Why Are You Doing This?

Marisa Desjardins

 

 

“Why Are You Doing This?” is a graphic comic book written by Jason, which focuses on the lives of personified animals, specifically dogs. Jason is known for this type of depiction, as his other comics portray humanized versions of such animals as well. The front cover of the book is mysterious, yet bland, as it consists of a black and beige picture of two shadowed dogs staring at each other from two separate windows, with the inclusion of a white-against-black title on the right side. The title, as plain as it may seem to the eyes, immediately fuels the reader’s brain and makes them wonder: why does who do what?

Open to the first page and it is filled with color, but not bright over-the-top, in-your-face kind of color. The colors are calming, allowing the reader to focus on the story at hand, which begins by zeroing on a character named “Claude.” Claude is a concerned kind of guy, looking to revive his bedridden friend from the death of heartbreak. Even after only two pages, readers begins to involve themselves in the life of Claude, thinking he is the main character of the comic; however, his character does not thrive as long as expected. His heartbroken friend seems to steal the spotlight a quarter of the way in. The story begins kind of dreary, with no clear indication that something so shocking is going to occur. Murder: dare I say it?

As for art style and page layout, this comic is very organized. Almost every panel is a different size or shape, varying from rectangular to square-shaped, while the white gutters between panels seem to stay relatively the same. There are plenty of sound effects, contributing to the multimodality of the comic, hidden among panels. They are not too flashy or pretentious, but they do demand to be seen in a subtle way, as do most other aspects of this comic. There are no bright red arrows directing your attention to specific areas of a page, because the artist leaves it to the reader to find his or her way around, and it proves to be a most effective method for a story like this one.

On page three, there is a hard-to-miss panel containing some intertextuality. A TV screen shows a large black, furry hand holding a tiny woman in a white dress. There is no caption or word balloon explaining this panel, but it is clearly a scene from King Kong. Furthermore, we see a panel that mimics the cover of the book, asides from the fact that it is in color. From here, we can see how the stranger standing in the window across the street fits into the story.

None of the characters have pupils. They appear as hollow with only the whites of their eyes. This fact makes it difficult to tell what the characters are focusing on, but allows readers to imagine for themselves. Is he looking at her or passed her? Are they looking at the same thing? The enigmatic nature of the illustrations leaves more than plenty of room for the reader's own input or cluelessness.

Overall, I enjoyed this comic. The mystery of the story pushed me to keep flipping the pages with interest. The continuous rhetorical questions that were asked, like “how many stories do you have to tell?” allowed me to make connections and even answer them based on my own personal experience. How many stories do I have to tell? To my surprise, I was able to easily connect with three of the main characters, who were—don’t get me wrong—all depicted in very different ways. Still, I found a little bit of myself in each of them. Having made such connections, I was able to conclude that a reader is oftentimes more intrigued by a story or comic when they can relate to a character. This particular comic showed the plethora of ways in which an author and an artist are able to provide these opportunities for readers.