Emily Carroll's Through the Woods

         

       Earlier this year, I was directed to several of the short stories found on Emily Carroll’s website www.emcarroll.com, and in July of this year, she released her critically acclaimed book Through the Woods. This collection of short stories includes several new stories, as well as “His Face All Red,” which was originally released online back in 2010. While the entire book is a wonderful, creepy read, it is “His Face All Red” and its transition from a digital medium to a paper one that I wish to explore.

In his article “Eye Like Comics: Ocularcentrism and the Ideal Perspective in Comics Scholarship,” Ian Hague writes that “The text is only one part of a larger field of enquiry that also takes into account of the physicality of the comic as object (physical interface), the surroundings in which the act of reading takes place (space, habitat) and the physical capabilities of the reader (human body),” (22). These factors become even more apparent when reading the same text in two completely different mediums. With a hardcopy of a text, and sometimes with a tablet, I tend to lounge around and read in a relaxed position. When it comes to digital texts, I tend to be sitting upright at a table, distracted, switching back and forth between music, social media, and the text (which I am doing even now as I write this). Generally, I prefer using physical copies of texts, but there are benefits to using computers, and Emily Carroll takes full advantage of them with her digital content. As Hague notes, “Materiality is not on/off in terms of its significance, it is always on… [and] one may at certain times focus more heavily upon the text, while at others concentrate more on its physical form,” (23). Whether or not I am reading a book or using a computer will influence how I read the text, how I interpret it, how long I may read it for, and how focused I will be. Because of this, it was interesting to compare the differences in how I read “His Face All Red” in Through the Woods as opposed to on www.emcarroll.com.

It is common to see physical copies of texts, comics, and images digitized, but it is interesting to see digital content given physical form. “His Face All Red” was clearly created with the medium of a screen in mind. The reveals were not created with a reader changing pages in mind, as with the physical medium, but for a reader who is scrolling down on the web page. In a way, Scott McCloud talks about this in his TED talk, where he notes that creators/publishers often make “…the classic McLuhanesque mistake of appropriating the shape of the previous technology as the content of the new technology.” However, in the case of “His Face All Red,” we see this inverted – content that best works in a digital medium is appropriated for the physical medium. This appropriation by no means ruins the story; it is great in both mediums. Yet, the pacing and experience that stemmed from scrolling down in the digital version was completely altered by the necessity to change the page and the fragmentation between scenes that this creates.

            In the images above, you can imagine how the experience differs when we scroll down with the main character – we are descending with him, and feel more involved in the story. In Through the Woods, the image is spread over two pages, and when turning the page to see the main character reaching the bottom, we act more as observers than as the active participants we would be reading it online. Yet, that is not to say that there are not beneficial experiences with Through the Woods. As Seth Rabin states, reading a physical comic is a “very sensuous experience,” and “clicking a mouse just isn’t the same,” (24). Though certain benefits are lost with the translation of “His Face All Red” from a digital story to a physical one, part of me enjoys the experience of holding a book more than holding a tablet, and I can’t help but shake the feeling that something printed on paper is somehow better and more legitimate than something published online (though I’ve read Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper, so I should know better).

              All of Carroll’s work has intrigued and impressed me so far. The rest of the stories in Through the Woods were designed and layed out with the physical format in mind, and I am glad that "His Face All Red" was included in the book, since I like the idea of owning a copy of it. Whether you want to spend the money on Through the Woods (well worth it in my opinion), or just enjoy it on her website, all of Carroll's work is impressive and enjoyable in any medium.

Works Cited

Carroll, Emily. Through the Woods. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books,

         2014. Print.

Hague, Ian.  “Eyes Like Comics, or, Ocularcentrism in Comics Scholarship.”  

         Comics and the Senses: A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic

         Novels.  London: Routledge, 2014.  9-33.

McCloud, Scott. “Understanding Comics.” TED Talk. 2009. Web.           http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics?language=en#t-671714