Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s "Local", Site Specificity and Character Development

Local

Writer: Brian Wood

Illustrator: Ryan Kelly

Publisher: Oni Press
Analysis: Cristina Naccarato

Local was a twelve-part limited comic book series, written by Brian Wood, illustrated by Ryan Kelly, and published by Oni Press. Each issue of Local (like Wood’s more recent series, Demo) was intended to be a stand-alone short story that took place in a different city across North America. Though each issue was mean to be self-contained, a recurring character, Megan, acts as a thread for the reader of this monthly who followed the series in sequence. In some issues, Megan is the main character, and in others, she is merely a spectator, or background figure, yet always recognizable, with her large oval eyes, freckled nose, and key around her neck. As Local went on, it became more of a coming of age story for Megan, while still maintaining it’s establishment as a stand-alone series.

Local in many ways, explores the notion of personal identity, and the idea of how identity is often shaped more by where you are, rather than by who you are. Location in terms of identity is crucial, and for Megan, in every city she travels to, she can reinterpret herself recreate her image as much as she wants. For example, in issue #5, “The Last Lonely Days at the Oxford Theatre,” located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Megan recreates personal and physical identity throughout the entire narration. Her hair progressively gets shorter, and shorter, her personal history changes each time she encounters a new person, and she also presents herself with a different name each time. Being new to Halifax, Megan’s location allows her to do this without any repercussions, and emphasizes how location is at times indicative of how you identify with yourself.

In terms of locations, and Megan’s constant traveling, the site specificities of each issue make it “Local” to the people who are familiar with the locations, and act as a way in which Wood and Kelly could relate on a more personal level with their readers. Wood mentions in an interview with Comic Book Resources, “I picked twelve cities and towns for the stories, both for aesthetic reasons and commercial (I wanted cities that has strong indie comic shops, so that the book would actually be found there).” Each issue contains real places that readers can identify with, and in turn, also draw from their own personal memories of said places, which creates another element that readers can connect with in a profound way.

As above mentioned, though each issue is meant to be self-contained, and can be read this way, the progression of Megan’s identity throughout the entire series, shows a movement from a confused drifter, to someone who is more self-aware and stable. Another element most young adult readers can relate with. This progress, however, can only be seen by reading the entire series in succession.

The Merging of Real World and the World of Fantasy in Cinderella From Fabletown with Love

Written by: Chris Roberson
Art by: Shawn McManus
Published by: Vertigo

When going to pick my monthly comic I had no idea what I was looking for as I had never bought a monthly comic before. Once I saw Cinderella I felt that it would be a good choice and this was only affirmed after reading Fables in class. The combination of the real world and the world of fairy tales was something that greatly interested me and this comic illustrated a perfect combination of reality and fantasy.

In the third issue (the cover is shown above), the infusion of the real world into the world of fantasy is apparent on the first page of the comic. This issue begins during the civil war and looks into Cinderella's part in the war and the side she took. The political and social issues of the civil war come to the forefront on this first page. Cinderella is a character we normally associate with her fairy tale character, the girl with the glass slipper, woodland animals as friends and who gets her prince charming in the end. The last thing that would come to mind is Cinderella's involvement in the Civil War, on the side of abolishing slavery with another fairy tale character Belle as a double agent for the south feeding them information.

In this comic the boundaries between the real and fantasy are blurred as the two realms begin to crossover into one another. Fairytale characters are injected into real world settings, situations and issues. This brings cause for the reader to ask what is real and what is not in this comic. This is exactly what the characters in the comic are trying to avoid, the merging of their fairytale world and its magic into the "mundy" world. Many of the traditional aspects of the fairytales remain like Cinderella's friends being woodland animals and Aladdin's magic carpet. One of the main parts of the original Cinderella is the glass slipper that much of the story revolves around. In this comic this connection with shoes is transformed into Cinderella owning a shoe store. The fairytale characters are merely being adapted into the read world taking something originally so distant from it readers to something that is easier for to associate with is as these familiar fairytale characters are implanted into the world in which we live.

Politics and the Women's Place in Iranian Society in Nylon Road

Written & Illustrated by Parsua Bashi
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Parsua Bashi's Nylon Road is a graphic memoir that is overflowing with political and social undertones. Bashi describes her struggles living as a woman in Iran and her attempts to overcome the hardships that women are forced to undergo in her country. As Parsua battles her younger selves many intense political issues come into discussion. During the years in which Parsua was growing up, Iran was at war with Iraq and a revolution had begun. As a result Bashi delves into many of the political issues of the time including questioning the real reasons for war and whether or not the leaders of her country were truly following their religious beliefs or merely just using them as a facade to cover their true agenda. Bashi believes the latter. Politics and religion should be separate entities and not taken advantage of to pursue personal ambitions.

