Awwwwwwwwkward - The Creation of Tension in Jimmy Corrigan and Sleepwalk

Not too long ago, I was saddled up at a bar, silently drinking a pint. I was meeting a friend, but arrived a little early. A beer by myself seemed like the best way to shake another long day at the office. All I wanted was to be left alone to wonder how at such a young age, I was spending so much time at a desk or at a bar. In doing so, I did not notice another patron pull up beside me and order a drink. Taking me by surprise, the mystery patron made an innocuous comment about the bartender. I do not remember what he said to me, for I turned to him to respond and sat face to face with a full-grown version of the child who had ridiculed, beaten and harassed me through childhood. Immediately, he realized who I was and I realized who he was. We both sat stunned, staring at each others, mouths agape, both of us struggling to make words, and instead were, as my mother said when we were children, "catching flies." This moment carried on for longer than it could have in actuality occurred. Eventually, overcome with the awkwardness of the moment, my former assailant received his drink and simply walked to the other end of the bar. No words were exchanged, nor would any be exchanged. Shared between us was merely an awkward moment, mouths hanging wide open, staring at each other in disbelief.

Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth would work well as an in depth study on awkward moments such as that. While speaking with other students, words tossed around to describe the feel of the book were "awkward," "uncomfortable," and "tense." In Adrian Tomine's Sleepwalk, the same thing can be said for almost every story.

What techniques do Tomine and Ware use to create this tension in their works?

The character is off-the-charts awkward to begin with in Jimmy Corrigan. Jimmy is in Ware's words, "emotionally impaired." He spends a substantial amount of time day dreaming, staring off into space, not making eye contact with people and just being generally awkward.  How is this illustrated about Jimmy? First, other than Jimmy's father, grandfather and Amy, the reader never sees another person's face. This accomplished a few things. One, it isolates our characters. More importantly though, we see how little Jimmy notices other characters in this book. His day dreams and his anxieties get the better of him repeatedly. Jimmy actively avoids human interaction with everyone. When forced to interact with people, Jimmy is tenative and many long moments can pass before he responds, if he responds at all. Ware does an excellent job of illustrating this with "silent" panels. McCloud talks about how a panel void of dialog or narration can be used to show a passage of time. Through the text, there are examples of little to nothing being said between two characters over a series of many panels. The more panels, the more time the reader is to assume has passed.

An identical tactic is put into use in Tomine's Sleepwalk. Each character has silent frame moments. We draw the same closure. Time passes, words are not exchanged. Few words, spread over many panels indicates that awkward conversation we've all had. Long pauses between exchanges are filled with looming silence. Each vignette features a emotionally dysfunctional protagonist which can be seen to be more dysfunctional through these techniques.

What are you getting at Mr. Hotshot College Student? How does making the reader uncomfortable lend anything to the work (or more importantly, does the protagonist being awkward actually achieve tension?) What is the end result of these characters "emotional dysfunction," "awkwardness," and "tension?" Whatever happened to that old bully you ran into at the bar?

Whoa whoa whoa. Slow down, dear reader. One question at a time. The tension these panels create for the reader is very real. Not only is the character demonstrated to be awkward, the reader become awkward for them. Don't believe me? Reread the scene in Jimmy Corrigan when the doctor looks at Jimmy after he is hit by a car. I'll wait. Done? It made you squirm a little, didn't it? The end result of all this tension is in each story, these characters being utterly alone. Each Sleepwalk story and the Jimmy Corrigan story the characters are left alone because of their crippling awkwardness. Many of these seem like possibly autobiographic gestures about loneliness.

And that bully, well I was told by a mutual friend that he married recently. Also, they informed me that she cheats on him....a lot. Oh sweet justice.


*I WILL PROOF READ THIS IN THE MORNING! SO IF YOU READ IT TONIGHT, TOUGH COOKIES!*

The Endurance of Ideas

I'd like to first preface this by saying that I had a blog posted typed in word and then my computer screen decided it was feeling blue, quite literally. Now I am on my itty bitty tiny baby laptop, wringing cramps out of my hands as I attempt to type on this smurf sized keyboard. So please, feel my pain as I type.

What is the significance of V's mask and Dream's tools in the two texts?

