God Save The Queen

"Balloons are an extraordinary useful resource for the visual artist" - David Carrier

God Save The Queen is a graphic novel illustrating a young teen that finds out she is half fairie. Making me think of The Mortal Instrument's Clary Fray, I quickly understood the plot and guessed how this comic was going to end (though I was much more appreciative of the fact that this storyline took far less time to get through than TMI series did to accomplish a similar end result).

But the parallels between this comic and similar novels are not what this post is about; I want to talk about how genre is used, along with speech balloons.

Richard Bauman, in his "Introduction: Genre, Performance, and the Production of Intertextuality" explains how "the invocation of generic framing devices such as 'Once upon a time' cary with them sets of expectations concerning the further unfolding of the discourse" (p. 4). This comic does just that:

Not only are the words themselves setting readers up for genre, but the appearance of the text mimics that of an old scroll, which forces us to relate that this text is happening in an archaic place, separate from today's world.

Also, the genre expectations are definitely set: we have a medieval-ish setting, good queens, fairies, evil queens seeking revenge, a good girl who doesn't get along with her parents, and her seemingly knight in shining armour who cannot seem to leave the friend zone. We also see the stereotypical bad boy and his gang that entrance the good girl and leave her BFF Jeff in the dust. What this comic does is twist these expectations upside down. Sure, we can expect the daring main female character to become the heroine that saves the day, but who expects the best friend to die!?

No one.

But were the expectations met? I would say so. Good prevails over bad by the end of this comic, just like everyone thought it would.

My next topic is the use of speech balloons alongside paintings.

The images in this text are beautiful, realistic looking paintings that have comic balloons added. Mike Carey and John Bolton did a fantastic job working the two forms together to make a beautiful graphic novel. 

David Carrier, in his "The Speech Balloon: Or, the Problem of Representing Other Minds" says "words and pictures in comics are intimately connected, mutually translatable, but disjoint categories of things" (p. 39). This is true when it comes to this comic, because you need the text to understand the pictures. Though the pictures could stand alone, the text is needed because some sequences of events are scene-to-scene, not aspect-to-aspect. Without the words there would be some confusion.

Carrier also mentions that "if there is speech, there must exist a speaker" (p. 43-44). This plays with the use of notebook paper text seen throughout this text. It illustrates the "nature of mental representation" (p. 44) that Carrier talks about too. The readers realize that Linda is recounting the events that happened in her journal, after the events have all taken place. This indicates that she is obviously a survivor of the great fight between herself and the evil queen.

The speech balloons in the photo below are an example of how balloons and images work together to form concrete meaning. When Linda sees her dead friend Jeff, his speech balloon is ghostly with a fluid tail, grey background and white text. This works to show he is dead because the balloon colour palate matches his body's colour.

God Save The Queen is a fantastic graphic novel that shows how realistic painting and the comic genre can be meshed together to create a beautiful work of not only literature, but art. Mike Carey and John Bolton are an exquisite team, and I cannot wait to explore more of their work.

Daniela Palombo

The Professor's Daughter

 

Set in the nineteenth century, the daughter of an Egyptologist professor, Lillian, walks the city of London with her unlikely companion, Imhotep IV (the mummy). Romance is in the air; however, the odd couple will have to go through several obstacles before they can be together. Filled with laughter, strange adventures and witty dialogue The Professor’s Daughter brings a modern twist of how love conquers all.

Playing with watercolor- like art style, The Professor’s Daughter brings a nostalgic sensation. The smoothness of the line quality and fading effect of the background colours emphasizes a dream-like world: the blurring effect where images seem to be out of place in time, a toned and monochromatic autumn palette gives the effect of peaceful times and the simplification of the images provides the reader to easily identify with the characters. Conveniently this relates to Scott McCloud Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art where the simplification of the images allows the reader to easily recognize themselves with the characters creating a deeper relationship between them. Because of such simplification it arouses different types of mood that pushes the reader to something new when he/she does not expect it especially with multiple plot twist that this graphic novel display. In addition to the art style, both Sfar and Guibert focus on the simplicity of organized panels. Most panels are in equal size and only emphasize to one-panel-per-page when the narrative approaches a character’s interior motive (image on the left). This allows an act of assembling the fragments from the reader giving more attention to the narrative itself.

Alongside the narrative the use of intertexuality is clearly present having historical references to Egyptian culture. In Marguerite Helmer’s and Charles A. Hill’s Introduction the reader recognizes certain images that they can easily make meaning from and in The Professor’s Daughter the reader’s insights rely heavily on the exploration and the enjoyment of two different time periods intertwining together. For example, Imhotep IV (a mummy) is very recognizable by the bandage around his entire body while Lillian (a nineteenth century young lady) is recognized by her nineteenth-century aesthetic appeal. For this reason the reader must have an open mind to accept such concept of a mummy falling in love with a modern-nineteenth-century young lady.

