A lot of the first reader posts discussed the incorporation of texts and images and how they mostly seem to blur or skew themselves, as well as the incorporation of the clear images of brands or photographs. Jessica pointed out in her first reader post that McCloud wrote “the more defined the artwork, the less relatable to the reader,” which was definitely the case for me while reading. It was a little unnerving to me to see these things that seemed so out realistic and out of place in a world that was clearly full of anguish. The mixed media artwork reminded me a lot of zine art as well, and usually I would think of the blurriness of the artwork as a soft thing, but here there is a significant harshness or crudeness (not only in the content) to it. The yellow hues remind me a lot of acid as well, which I think mirrors the deterioration of Omar’s mental state. I found that the distorted images drew me in more and had me paying more attention to the detail in those pages, while the clear images of brands or photographs jolted me out of the graphic novel, even though those distortions didn’t really have a lot of detail to begin with.

It was definitely a completely different experience than any graphic novel that I’ve read. I was frustrated and annoyed reading it the first time, but after the second time, I found myself really enjoying it and understanding that the things that I found annoying were…kind of the point?