Storytelling in Black Canary

The Fletcher and Wu Black Canary picks up a character with a previous book (Birds of Prey volume 3 of the New 52 relaunch) of 3 years and starts virtually from scratch. Instead of continuing with the crime fighting crusade in a more practical superhero costume, Dinah Lance is set to front a band in the old fishnets.

The series, having only been in print for six issues, suggests more by overtly saying less. Despite being the protagonist, Dinah Lance says little and doesn’t even thought box an introduction along the lines of “My name is Dinah Lance... and [insert some sort of really short introduction here before the credits],” or throughout the comic. Unlike, say, Batman, whose thoughts are revealed to the reader as he investigates crimes by his lonesome, or virtually every other superhero out there who either intentionally or unintentionally narrates their experience, Dinah’s thoughts remain a mystery to the reader.

Instead, the comic alienates the reader by deviating from that standard form, and instead follows the story of Black Canary from the outside – as a fan, and not just a fan of the character or of comics, but as both that and a fan of Dinah – D.D. – as a musician. The book plays on the idea that Black Canary is a real.

Panels from the page are framed as articles, the first page being the most notable. Following that, there are no thought boxes, but instead, details about Dinah’s tour (as the story starts in medias res – in the middle of things) are provided through a blogger or even a video that catches the reader (that’s us!) up to speed, and provides a little bit of insight into what’s to come.

The comic, as a comic, does show the reader what goes on off-stage, but later blogger Tantoo la Biche and sometime narrator of Black Canary does manage to find information regarding Dinah, and publishes it in the form of an article, which is literally shoved into the comic. New readers may or may not have known about Dinah’s ex-husband and past (comic book characters rarely ever have one stable backstory as it is), and so the information comes out in an interesting but comfortable way – the narrative plays out and introduces him in the narrative world while la Biche’s article touches upon Dinah’s character’s history in her previous book, Birds of Prey in both the real world and comic world, blending the two together. The reader, grouped into being a fan of the book and the band, is suggested to know just as little as the press and fictitious fans in the series (even though the reader obviously knows more), but experiences the information as it unfolds in the narrative and comes out in implied blog posts and articles.