her father Bruce.  His story is so thoroughly entwined with her understanding of her own, that it seems she cannot accurately talk about her own life without talking about his. As estranged from her father as she felt her whole life, his story seemed to define her own more than any other figure.

I am not sure if this entwining was her intent when she set out to tell write her “tragicomic” memoir, or if it was an organic result of committing her life to paper. I believe that in hindsight she obviously felt there was more of a connection between herself and her father because of the discovery of their shared homosexuality, but I think things go deeper than just that.

For better or for worse, the text seems to reveal (whether this is the author’s intent or not is immaterial) that it was not this singular similarity, but in fact the vast ocean of differences between them that defined Bechdel’s understanding of her life. We are constantly given instances of how different they are from each other, and how he never fit her understanding of masculinity, fatherhood, or love. She even remarks at one point that she felt like she was treated like furniture, just another part of his house. Yet his presence appears more central in her memoir than even her own. His presence, both in the literal physical sense and the metaphorical metaphysical sense, is the fulcrum upon which Bechdel’s life pivots in the text.

Even Bechdel’s understanding of her homosexuality seems to be completely inseparable from her father. He provides the book that helps propel her understanding of her own sexual identity. His coming out overshadows and redefines her own. His death changes her perspective on her own life.  Bruce’s life is so intricately entwined with Bechdel’s understanding of her life that his comes to define hers in this memoir.

A World Without Faces

As I think  has been pointed out already, Jimmy Corrigan is a very densely illustrated novel. There a many recurring visual themes and motifs that Chris Ware uses to various ends. Jared and Lars have already pointed out several including the shifts in the perspective distance. One thing that struck me as part of these visuals was the distinct lack of faces on non-Corrigan characters. Not even all of the Corrigan characters have faces.

We are given occasional faces, like Dr. Wilson and a few others, but more often than not the panels are arranged in such a way that you don’t ever really see the faces of other characters. You never see modern-Jimmy’s mother’s face at all, only the photo of her where she is turning away slightly from the camera. Often the faces are off-panel but they are frequently obscured by other objects or even by text balloons. So why don’t we get to see these faces?

I think there are multiple reasons, or potential reasons, for this visual motif. I think first and foremost it is part of Ware’s construction of this/these characters as isolated and distant from one another. These people are all unable to connect to one another and so everyone becomes just another faceless person. People are essentially just other objects.

Additionally, I think this motif is part of Jimmy’s character. Modern-Jimmy is socially awkward to the nth degree. Each panel with him is like a full episode of The Office. He is unable to really connect with anyone and is petrified of the very idea. He is incapable of dealing with the world outside of his imagination (and he isn’t even all that in control of that). But more than the awkwardness is his infantalization. He is a child in many ways and therefore doesn’t see people on an equal level, but must look lower down or away. I’m reminded of other comics or cartoons focused around children where adults are never depicted or are only shown from the knee down, like in Peanuts or Muppet Babies. Modern-Jimmy is an awkward man-child, while Past-Jimmy is an actual child, and the lack of faces seems to be a way of communicating that child perspective.

Nat Turner Jumble

I feel like there is a lot to talk about with this book, and many of the previous posts have touched on a lot of those issues, so I don’t necessarily want to rehash, but my thoughts on the piece are kind of all over the place. I’m going to throw them down and maybe I’ll be able to make sense of them.

Messiah or Madman?

I’m not entirely sure where Baker’s work falls on this issues. As has been noted before, he claims Nat Turner as a personal hero, but then shows Turner doing some very troubling things. I will be the first to admit that you don’t have to agree with 100% with the actions or beliefs of a personal hero (for example, I count Theodore Roosevelt as a big hero of mine and think he is an admirable man, but he was responsible for some pretty unpleasant things, like the ripping-off of the Panamanians or his blood-thirsty desire to start war with Spain), but there does seem to be a bit of a disconnect in Baker’s hero worship. Turner is displayed as messianic and is drawn to look very heroic, but he makes some very un-messianic choices, like the decision to go back to kill the baby in the cradle. Baker seems to acknowledge this disparity of character by making the depictions of violence increasingly brutal, and the images of the rebels as increasingly grotesque, yet Turner himself retains his look of nobility. There’s almost a sense that Baker is distancing Turner from the most barbaric acts (which fits with the Confessions themselves).

