This semester, I am reading Civil War, a comic that highlights the clash between Capitan
America and Iron Man. There are many factors about this comic that pose
interesting insights into the way messages are portrayed, and the way
cartooning is used to describe ideas more abundantly than words can.
Like many Marvel comics, the detail in cartooning is very
specific to showcase emotion. I had not previously noticed how photo realistic
the cartooning appeared to be. The image of the
various characters drawn can easily imitate a person in real life. It is
important to note also that this photo realistic drawing of the various
characters present in this comic does play an important role. Most Marvel
comics deal with characters that are very different from the average human
being because of the supernatural powers they posses. Beyond the knowledge of
these supernatural powers, the author of Civil War uses photo realistic
cartooning to present these characters as distinctly different from the average
person-or average reader. Scott McCloud says in his instructional novel Understanding Comics “…characters were
drawn more realistically in order to objectify them, emphasizing their
“otherness” from the reader” (44). He mentions this as a trend in Japanese
comics, but the notion can easily apply to Civil
War as well. Below we have an example of this photo realistic drawing:
Another unique element I noticed that helped me as a reader
to form a better timeline of the story was the hermeneutic function of the
textual countdown that appears on many of the pages. Duncan and Smith discuss
the concept of hermeneutic images in their article, but I have taken their
theory and applied it to a textual element Prior to the battle, a commentary on
how many hours remained until the battle appeared. It was interesting that the
author chose to use text to highlight the remaining time rather than a clock.
Since the drawings of this comic are very detailed and the panel layout varies
quite frequently from page to page, sometimes the subtitles within the comic
were not as apparent to me as a reader. So to have the countdown appear at
various spots until the battle, it almost seemed like the countdown did not
have to appear apparent to the reader, like it was more of a subtle detail.
When I first started reading the comic, I assumed that the functionality of the
textual countdown would be consistent on every page. I was taken a back when I
saw that not only did every page not contain a countdown, but the placement of
that information, according to the page layout, shifted as well. Sometimes it
was at the top of the page and sometimes it was at the bottom. As a reader,
right off the bat, I chose to make that textual countdown my tool to help me
follow the timeline of the story. The authors certainly played with my
expectation, which I found interesting. Below we have an example of these textual countdowns. You may notice that in the first image (page 6), the countdown is present at the bottom right. On the second image (page 10), the countdown is present at the top left.
It is interesting to view a Marvel comic so critically
because there are so many subtle details that can go unnoticed if a reader is
not aware of the various techniques that can be used to interpret a story. I
look forward to continuing my reading of Civil War to notice the different ways
messages are told through this comic.
By: Kirthana Sasitharan
Works Cited
Duncan, Randy and Matthew J. Smith. “Experiencing the Story.” The
Power of Comics: History, Form, and Culture. New York: Continuum, 2009. 153-70.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding
Comics: The Invisible Art. New York, NY. Harper Perennial. 1994
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