Groensteen's Verbal in Godzilla in Hell

For my first blog post I will be looking at Godzilla in Hell in regards to Groensteen’s view on verbal context in comics. Now, while the title does explain what the comic is all about, I should mention that Godzilla in Hell is actually a collaborated piece done by a different artist and writer every issue. This makes things somewhat easier as I am able to talk about a theory can be used though also a bit harder the two volumes I currently have are quite different. With that out of the way let me discuss this theory for each issue.

The first issue of Godzilla in Hell has no dialogue in it and only a small handful of words. Those words are huge stone letters that spell out the famous “Abandon all hope ye who enters here” from Dante’s Inferno. As Groensteen mentions, these words are used to help the reader understand just where we are exactly; if the title wasn’t enough of a giveaway for you. The only other word shown is the word “Lust”, this one doing a lot more for the reader as we now know what level of Hell Godzilla finds himself in. This allows use to predict what will happen next for him.

In the second volume the verbal is used differently. Nearly all frames have a caption box that describes what is happening to Godzilla and also what he is feeling and thinking. While it could be argued that the caption boxes are also used to help the reader understand what is going on since the art is more water colours and blurry than the last volume, it seems that this time the verbal is used to set the tone for the comic. The words chosen give this issue a more epic feel to it. Fitting of the images though sometimes we are reminded of the media we are reading here.

Overall, though, both issues do rely more on the pictures to tell the story rather than using words to explain what is going on. We get this more so from the first issue where Godzilla’s expression tells us more about what he is thinking and feeling than any words. The second issue does rely more on words but even then it is to help us understand what we are seeing. Both use the verbal in a way that adds to the comic not take away from it, though I feel that the first issue did this better. 

Kristen Barney

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