Blurbs

I found the blurbs on the back of the book (as well as the description on the inside jacket) to be very interesting in hindsight. Several of these items state basically the same thing: “This book chillingly illustrates the horrors of the slave trade.” Now, the book certainly does expose some of the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, and rightfully so, but these are not the atrocities that cling to my mind at the end of the book. When I put down Nat Turner, I still have visions of Will, in monstrous hulking mass, brutally hacking people (including children) to death. By the end of the book, I’m not thinking about the horrors of slavery, but the horrors of the actions of the rebels. Perhaps this is Baker’s way of depicting that violence begets violence, and that oppression begets insurrection, but it seemed incongruous to read these blurbs upon closing the book.

Depictions of Characters

We’ve touched on some of this a bit already. It seems pretty clear that as the violence continues the rebels become more grotesque (particularly Will), but there were some other things I noticed.

To begin with, as I hinted at above, Nat Turner has a very Christ-like countenance, especially in the final chapter. This obviously plays to the messianic role he is cast in, but it seemed to me at odds with the  lithograph portrait of Nat Turner http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/small/collections/southampton/NatTurnerRebellionPhotos/image/item1.jpg. However, I later found this engraving of Turner’s capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nat_Turner_captured.jpg which seemed more likely the primary source of Baker’s illustration. Of course this later engraving would have been made some time after Turner’s capture, since the artist wasn’t born until nine years after Turner’s death.

Another thing I noticed, which seemed to add commentary to the images (commentary without words obviously) was Baker’s portrayal of many of the other slaves. As the rebellion continues, the rebels continue to drink heavily. These slaves seem to be depicted almost cartoonishly (pp. 143 and 157), and the implication seems to be that the rebellion might have succeeded had it not been for these slaves.

Additionally, the slaves that side with the owners and warn them of the rebellion are drawn as  caricatures of the Uncle Tom/Minstrel-type (pp. 130, 132, 136). By using these types of stereotypical and  cartoonish depictions of those not on the side of the rebellion, Baker is clearly labeling them as the enemy. These cartoonish figures call to mind the worst of the racist depictions of black people in the Stepin Fetchit tradition. These characters seem completely out of place in the otherwise serious depictions of the book.

Conclusion?

I guess I’m not sure where I stand on this book, or even where Baker stands. I think in general the book is masterfully done, but I’m left with a general sense of ambivalence. I found the book compelling and thought provoking and I thought the art was beautifully rendered, but was left somewhat empty by the experience.

Masks vs. Masks

What really struck me in the opening pages of Maus II was not so much the metatextuality of Art Spiegelman almost addressing the reader directly, but the way in which he does it.

Art appears in the first pages of the second chapter not as the Art we saw throughout book one and subsequently in book two (i.e., as a mouse) but as a human wearing a mouse mask. This is a definitely a deliberate choice. Spiegelman is distinguishing “Art Spiegelman – Writer” and “Art Spiegelman – Character”. But then the writer version also becomes a character.

It is a strange choice to make. Why does he need to make such a distinction between the two versions of himself? Why doesn’t he just frame his concerns about the project and his discussion with the therapist in the same conceit as previously? Why step outside the book?

I’m not sure I have answers to these questions, frankly. One could say he is just working through his writer’s block, but I think it is more than that. This is a deliberate choice he makes as creator of this world.

I suspect he is making an effort to do a number of things. One, I think he wants to justify his telling of his father’s story not as THE story but as A story. Two, I think he is trying to make it clear that not only is this his “oral” history of his father’s tale, but also his own story of his tale of dealing with his father at the end of Vladek’s life. He is making a clear distinction, not just in time, but in the story itself. His masked reflections on the creation of Maus are meant to be separate and distinct from the story he is telling of his father and hinself. But, because he is aware that he is still telling that story, he has to wear a mask and continue his metaphor.

At least that’s what I’m thinking at this moment.

Anja as the “Source” of PTSD

In our reading from “The Black Hole of Trauma,” one of the things that struck me  was the “subjectivity” of trauma: “the critical element that makes an event traumatic is the subjective assessment by victims of how threatened and helpless they feel . . . People’s interpretations of the meaning of the trauma continue to evolve well after the trauma itself has ceased” (6). The author then gives an example of the women who was raped, but did not develop PTSD until months after when she learned that the rapist had killed another victim. Her understanding of events was suddenly radically altered and it was then that she truly developed PTSD. The facts of the trauma did not change, but her understanding of them did.

When I read this passage, I immediately thought of Anja’s suicide. What made me think of this is Vladek’s reaction to her suicide in the “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” on the insert compared to his reaction to every other death he encounters in Maus I. These seem to be two different Vladek’s, and I don’t think we can account for this solely looking at narrative reliability. What I suspect is that Anja’s suicide suddenly changed Vladek’s understanding of the trauma he’d already experienced and he suddenly loses it.

I don’t believe that Vladek suffered from full-blown PTSD prior to Anja’s suicide because he clearly views himself as not just a survivor, but Anja’s savior. It was his actions (according to his narrative) which allowed them to survive overall. We are shown scene after scene of Anja afraid, ready to give up, ready to die, and Vladek being strong for her and pushing her through everything. He saves her.

Then she kills herself.

It is this suicide which suddenly changes everything for him. Suddenly Anja is no longer a survivor of the Holocaust, but another victim and Vladek was not able to save her.

I think this explains many of his actions since her death. As from our reading he clearly exhibits the following:

Intrusions: Vladek, as he says on page 104, always is thinking of Anja. Reading his son’s comic is just another reminder to him.

Avoiding and Numbing: Organizing one’s life trying to avoid evoking these intrusions. Vladek marries Mala, whom he does not like at all, and burns Anja’s diaries. This last act is a lashing out at the fact that she wrote about all of what she experienced, but didn’t leave a suicide note.

Inability to modulate Arousal: Vladek is constantly getting upset over little issues
and taking it out on his son or wife, moving “immediately from stimulus to response.”

I may be way off base, but these were my immediate ruminations after reading the piece on PTSD, and seemed to make sense to me in explaining the different Vladeks we see.

Sandman Takes a Back Seat

I find “Sandman” to be very intriguing and I enjoy many of the stories presented. I’m fairly indifferent to the Sandman/Dream/Morpheus himself, however. In trying to think about what to post on I thought about the many great stories, disturbing scenes (touched on in other posts), fascinating characters, etc., and I suddenly realized that none of what I was thinking about dealt with Morpheus himself.

So of course this got me thinking about why I wasn’t thinking about Morpheus, even though it is his comic book. But is it his book? Looking at pretty much any of the issues contained in the two volumes we read one finds that Morpheus is almost a side character. Even in the first volume “Preludes & Nocturnes”, the overall arc of which seems to be about his imprisonment, escape,  and his quest to regain his “tools” and reclaim his kingdom, Morpheus is hardly there. It seems like none of these episodes are his story, but belong to other people, like John Constantine, Dr. Dee, Richard Madoc, Caliope, the Cats, Death, and so on. Dream always plays some role (either remembered or active) but he really is not the focus of the series.

I think this is entirely intentional. Have you ever tried describing a dream to someone, only to realize halfway through the story that you cannot explain it properly and that the poor listener does not want to hear about how they were in your dream, but they weren’t themselves, but they were, but it wasn’t like something? Dreams do not work the same way as reality, and dream stories do not work like regular stories. Dreams are part of the effluvium; you are aware of them, but they are not real and they dissipate upon waking.

Morpheus is dream incarnate. He is not just the king of dreams; he is dreams.  As such, he is part of the effluvium at the outskirts of consciousness. How could he be the focus of a story? Instead, he is a vessel. His comic book is a vessel for these other stories to be told. He plays a part, in that his existence means the stories can exist, but he is not the story.

