This book's wonky, puzzling title was the first thing that caught my eye as a reader and sparked my curiosity as I tried to imagine what it was about, since, on first examination, one cannot make much of a connection between the cover image of a turtle and a mouse playing in the sand and the title's reference to 'Chunky Rice". This puzzling cover invites the reader to read further in order to make sense of it.Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the book is about a turtle named Chunky Rice and his friend, Dandel, a mouse. Chunky leaves on a boat to go on an adventure, and the book chronicles his journey, while alternating,occasionally, with Dandel 's life at home.
This book's simple, rounded, quirky drawing style creates a tone of childishness; of simplicity. It seems to signify, that is to say, that it will be a simpler story, and not one, say, that is gritty, dark, or action-packed.It uses a lot of rounded and curly lines, seeming to denote playfulness. After reading the story, one finds that it is a very sad, sentimental one, and the lines are simple, yet hold a lot of emotional meaning. Scott McCloud discusses the potential of line to express emotion in his book Understanding Comics, and theorizes that every line has such emotionally expressive potential.
The simple drawing of the characters, in particular Chunky, the main character, seems to support McCloud's idea that comic artists draw characters simply in order to promote reader identification with the character(s). In this way, it may be thought that the reader is supposed to identify with Chunky, the main character, and whose story the reader follows throughout the book as if he or she were right beside him.
There is no narration in this book; instead, the story relies on visuals and the characters' own interactions with one another. This gives the reader more freedom to interpret the visuals more independently, without the help of a narrator.McCloud identifies six different kinds of word/picture combination in his book, and this book is an example of an Inter-Dependant combination, in which words and pictures depend on each other to make meaning fully. While it is true that without dialogue, the reader would probably be able to make sense of what was happening, the information given from the dialogue is crucial to understand the full meaning of this text.
Sometimes the author uses a single,
constant backdrop through multiple panels to illustrate time passing.
This would be considered what Scott McCloud refers to as a 'Moment-to-Moment' transition, in which
moments only pass in the span of the two panels.
The author uses a variety of shapes and
sizes of panels and page layouts to aid in the storytelling in this book. On the
below page, the author uses page composition in a unique way by
drawing the water as overflowing from the panel and 'flooding' the
page. This draws attention to the fact that the comic itself is constructed; that the panel borders are constructions on a page. Matthew Jones discusses this in his article, 'Reflexivity in Comic Art." This drawing attention to the comic's constructed nature is what he calls reflexivity,This particular instance could be seen as an example of Demystification, a term he uses to describe when the ways of comic-making are revealed to the reader.This is a sort of breaking of the fourth wall, showing the reader the comic's constructed nature.
Sometimes, Thompson uses similarities
in visuals to signify something he does not in words; for example,
the very first panel of the book is surrounded by black page with the
onomonopeic representation 'clunk' above it, and the same page layout
is used for the very last panel of the book, paralleling the first.
Though the settings are different, the page layout is the same, and
so, too, even, is Chunky's posture. These all serve to create a
parallel in the book; the last panel calls back the very first one,
giving it a sort of full- circle-ness not expressed in any words in
the piece. The repetition of the one-panelled page, the 'clunk', and
Chunky's position in the panels subtly recollect this previous scene
visually in a way that words cannot. Scott McCloud talks about
closure; our brains' way of filling in the 'gaps'. He talks about how
we do this from panel to panel, in the space of the 'gutter'-the
space between the panels. Indeed, this is true for Chunky Rice; however, Anne Magnussen , in her article "The
Semioptics of C.S.Pierce as a Theoretical Framework for the
Understanding of Comics"also asserts that the panel is the smallest unit
of meaning within a work, and that the page, or work as a whole,
even, can be seen as signs themselves. In Goodbye Chunky Rice, this
is called to the reader's attention as these similar panels promote
closure within the context of the work as a whole, using the very
first and very last pages and panels of the work. The onomatopoeic representations of
words-indeed, Douglas Wolk notes that they are but not representations, and not the real thing, as is everything in a comic- also require the reader to understand that these letters stand
for the sound they represent; Magnussen discusses at length the fact
that a reader must understand a 'language' of signs and references
the author uses in order to make meaning from the work
here, one can see what Magnussen means
by the page being a sign in and of itself. Chunky looks out from the
third panel, down onto the fourth, as if seeing it. Indeed, it is meant to seem as if he is imagining what is represented in the fourth panel. As well, the
women he is talking to appear behind him, from the 2nd
panel, as they are in panel 1. To put it a different way, the page
can be read as a larger image of Chunky looking out onto the vision
of the fourth panel, with the women standing behind him, in one
continuous image and sign, rather than four separate ones.
Works Cited
Magnussen, Anne.”The Semiotics of C.S. Pierce as a Theoretical Framework for the
Understanding of
Comics.” Comics and Culture: Analytical and Theoretical
Approaches to Comics. Eds. Anne Magnussen and Hans-Christian
Christensen. Copenhagen:
Museum Tusculanum
P, 2000.193-207.
McCloud, Scott.
Understanding Comics. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994
Thompson, Craig.
Goodbye, Chunky Rice. 5Th ed. Toronto: Random House
of Canada, Limited., 2004. 20-21. Print.
Wolk, Douglas.
“Pictures, Words, and the Space Between Them.” Reading Comics.
New
York: Da Capo
Press, 2007. 118-34
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