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The Drunken Odyssey

Tag Archives: graphic novels

Gutter Space #19: The Art of Adaptation

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Comic Books, Gutter Space

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adaptations, cartooning, Franz Kafka, graphic novels, gutter space, leslie salas, Peter Kuper, Sequential art, The Metamorphosis

Gutter Space #19 by Leslie Salas

The Art of Adaptation:

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,

adapted by Peter Kuper

A topic which I was shocked to realize I hadn’t yet covered in Gutter Space is the art of adaptation of prose into works of sequential art. I’ve done a great deal of research on adaptations in general and their pedagogical benefits in various levels of schooling for improving visual literacy (or just plain literacy in general) and creating an excitement and love for reading—but what I’d like to focus on today is an artist’s reimagining of a classic novella. In this case, Peter Kuper’s take on Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

The Metamorphosis

Part of my favorite aspects of reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the ambiguity involving Gregor’s condition. We know he is a bug—but what type, exactly? A dung beetle? A cockroach? What is it?

In Kuper’s adaptation, given it’s inherent visual element, he had to make a decision, and stick with it. Some of the magic of the mystery is lost, but in it’s place, we are granted a rich interpretation of Kafka’s haunting story.

Poor Gregor, stressed by work (and capitalism in general), wakes up late one day. He wakes up an discovers he has a problem.

Metamorphosis Page

He can’t roll out of bed. He can’t move very well. It’s hard to see. And suddenly he realizes—he’s turned into a bug.

But look! Rather than being stuck in Gregor’s head, we get much, much more. The period furniture, the wallpaper, the painting on the wall, Gregor’s suitcase of textiles on the dresser, the key in the door—it’s all there for us to see. Kuper’s art style is reminiscent of old woodcut etchings.

Although Gregor is clearly a very large bug, as established in the image above, Kuper nonetheless enjoys shifting the sizes of things based on perspective. When Gregor feels attacked, he becomes very small. His attacker, in the case of the example below, becomes magnified in size, all the more intimidating.

metamorphosis detail

The emanata by Gregor’s human-ish head—those little white lines—express Gregor’s surprise, and the emanata surrounding his body give the impression that he is shaking in fear. The negative space created by these lines is effective because of the rich darkness of the surroundings and the subjects of the panels—Gregor himself, and the boots coming to stomp him.

metamorphosis detail 2

Poor Gregor. Locked in his room.

We empathize with Gregor because he still embodies a recognizable form. Even though he is a bug, his posture and his facial expressions showcase what we understand as being sad or melancholy. Given the experience he’s been through, we sympathize. Have we all not been rejected at one point or another?

But there’s more to this. Look!—That’s Prague in the windowsill. Although it’s never expressly stated that The Metamorphosis takes place in Prague, there are enough references to the fog and the vague shapes of old buildings that many scholars have assumed the setting is in Kafka’s hometown. Looks like Kuper has done his homework, and made an artistic choice to yet again solidify what the original author simply alluded to.

Another interesting decision Kuper has made with his adaptation is his willingness to play with the presentation of text. In the sample below, the caption does not read in a standard prose format, but instead the sentences mosey around the borders of the panels, following Gregor about as he learns to utilize his new body.

metamorphosis page 2

Kuper’s interpretation of Kafka is an interesting one, and adds to the richness of our understanding of the original text. Check it out sometime, and let me know what you think.

___________

Leslie Salas (Photo by Ashley Inguanta)

Leslie Salas (episode 75) writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Gutter Space #9: Flashbacks in Will Eisner’s A Family Matter

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Gutter Space

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Tags

graphic novels, gutter space, leslie salas, Will Eisner

Gutter Space #9 by Leslie Salas

Flashbacks in Will Eisner’s A Family Matter

We’re going a little bit old school this week by taking a look a cartooning legend Will Eisner’s A Family Matter.

Before we jump in, I’m going to take a moment to be honest. As you can see by my previous Gutter Space posts, I mostly focus on contemporary (and rather mainstream) American independent comics and webcomics (that aren’t superhero comics—that’s Sean Ironman’s domain). But besides reading the classic American funnies in the newspaper, I wasn’t really exposed to American comics until more recently. I got interested in sequential art by reading Japanese manga. (We can get more into whether or not my obsession with manga may or may not have started with my obsession with Sailor Moon at a later time. See Mark Pursell’s post for a similar sentiment.)

I bring this up because A Family Matter is the first Eisner graphic novel I’ve ever read. And because of the heavy contemporary manga influence in my background, my approach to understanding his sequential art comes from more of an outsider’s perspective.

