Jimmy Corrigan and Awkwardness

Jimmy Corrigan is a uniquely-shaped book- where many traditional books are tall and narrow, Chris Ware's comic is short and wide.

What is the significance of the shape of Jimmy Corrigan?

When lined up next to other books, Jimmy Corrigan sticks out like a sore thumb because of its shape. Its short and wide shape makes it fit awkwardly next to its neighbors. Moreso, when I actually pull it off the shelf for examination, I'm not sure how to hold it. Some of the cover text has me holding it spine-up, the image has me holding it spine-down, and other text supports the traditional spine-to-the-left position. I find myself grappling with it awkwardly. And I think that's the intention; for the book, from its very first impression, to exemplify and illustrate feelings of uncertainty and awkwardness.

In what other ways does Ware try to emphasize the readers' feelings of awkwardness?

Bredehoft explains that Ware (and other comics authors) have the unique ability to present their readers with more than one path through the panels on a page. "More importantly," he says, "neither dimension (vertical or horizontal) has clear precedence over the other." While this allows for multiple interpretations of a set of panels, it also serves a function in making the readers of Jimmy Corrigan feel awkward. When presented with a page, we aren't always sure which way to take- we feel uncertain of ourselves. I think it's also interesting to note that there are no page numbers, maybe signifying a feeling of disconnection, of being lost. I definitely feel that the linearity of page numbers would contradict the non-linear story, which flips from past to present, from real to imaginary.
I think the confusing, uncertain, and awkward feelings Ware creates through form definitely help the reader identify with (the younger) Jimmy Corrigan. Rather than observing his feelings of inadequacy, we find ourselves sharing the same feelings, relating to Jimmy Corrigan. It's definitely a piece which shows rather than tells.

V for Vendetta and McCloud

What is the effect of the regular, rectangular paneling and narrow gutters in Moore's V for Vendetta?

Scott McCloud addresses the gutter on page 66 of Understanding Comics. He explains that in the gutter, "human imagination" makes connections between the panels, forming a single idea about what's happening in the comic. Flipping through V again, I realized how narrow the panels are, and how consistent that narrowness is. I think this gives the reader a sense of oppression. It seems as if the reader is given little room to imagine between the panels, to be involved in comics' unique and involved reading process. I think this feeling is reinforced by the rectangular, regular paneling. McCloud addresses the fact that panel shapes can affect the reading experience, but doesn't really go into further detail (p. 99). It kind of hit me that the regularity in V felt a bit oppressive- none of the panels stood out through shape, making everything feel sort of flat, muted, equal. As a reader, it made me feel tied down to a concrete, dull regularity.

What effect does this oppressed feeling have on the reader?

I think the suppressed feeling I mentioned before is very much the intention of Moore. As a character, V stands against the dull background of fascist government, emphasizing the need to be free as individuals. He prides himself on his collection of movies, books, and music, which all demonstrate freedom of expression. Faced with such a bland, bleak set of panels and gutters, none of which have individual traits or shapes or sizes, the reader is more inclined to side with V. We become eager to break the regularity, eager to imagine and make decisions in the gutter, eager to speak for ourselves. By writing V for Vendetta in such a concrete form, Moore actually encourages the reader to seek individuality and freedom.

-------

A picture from last year which I found fitting:
I think it's pretty interesting that the book's cover pretty much doubles as a mask. :)

Maus

One of the most easily recognized features of Maus is its use of anthropomorphism. What effect does Spiegelman's use of animals have?

In one way, I think the use of animal characters in Maus acts against one of White's main ideas. White maintains that storytelling and the narrative are universal because it is human nature to narrate. If all of humanity is united in story-telliing and thus story-reading, perhaps Spiegelman uses animals to re-divide humanity according to race. Maus could have been written using human characters. But, by giving them animal forms, it's almost as if Spiegelman wants to exaggerate the gap between races, displaying it instead as a gap between species.

If this is so, what other issues, including racial ones, are portrayed through the anthropomorphism of Maus?

In any type of warfare, people on both sides tend to dehumanize the enemy. It is nearly impossible to kill someone when we actually think of them as belonging to the same brotherhood of humanity as us- when we think, for example, that they too, miss their family, are passionate about a hobby, or dislike certain foods. In Maus, Vladek refers to the person he kills as a tree, or as "it." (p. 48) By using anthropomorphism, I think Spiegelman reinforces the idea that opposing groups of people turn their enemies into generalizations, taking away the human identity which unites all people. The simplistic faces, hardly distinguishable from one another, help create a sense of anonymity. This makes the Jews in Maus all equal to one another, all mice, yet not sharing anything in common with the Germans. Even the betraying mice are still mice. Even the sympathetic cats are still cats. In this way, race is made more identifying, more defining of a person than anything that individual can do. Through our point of view in reading Maus, we come to know and care about the mice as individuals. We stop seeing them as a group of anonymous mice. We never, however, see the nazi cats as anything other than anonymous, terrible cats. We never see them as individuals, also struggling with the events of the time. By turning things around, perhaps we can understand a little better how the cats never come to see the mice as anything more than anonymous mice.