Pride of Baghdad

Based on a true story, Pride of Baghdad, written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Niko Henrichon, takes us through the day of four escaped zoo lions in bomb stricken Baghdad. The art siding towards realism works exceptionally well as the emphasis on eyes help the extremely expressive aspects of the panels and humanize the lions. This is the opposite effect Scott McCloud suggests when he claims that icon equals identification. Here, the complicated, glazing eyes connect to the reader. A very neat element of this comic is looking at how the color scheme functions with the storyline. Starting with brightly colored, soft, almost pastel-like colors, we see the colors grow dark and deep to reds and navy blues during times of danger. This is normal; the interesting part is that the colors gradually grow darker in general through the entire comic. Since we are being taken through a day, the color functions as a time cue, but also at the tragic fate that is awaiting our characters. This finally comes to a high at the image of the horizon. Here, I would like to talk a bit about multimodality and how the horizon is functioning in various ways. First, the color of the horizon is red showing that there is danger and the genre convention of tragedy is preparing us. Seeing the horizon, a light coming down beneath the shadows, through a tragic genre convention, we know that something grave is about to happen. However, our characters are taking it in as a moment of beauty and awe as shown by the image and the words: “It’s beautiful”. We are being pulled in two separate directions leading us to be just as innocent and confused in the lion’s death as they themselves are. Matthew Hones discusses reader awareness and I think this is a major function of Pride of Baghdad. In the last two pages, attention is brought to the fact that the comic is representing a real world event as is states, “There were other casualties as well”. These last pages, drawing on Anne Magnussen, bring the comic unity not by narrative itself but by narratives relation to the real world event. The comic becomes a large symbol for the struggle people in Baghdad, and war-torn countries in general, face every day. As Duncan and Smith explained, reading is additive. Survival is brought before the readers eyes in a way where image, sound, words and imagination can bring you into the struggle. Although the images through the comic are diagetic, they also represent a reality outside of the comic. In a final thought, I would like to mention the last page in the comic with a single panel. This one panel has no words, just an image and yet it manages to change the entire story from a complete tragedy to a moment of hope. This image echoes what the tortoise says in the beginning of the comic: “Legend says that as long as that statue’s still standing, this land’ll never fall to outsiders”. Instantly, our lost heroes become martyrs instead of victims.