However, the lettering and the border reflects more on the humour aspect of the narrative. Firstly, the lettering is loose and round as oppose to a rigid and “proper” speech that reflects the nineteenth century mannerism. The roundness of the lettering cleverly depicts jolliness and a child-like-innocence of the characters themselves that brings the reader to a state of pleasure while reading. Yes, all the characters do speak properly by way of speech (and is reflected in the graphic novel) but here it does not portray that strict-ruling of seriousness because they bring unexpecting humour through their gestural presentation. Additionally, both Sfar and Guibert deem the relationship between the characters and the reader to be important and that is the reason why humour plays an important role in the narrative. Secondly, the border of each panel reflects that of the humour aspect as well. In such cases some of the colours slightly bleed off the non-diegetic world (refer to Pascal Lefevre’s The Construction of Space in Comics) that reflects again that child-like innocence of non-seriousness and humour. With that said the reader can relate the theme of love, life and experience from the characters while they endure every plot twist that comes about. Finally, the queen of England also makes an appearance. Not only does humour entices us, but involving a strict figure such as the queen of England (or any political figure) makes it more playful and enjoyable. It fully allows the reader to be absorbed in the narrative communicating a strong sense of realism.

Moreover, Thierry Groensteen indicates that the function of the verbal “identify two functions: a function of dramatization – the exchanged comments add to the pathos of the situation – and a realist function…effect that attaches to the verbal activity of the characters” (“System of Comics” 127) helps link the characters and the narrative effortlessly together. For example, the image on the left display Lillian’s confused state of love whether Imotep IV loves her back. Here the reader can sympathize through function of dramatization because he/she has internalized Lillian’s deep emotions by way of her adventures, and obstacles she endured. Additionally, this is image represents Groensteen’s ‘iconic solidarity’ where text is not required for the reader to understand that the tears flowing out of Lillian’s face is understood as a feeling of sorrow and sadness.

All and all, The Professor’s Daughter is hilarious with witty dialogue and friendly/smooth illustrations that I simply enjoyed.

Pushing the Boundaries: Framing of Panels in Vera Brosgol’s "Anya’s Ghost"

      As the very cover suggests, one of the most deliciously used comic features in the graphic novel Anya’s Ghost is the playful framing and insetting of panels. In this statement image, the reader is able to infer from the title that Anya is the more detailed, life-like character whose hair is inhabited by a more whimsical, ghostly figure who can rightly assumed to be the girl’s ghost friend. Anya’s hair in this instant acts as a sort of panel containing the ghostly figure. The reader can draw several conclusions about what the characters are like just by this intertwining of them on the cover; by being inside Anya’s hair, does the ghost actually inhabit her imagination or is the ghost more of a nuisance (i.e. by ‘getting tangled’ in Anya’s life)?  Whatever the interpretation may be, the cover image sets the reader up to believe that the relationship between these two characters is forefront in the story to come.

      Throughout the majority of the graphic novel, Vera Brosgol uses square or rectangular, straight, thin, black-lined frames with grids ranging anywhere from one to eight frames – an average page looks like the one on the left:

           Thus, anychanges in framing draw a great amount of attention, such as on page 13 (the one on the right). Based on the reader’s interpretation of what constitutes a panel, this page either has one large panel or one panel with five inset panels, totalling six. I happen to subscribe to the second theory since the images in the inset panels have each their own purposes outside of the main panel and require just as much individual attention even if they are inset, and especially because the reader at this point experiences the first break in Brosgol’s regularized framing. Instead of crisp, straight lines, the inset panels are framed with jagged, hand-drawn lines that surpass each other and extend beyond the panel corners. 

The regular frame style of previous panels are easily ignored, for the most part, when it comes to reading the novel. The framing of the inset panels alludes more to reliance on experience and feeling; the jagged lines reflect Anya’s frustration at the time and also how the events taking place happen so quickly and without her consent that she cannot recall them as clearly as she could otherwise. The overlapping edges of these panels also reflect how quickly the action takes place – what Scott McCloud would call 'moment-to-moment' transitions, and with no chance of a gutter to appear.

            The following two pages also showcase different ways of framing panels to further meaning and understanding of the novel and, more directly, Anya:

          The panels on the page on the left are angled to portray the action in the panels as less controlled, disorienting. However, the reader still experiences the straight, thin lines framing the panels. The page on the right uses an entirely different technique to frame the panels. This page seems to have one large panel with four inset panels that still read in the very linear manner of left to right, up and down. I claim that these four smaller panels are inset because what actually frames these panels in the background of the larger panel. The smaller panels do not have defined frames; they seem to float on the page with softer edges than the larger framed panel containing them. These absent frames (but still clearly different panels) are soft and heavily shaded to reflect the diegetic world in which Anya is waking up from being knocked unconscious from a fall. By the time her eyes are completely open and she is wide awake, the panel frame is back to the straight, black line format. Thus, when Anya returns to normal, so does the framing.

          Brosgol also plays around with framing techniques notably when Anya is dreaming (page 111) and when the history surrounding her ghost friend’s death is being told (pages 154-6). In conjunction with Thierry Groensteen's assertion that every aspect of a comic adds to its narration, it is important that the differences in panel framing within a work and between works are not ignored considering they can translate to the reader key information about the story at hand whether it’s blatantly apparent or not. Even the feeling that a certain line style gives is an important contribution to the reading experience of the graphic novel.