One of the main political issues that comes across in this graphic novel is the position of women in Iranian society. As she battles with her past, Parsua truly discovers the oppression of women in her country and the pains she had to go through due to the treatment of women at the time. At one point Parsua is whipped repeatedly my law officials because she was out walking with a classmate to get art supplies and a so-called religious extremist witnessed what we would think to be entirely typical and would not notice, he finds utterly appalling. Clearly, Bashi is trying to show her readers the current situation in her country and that things must change in order for Iran to prosper.

These political and social undertones also open up the potential use of a graphic novel like Nylon Road as an educational tool in a classroom setting. This novel is one that could be easily incorporated into a Women's Studies or Political Science class at a post-secondary level. It provides a personal account of the political issues and gender inequalities that can be found in Iran. As Bashi battles her younger selves that appear throughout the novel she shows that through self-examination we can all learn something. The status of women in Iran is most definitely questioned in this novel and hope for change is the main political overtone.

Humour and Reflexivity

Title: "Showing 'Helder'", from The Little Man: Short Stories 1980-1995 (68-101)

Writer and Artist: Chester Brown

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly

I chose to examine a collection of Chester Brown's short comics because I found it to be rich ground for Jones' theory of reflexivity. The brief comic "Showing 'Helder'" is a commentary on "Helder", a story that precedes it in the anthology. Both stories feature a character called Seth, but in "Helder" Brown narrates a relatively realistic plot, while in "Showing 'Helder'" he breaks the narrative illusion and draws attention to the construction of the medium. Brown achieves this effect to make both stories retrospectively comic, and so nullify the negative emotional impact of "Helder".

On page 76, Chester draws himself in a scene that the reader recognizes from the previous story. This is what Jones calls "authorial awareness", or the intrusion of the author onto the story. Chester Brown achieves it in a similar technique to McCloud--by drawing a comic counterpart to himself. This intrusion draws attention to the construction of the comic and makes the reader critically distant from the fiction he or she is reading. The effect is humorous and playful: the reader is distanced from the dramatic action of the story as it is happening, and is encouraged instead to play with the conventions of comic writing. A humorous effect is appropriate to this particular story because it is aimed at lightening the mood after a dramatic and realistic narrative. "Helder" was a relatively dark story as well, because it involved scenes of domestic abuse and violence. "Showing 'Helder'" does exactly what the title implies--it "shows" the construction of the previous story to mollify its negative emotional effect.

"Showing 'Helder'" is obviously an instance of intertextuality as well, adding another level of reflexivity to the narrative. Even though it references an author's own story, it nevertheless references another text; as Jones argues, this relativizes both texts and undermines their illusion of reality (281). Brown uses this to undermine the realism of the story even further and add a comedic element to both of his stories--even to "Helder", albeit retrospectively. Jones notes that "parody is one genre of comic art that makes particularly strong use of intertextuality" (282). This is because parody creates comedy by undermining the serious emotional effect arising from other texts' illusion of reality. Chester Brown's "Showing 'Helder'" is therefore a self-parodic story that makes itslef and "Helder" become funny in retrospect.

Deni Kasa

Laying Siege to Illustrative Design

"Siege" is a new mini-series from Marvel Comics, which released its first issue in January of this year, and is set to conclude next month. Essentially, it is a classically epic story, pitting nearly all of the world's Marvel superheroes against each other.

In previous comic yarns that lead up to the offshoot "Siege" series, Marvel villain Norman Osborn consolidates his power in the United States, somehow managing to institute himself as head of the nation's security. The last resistance to his control is Asgard, which is both the mythic capital of the Norse gods, and the Marvel realm based on it. After some brief delay, the focus of the series becomes clear: Osborn means to attack Asgard in order to gain full control of the world's superheroes, or at least to subjugate them.

More than comics I've read in this class, this comic is not a subtle one. It contains all the flair of traditional Marvel comics, owing in part to its inclusion of such a plethora of Marvel characters. It has the immediately-established division between good and evil, and the sense that the world's fortunes rest squarely on the shoulders of these demi-gods, (and sometimes actual gods).