Over the span of 72 pages, Eisner covers a 24-hour period in what seems like a normal family’s life. We readers get to know each of the family members in the present as they make their way to their father’s 90th birthday party. But we also get snippets of each of the family members’ troubled past with their father and each other through flashbacks. The placement and braiding of these scenes further informs the particular nuances of this family’s dysfunction.

These flashbacks often are presented side-by-side with present action, offering contrast and introspection to the interactions between the family members. The flashbacks are drawn with what seems like a wispy hand, less detailed than the present, with fuzzy shading around them, functioning similarly to thought bubbles. The result is a punchy, immersive storyline that fully engages the reader in the conflict of past and present influencing the future.

A Family Matter is a quick read that exhibits technical mastery in many areas. Boldly inked with soft grey watercolor shading, the art itself is typical of American cartooning in the late 90s. There’s some great work going on here, especially with narrative braiding, but I’m still not sure how I feel about the story as a whole.

Yes, the story is rich with details and provides a thought-provoking ending. There are no captions at all in the comic (except for an epigraph at the very beginning), so the story is driven entirely by drawings and dialogue. The work undoubtedly showcases Eisner as a master of the form, but I still feel like something’s missing—or maybe that it’s trying too hard.

The story itself lacks the complex sophistication of many contemporary graphic novels. It really just feels like a collection of dysfunctional-family clichés. A daughter catches her father with a strumpet and becomes the favorite after she promises to keep his secret. The oldest son becomes an outcast because he refuses to follow in his father’s footsteps. A woman sleeps with her sister’s husband. Everyone has daddy issues, and sucks up to Dad in the hopes that they’ll get a cut of his substantial inheritance. And so on. We’ve heard these stories before.

I’m not sure it is fair to draw this kind of parallel given that Eisner was on the forefront of establishing comics as a long-form medium for storytelling. He practically invented the graphic novel, so of course the medium itself will undergo substantial changes in just a few decades. Were these themes as prevalent in literature in 1998? Probably. But what about in comics? Maybe. But maybe not presented in this manner. And maybe it’s just my MFA talking, being snooty about storytelling quality and what may or may not be considered fresh and literary.

Either way, there are definitely great things to learn from A Family Matter, and I’d certainly suggest it as a good short read. Check it out and let me know what you think?

___________

Leslie Salas (Photo by Ashley Inguanta)

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Gutter Space #2: Thompson’s Narrative Braiding in Habibi

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Gutter Space

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Craig Thompson, graphic novels, gutter space, Habibi

Gutter Space #2 by Leslie Salas

Thompson’s Narrative Braiding in Habibi

In the graphic novel Habibi, Craig Thompson uses the theme of willing- versus forced-sacrifice to effectively braid narratives from the Bible and the Qur’an with the coming of age stories of orphans Dodola and Zam. This juxtaposition of stories and images emphasizes influences the novel’s pacing and tone. To focus more readily on Thompson’s style in Habibi, this discussion is limited to a close reading analysis of pages 46 through 49.

Thompson’s braided narrative structure is perhaps the most obvious in this selection—there are clearly two separate conflicts: 1) Dodola and Zam’s quest to “provide for [them]selves,” and 2) the dilemma of “which son was it?”—Ishmael or Isaac—that Abraham sacrificed when God asked him to sacrifice a son (Thompson 46, 48). While the selection begins and ends with Dodola and Zam, Thompson’s introduction of the sons dilemma as a bedtime story innocuously implants the idea of sacrifice as a potential solution for Dodola and Zam’s plight. The main component of the story of Abraham and his sons is bookended with Dodola’s refrain asking how she and Zam would “provide for ourselves” (Thompson 46, 48). In addition to the story being framed by her question, a single panel amidst Dodola’s journey to meet the caravan and acquire food implies sacrifice with the image of Abraham’s arm raised, knife in hand, over the crouching body of one of his sons. The reader may not yet know that Dodola has chosen to prostitute herself for food and supplies, but Thompson heightens the tension with the simple reminder of Abraham’s plight through the juxtaposition of images.

As Habibi is a graphic novel, notions of images are quite literal and focus on line of sight and effective use of light and dark shading. Thompson makes great use of his images, choosing to invoke patters in the borders of panels to help distinguish between Zam and Dodola’s narrative and Dodola’s Biblical bedtime tale. The panels surrounding the stories from either holy book, the Qur’an or the Bible, are rich and vibrant with intricate detail, all in line with the aesthetic of art as illumination. In terms of panel real estate, almost half of the selection is devoted to the story of Abraham and his sons, and the other half belongs to Dodola and Zam. Thompson’s choice to equally distribute the space on the page to both narratives emphasizes his stylistic preference to the braided narrative and the power of suggestion.