Can Ends Justify Means?

I have read Watchmen several times now and there is something unsettling about it. I think many of us have felt this, judging by the Twitter feed, though we are all struggling to put our finger on it. I think it is because for a book entirely about superheroes, there does not appear to be a single hero among the characters.

Rorschach is often pointed to as people’s favorite character, or the most interesting, and I think there is an initial reaction to think of him as the hero since he is the only one to continue to stand against Veidt. Also, the story begins with his voice and the book also ends with his diary potentially being what will undo the conspiracy. He is n0t the hero, however. While he appears to have many of the traits of the classic American antihero, like a Batman or a Mike Hammer (hard men making hard choices for justice), Moore clearly does not endorse his right-wing, near-fascist vision. As Rosen points out, “the creators of Watchmen make it clear that they also intend to undermine Rorschach and what he embodies.”

Rorschach’s black and white view of morality is not what Moore wants taken away from this story. The whole story culminates in moral ambiguity. I think that is what so many people struggle with. Veidt appears to fill the traditional role of the villain as he kills millions, but he is as close as Watchmen gets to a “hero” because his actions actually save the world. Obviously Moore and Gibbons are deconstructing what it means to “save the world” and playing with the expectations of the reader, Veidt spares the world from nuclear destruction and war by sacrificing millions of lives. Though the other masked adventurers do not necessarily agree that it was right, they can’t disagree with Veidt’s logic and success, with the exception of Rorschach who must also be sacrificed for the “greater good.”

The question comes down to moral relativity versus moral absolutism. Veidt’s moral relativity seems to be answer Moore and Gibbons want us to accept. In the world of Watchmen, there are no moral certainties. The black and white worldview of Rorschach leaves no room for humanity: wrong is wrong, and bad people are always bad. But even the grey, subjective morality of Veidt is not fixed and absolute. As Manhattan points out, “Nothing ever ends.” Veidt’s actions, the conspiracy and the world peace it achieves is only morally correct as long as no one finds out the truth. As long as the lie is maintained, it is the “right” thing, but if the truth is ever discovered, it is just mass murder.

The Enemy Within

I agree with the assessment that the villains that Batman faces in The Dark Knight Returns are reflections of himself.

Harvey Dent/ Two Face is the most obvious. It is clear that Bruce Wayne/ Batman sees Dent as a mirror of himself. Dent, a former District Attorney and hero is deformed and turned into a criminal at the hands of criminals. Dent is of two minds as well as two faces: The hero and the criminal. He cannot decide between these two, and so uses a coin to make decisions. When we first meet Dent he has been “cured” physically and mentally. He tries to return to society as a normal man, reformed, but as we discover he is incapable of remaining this way and his true divided nature reemerges. Wayne follows a similar trajectory. After the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd, Wayne has retired from being Batman and tried to return to normal society. He even sponsors Dent rehabilitation because he needs to believe that people’s “private demons can be defeated” (17). Both men finally succumb to their private demons and Batman must defeat Two Face. In this confrontation, Batman acknowledges that they are mirror images when he says he sees a reflection.

Less obvious reflections of Batman are the other enemies he confronts. Batman is a character of many divisions. The conflict between these divisions is reflected in Dent, but the divisions themselves take the form of the others that Batman faces off against. Batman squares off against the Mutant gang leader. The Mutant Leader represents raw brute force and criminality. Batman walks the line between law enforcement and criminal. To defeat the Mutant Leader, Batman must circumvent the law and defeat the leader at his own game. The Mutant Leader is the reflection of Batman’s criminality and barbarism.

The Joker is a distorted reflection. Joker is in many ways the opposite of Batman. While Batman seeks a kind of fascistic control over the criminal element in the city, the Joker is the anarchistic soul of crime. He is a villain and a murderer, but by defeating him, Batman has become a villain and murderer in the eyes of the public.

Finally, Batman must square off against Superman, the hero. In this confrontation, Batman must face the publicly accepted superhero as the public villain. In defeating Superman, he must himself be defeated. He beats Superman, but it costs him his life.