Percy Gloom

I really admire Malkasian’s ability to create meaning through her technique of creating the simple, perhaps one dimensional, comic of Percy Gloom. Malkasian uses one consistent face for her character throughout the comic that offers little to no variation in emotions. Using the basic and childlike art style, she is able to express this character’s simpleminded and dull personality. Percy Gloom is not very witty, not very quick on his feet, and does not present any sort of admirable intelligence. In fact, his slow and steady nature is a good indication of his naïve and childlike behavior, just as it is represented in the art style.   

The colour scheme, additionally, adds to the idea of representing Percy’s personality. If he was an enthusiastic and energetic character, or someone who was brave and bold, it may be more fitting to include a vibrant and lively colour palate. Instead, Malkasian uses a gloomy grey wash, essentially consisting of only one boring and dry colour to help create a feeling for Percy’s dull character.

Her images all contain rather clean lines to express the idea that there is no chaotic or complicated situation arising. Her regularized paneling accomplishes the same idea, ensuring they are all rather small and consistent throughout. A story filled with action and adventure might choose to incorporate more complicated paneling to achieve a different effect, but it is not necessary for a comic like Percy Gloom to do so. Some spreads in Percy Gloom do veer away from the regularized paneling when there is more action and intensity occurring. These pages will be discussed in detail below.

The combination of his name, “Gloom”, with his grotesque facial features on the title page alone sets up expectations of what this character is going to be like before the reader even begins. This relates to Genette’s idea of paratextuality and the ways that the elements that surround the text, such as the title page, act as thresholds to frame the way a reader makes sense of the text.

Malkasian uses a different form of text to depict when Percy is recalling something from his memory. Although the format of the memory itself is represented in the same way as the present, the different transition panel in between the two spheres is effective enough to separate them. The font in this transition panel is the same as well; however, it is not enclosed in lines like the word balloons are, even though he is still speaking this. Percy's head s also drawn in over to of the panel, as if he is looking back on the memory.

Eliminating text altogether is also an effective technique that Malkasian incorporates. Text is sometimes eliminated and single, silent images are shown instead to represent the awkwardness of a conversation.

Paneling is another technique Malkasian effectively uses to create meaning. In this spread, as Percy begins running to wash his mouth out, Malkasian uses six different panels to create the idea that he is running. Some of these panels are drawn shorter and some are longer to depict that he is running for a long period of time. If she had created all of the panels to be the same size, the reader could easily bounce through them, feeling like no time has passed at all. The sporadic and more stretched out paneling forces the reader to slow down and pause in order to take the longer panels in.

Each image of him running is captured with a different background to express that he has traveled quite some distance as the panels progress. Some shots are zoomed right in on Percy alone and some are zoomed out to capture a wider scene. Even this variation between the paneling aids in creating the feeling that time has passed, such as how the last panel in his running sequence really zooms out to capture a shot of the whole town. Percy’s character is recreated three different times within the same shot to accurately show the reader that he is running all through the town.

Having the splash bleed over into the first panel of the sequence forces the reader’s eyes to dart over and skip a panel, almost as if the reader is trying to keep up with how fast Percy is running. Since the reader knows how the sequence should typically be placed, it forces them to dart back. It is interesting to consider how Malkasian includes more of her complex techniques during a time in the story when more action is occurring. It is a way to heighten the intensity and capture the reader’s attention.

She uses this paneling technique a few times within the story for the more intense scenes.

For both of these pages, Groensteen’s idea of the spatio topia can be recognized. As the reader interprets the page as a whole before they begin reading, they can gather a fairly accurate idea of what is going to happen. The first page gives a clear indication of a nightmare and the second page shows Percy happy and skipping off into town. These impressions can be gathered by merely looking at the page as a whole. However, she always returns back to her standard, regularized paneling to emphasis Percy’s tradition role as the boring and dreary character.

Malkasian’s Percy Gloom was a very enjoyable read. The simplicity of the text and art style kept the story moving quickly and the plot was constantly shifting to keep the reader’s attention. I would certainly recommend this comic to someone else and would also consider reading the remainder of the series.