Another strong aspect of the selection is Thompson’s use of repeated images. These images, when repeated with slight changes, can affect perceptions of time or character development. For instance, the camels in caravan progressively become more indistinct and shady (Thompson 48-49). This development creates a sense of mystery and heightens tension at the unknown. In terms of the Zam watching Dodola through the porthole, and interesting transformation occurs in the span of two panels—Zam grows a from screaming infant into concerned adolescent with the repetition of a single panel (Thompson 49). Not only does the reader jump through time with Zam, but his posture and demeanor in a single panel also characterize their situation—Zam and Dodola have survived, and Dodola continues to sacrifice her body so that they both may live.

Speaking again of sacrifice, the repeated images of Ishmael and Issac are particularly effective. While some of these images are repeated throughout the novel, in particular the image of Abraham pressing both of his sons to the altar (Thompson 48), the repetition of the two sons in this section is unique. Although the boys differ in age by thirteen years, they are drawn as equivalents—same age, same height (Thompson 46). Their clothing is similar—although Isaacs may seem a bit finer, and the biggest difference is Ishmael’s thin, dark features as opposed to Isaac’s rounded, fairer ones (Thompson 46). These physical characteristics, as well as their emotional dispositions, are also projected on each of the boys’ respective mothers, further emphasizing their differences. When Ishmael and Isaac appear in the same panel together, it is always Ishmael on the left, and Isaac on the right. While Isaac may be Abraham’s legitimate son and thereby his right hand man, Ishmael is the compliant son. The contrast between these two sons and their character tie into the central theme of sacrifice—voluntary or not.

The juxtaposition and braided narrative not only applies to the religious texts and the lives of Zam and Dodola, but within the texts themselves. The teachings of the Qur’an and the Bible are often presented side by side in what appears to be Thompson’s objective perspective on the nuances of story. This is most evident in the full-page panel depicting the sons of Abraham carrying bundles of firewood to “to the site of the slaughter” (Thompson 47). On the left side of the panel, Ishmael is a “willing participant,” on the left Isaac “was tricked” (Thompson 47). The actual quotes of both Ishmael and Isaac are also provided, along with their location in the Qur’an and Bible, respectively, giving not only Dodola authority as an expert storyteller to Zam, but gives Thompson credibility as the author making a conscious choice to cite the passages themselves.

The study of the differences between the Qur’an and the Bible are culturally pertinent to the current state of affairs between the Western world and the Middle East. While this segment of Habibi does not expand on the radical juxtaposition of first- and third-world living conditions, the excerpt does touch on the power of storytelling, as an oral and written medium, and its influence in society. Dodola begins with a bedtime story about Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, but this story grows into a metaphor for their situation, a willing or unwilling sacrifice to “provide for ourselves” (Thompson 46, 48). Thompson’s deliberate use of a braided narrative structure paired with clever use of juxtaposition in images creates compelling pacing and a resonant tone to speak to his theme of sacrifice.

Habibi

___________

Leslie Salas

Leslie Salas writes fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and comics. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and attended the University of Denver Publishing Institute. In addition to being an Associate Course Director at Full Sail University, Leslie also serves as an assistant editor for The Florida Review, a graphic nonfiction editorial assistant for Sweet: A Literary Confection, and a regular contributing artist for SmokeLong Quarterly.

Episode 28: J.T. Waldman

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Episode, Graphic Novels, The Bible

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

comic books, Elizabeth Sauchelli, graphic novels, harvey pekar, Jewish Literature, JT Waldman, Literature, Megillat Esther, Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me, Stargirl, The Bible, The Book of Esther, Writing Podcast

Episode 28 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download

On this week’s show, I interview the comic book writer and artist J. T. Waldman,

JT Waldman

and Elizabeth Sauchelli discusses Star Girl.

Elizabeth Sauchelli

Texts Discussed

MegillatEsther.JTW

NTIMPPM.cover

stargirl

Understanding Comics

introducing Cultural Studies

Darin Strauss’s Reasons to Rejoyce.

Notes

Pages 106-107 of Megillat Esther.

Pages 106-107 of Megillat Esther.

Pages 146-147 of Megillat Esther.

Pages 146-147 of Megillat Esther.

NTIMPPM.page.35

Page 35 of Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me.

Page 148 of Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me.

Page 148 of Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me.

Episode 28 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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