Moreover, the illustrations in the comic are similarly overt. They are intensely detailed, both in terms of the background and the main characters in each panel, and coloured extremely vividly. Marvel used a wide pallet in this comic, though they are generally dark in tone, to illustrate the "impending doom" of the situation. Right from the first issue there are several full-page spreads, predictably depicting the tensest of moments, or an action-packed solo flight across the country to reach someone in time, for instance.

Having to wait for each individual issue makes this comic seem like even more of a TV show than it actually is. It could easily make a smooth transition into a superhero cartoon geared at young teenage boys, with dramatic breaks coming at the conclusion of each issue. Though the detailed images are admittedly eye-catching, they take away from a multimodal experience. Little is done in this series to unravel the possibilities of the genre. Both the words and images could function independently, relating the same story with the same amount of significance.

American Born Chinese is a 2006 graphic novel by American comics artist Gene Yang, who both wrote and illustrated the work. It tells three separate and seemingly very different stories, which later weave into one another. The first arc tells a traditional Chinese folk tale, the second arc is about a Chinese boy, Jin, while the third is about an American boy, Danny.

Danny does, however, have a Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee. Through Jin and Chin-Kee, the reader experiences very different characters. Jin is a comparatively average boy, who can be timid and awkward at times. He often seems out of place because he was raised with a traditional Chinese cultural background. Chin-Kee, however, is the embodiment of American stereotypes toward the Chinese, and the difference between the two characters can be seen in their illustrations. Chin-Kee is drawn as a stereotypical Chinese man, and his diction mirrors that as well.

A running theme with which Yang grapples is the lens of perception. Chin-Kee is seen the way he is, because he is seen through the protagonist of that story arc, Danny, an average white American jock. Jin, however, is seen as more accepted, relatively, because he is seen through his own perspective, in his own story, so to speak. But this lens of perception does not make life better for Jin.

In addition to the overt racism that is obvious between Danny and Chin-Kee, Yang explores the subtle racism experienced by Jin. The reader can easily overlook this, due to the imminence of Chin-Kee's treatment, and this was likely the goal of Yang: to illustrate a society that is teeming with under-pinned racism. Jin is treated differently, for example, in an important scene in the novel that includes him going on a date with an American girl. Furthermore, he is influenced by the views of his peers, possibly subconsciously, in the way that he is nervous and wary of the date.

Interestingly, the published format of the comic, which has received much acclaim, is rooted in a web comic, which I have not seen. I would presume, though, that web culture and racism there could have been explored in the web comic. Colour plays an obvious role in the work, both in terms of race and in terms of the actual art. These two realms overlap, creating a multimodal experience. The illustrations are very linear and crisp, with clear gutters on every page, and this can serve to elucidate the racial gap that is unfortunately apparent, but even more unfortunately, sometimes very unapparent.

Daytripper

Written by: Fabio Moon
Art by: Gabriel Ba
Publisher: Vertigo

Daytripper is a series about life that uses death as it's main device. In it we get the story of Bras de Olivia Domingos' life. The series, running for ten issues, shows us the ten most important days in Bras' life, and the catch is that he dies at the end of every one of them. This is a surprise at the end of issue one and gradually comes to be expected as the series moves on. The art by Ba is beautiful and compliments the story, the colours bring each issue the right feel and tone. Issue 2 is happier and set mostly on a beach, the colours there are brighter, light blues and yellow to reflect the themes of young love and hope. In issues 3 and 4 the colours are darker, especially 4 where things are all shades of dark blue and muted. The colour reflects the mood of the characters and whether they are having a good day or bad.

The change in the colour can be seen in the covers above( cover for number 2 is top right and number 3 bottom left). For issue 2 the cover is brighter and covers more of the page, this element shows the reader the tone of the issue. The cover of issue three, one that begins to deal with loss, showcases much darker and more onimous colours. These centered around the image of Bras smoking over packed boxes also add to this darker tone. The images themselves cover less of the page here, as there is more white background there is less to see as there will be less for Bras in the story. These elements of the paratext show the reader the change in tone for each issue. The cover for issue 1(top left above) has all the images emerging from Bras, this tells the reader he is the main character and that things included in the "bubble" behind him are most likely what they will be learning from this story. The white space here disassociates the story from others, we know we are going to focus on one character in this tale as only his past is being represented here.

Daytripper gives us one man's life through ten days. It is up to the reader to put it together and see who this character is. The issues jump around, moving forward and back in time giving Bras' life out of order. This comic presents a chance to look at one character over the years and find out what makes him tick.