Between V For Vendetta and Preludes and Noctures, there is an overarching theme: the theme of ideas being enduring and powerful. In V for Vendetta, the idea of anarchy -- and freedom through it -- is an idea championed by the stories antihero, V. For many reasons, the author never gives V a real name and we never see his real face. V says, "you must discover whose face lies behind this mask but you must never know my face." Implying that V was not a man, V was an idea, a different face entirely. When V is fatally wounded, he says his iconic line, "Did you think to kill me? There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bullet-proof." Once again, cementing the idea that V would continue to live on. We see this come to be as Evey eventually dons the mask and becomes V, even taking on another disciple. V, as an idea, was enduring and immortal and would make a difference long after his death.

We see a very similar endurance of ideas in the Sandman. With all the stock the Sandman had put in his material tools, it was only with the destruction of one of these tools, he regained all the power he had lost. The idea of Dream was more powerful than the objects and tools he used. Both the mask which V and Evey don and the tools that Dream is so dependent on represent the power of ideas.

Why is the endurance of ideas important in these texts?

Ideas serve very difference purposes in each text. In V for Vendetta, it is painted with a much broader brush while talking about the meaning of freedom, order, anarchy, control, fascism and so on. We are led to accept V's almost Marxist definitions of freedom, but we do see the governments conflicting ideas of the same kind of ideas. Even those ideas, you see had staying power in the finals pages as some people still clung to the ideas. Therefore, ideas can create change (or deny it) more effectively that one man. In Sandman, the ideas are more personal. The concept of dream being more powerful than objects is represented by the destruction of Dream's amulet. This is more about the idea of dream himself being more powerful than the objects he seeks.

Maus and Men: The Power of Icons and the Narrative Form

The stirring story of a man relaying his time as a Jew in Europe in the late 30's and early 40's would normally be a compelling enough tale. Add to that tale his time spent in what is widely considered the most brutal of all the concentration camps of the time and for most people the tale would start to seem familiar, if not histrionic. However, the graphic novel Maus takes events from human history and makes them seem fresh through a few very simple techniques. The story manages to relate to the reader through the use of icons and a, despite it's flaws, very strong narrative. Exploring techniques discussed by Scott McCloud and Hayden White, one can shed some light on why this story works and how without a few devices would not be nearly as effective or affecting.

One of the most powerful -- and undoubtedly defining -- techniques that Art Spiegalman uses in Maus is instead of his characters being humans, they are represented by Mice (Jews), Cats (Nazis) and other various animals such as pigs. Scott McCloud forges very early on in his work Understanding Comics an understanding of the power of the icon. He argues that the icon lets the reading immerse themselves in the story. More importantly, the reader pays much less attention to the messenger and more attention to the message. Now that the humans are mice, one is able to insert themselves into a situation that many would before not been able. There are two major problems people face when reading about the Holocaust: one being the otherness of Europeans and specifically Jews and the other being how distanced we are from the events. To expound, a non-Jewish American will have trouble placing their family in the situation that Spiegalman's father experienced. It is not because people are anti-Semitic. It is simply they are not one of "us". The Jews of Europe during WWII are very much "the other." In making the Jews mice and allowing the audience to insert themselves and loved ones into these characters, this story is no longer a story of Jews and Germans, but a story of humans. Secondly, we are so distanced from the events of WWII and they have been so romanticized by pop culture over the last 70 years, that we have completely objectified the events. A survivor's tale could be casually referred to as "yet another Holocaust story" because of an over saturation with this type of narrative. Once again, the iconization -- i just invented that word if it isn't already one -- lends the story relevance.

Another thing that lends the story relevance is the gripping narrative on historical events. While almost all Holocaust pieces have a similar narrative, the presentation of this particular one is divided into two parts. While some would argue this fragments the narrative and may leech some of it's meaning, I would disagree. I believe that, while Maus lacks a clear beginning, middle and end, there is still a continuity as the story moves forward. Hayden White says in his paper The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, "[a]nd it would follow that the absence of narrative capacity or a refusal of narrative indicates an absense or refusal of meaning." Essentially he is saying without a narrative, historic events have no intrinsic meaning. The meaning lies in the story. Historic events mean something because of the stories we tell about them -- stories such as Maus.

So we see that Spiegalman's put together a touching and unique story. He made this story relevant by changing the way we look at an all-too-familiar historic event. Not to save the Holocaust was not a gripping, moving event and almost any survivor tale would be a worth narrative. However, a fresh look at the events providing the ability to insert ourselves into the situation via icons has been invaluable to this narrative and to me personally.

Maus + White

WAAAAAAAAAH?

I am making an outline. I will put words here. This is a placeholder. In the meantime here is a dog playing a sprinkler: