Shaun Tan

One of Shaun Tan’s main themes is of alienation such as in the form of someone having a new start in a new place or being in a new and unfamiliar situation. This is clearly seen in his wordless novel ‘The Arrival’ about an immigrant going to an alien country, where the viewer is also put into an unfamiliar place to better sympathise with the main character. The setting the character is in seems bizarre and Shaun Tan removes the comfort of a recognisable language, animals or buildings to emulate some of the uncomfortableness and confusion the character feels.

Double page from ‘The Arrival’(2006) Shaun Tan

The image is striking and the statue is iconic yet not recognisable as a common icon or figure to our minds. The forms of buildings roads and the cityscape are curved which seems unusual where most cities are angular. The typography visible is a pictographic script with similarities to Sanskrit or hieroglyphics which implies an air of mystery and ancient knowledge, making the place seem yet more exotic to the immigrant.

The novel is also silent with no speech, narration or readable text of any kind, in any human language. This is typical of Shaun Tan’s work as he relies heavily on image to communicate.  In an interview he describes this as ‘having a conversation with the viewer, leaving space for interpretation’¹. He does not use text as that would dictate a particular message instead he uses his imagery to suggest a story, a place, a feeling and lets the reader fill the gaps and so contribute to the story, as to a conversation.

‘The Rabbits’ (2000) Shaun Tan and John Marsden

This is seen in ‘ The Rabbits’ where Tan says he considered using the Union Flag as the Rabbit’s flag but thought that this would lead the viewer down a very specific path and be to easily readable as a metaphor for British colonialism.

Tan’s work can be described as ‘Crossover texts’ which is ‘an intertextual transgression between fictional worlds that seems to be included in a larger joint world’- Erwin Feyersinger.² The plot points and surroundings of Tan’s stories are understood in the context of the world’s he creates, even if parts of it are vastly different to what is normal in our world, we still understand the connotations and allow influences of history people and places we know to contribute to our understanding. Thus we understand his work intertextuality.

In this way his books have universality and not restricted to a genre or audience. His imagery is quite surreal and he doesn’t shy away from serious themes. Of his work Shaun Tan says that both adults and children ‘like to look at things from unusual angles, attempt to seek some child-like revelation in the ordinary, and bring our imagination to the task of questioning everyday experience’³ His surreal environments encourage imagination in his readers and entertain them with the fantastical.

            References

1.                  .   Shaun Tan (interview)

2.                        Christophe Dony

3.                  .      Shaun Tan

4.                     .    Shaun Tan

    Bibliography

Christophe Dony. (2012). Towards a vocabulary of displacement and utopian possibilities: Reading Shaun Tan’s The Arrival as a crossover text. Studies in Comics. 3 (1), 83-105.

  statelibraryvictoria. (2011). Shaun Tan: Do you encourage open interpretation of your work?. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cb37WdbBgk&feature=youtube_gdata_player. Last accessed 21st Oct 14.

Tan Shaun. (2002). PICTURE BOOKS: Who Are They For?. Available: http://www.shauntan.net/essay1.html. Last accessed 21st Oct 14.

Tan Shaun (2006). The Arrival. 2nd ed. London: Hodder Children's Books. 1-30.

2nd Year: Chris Ware

Chris Ware

Chris Ware’s compositions in his comics and graphic novels enable him to express his major themes of Time & Memory. 

The composition of comics can be explained as ‘Raccord’ this is the ‘continuity in the textual/spatial surface of the page’ ¹  The layout of the comic with its format and composition relates directly to how it is read and understood, features such as arrows text and other icons enable continuity and linkage of the story told on the page.

Chris Ware’s stories have a linear narrative but his comics have unusual layouts and complex patterns which change the way the otherwise straight-forward narrative is understood.  Ware enables understanding by using colour to join together themes, objects and people, he also uses similar motifs in various places to make connections for the reader. He evokes memories and produces feelings by making the reader choose their own interpretation of the story in a way that makes sense to them and thus he sympathetically harmonises with his reader’s past experiences.

He uses diagrammatic compositions to communicate large amounts of information and give an all-encompassing view of the various story elements.

Double page from ‘Jimmy Corrigan’(2000) Chris Ware

   In this section of ‘Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth’² the double page spread shows the history of the Corrigan family. Diagrammatic symbols such as arrows and lines have been used to link certain features of the story similar to a flow chart. Different members of the family, generations and places of origin are represented throughout the pages. These are separated by their positioning but kept together by lines and similar imagery i.e. a man holding a letter, a woman crying or a baby. The light blue colour gives another pathway for the eye to follow linking characters’ thoughts, journeys and plans along with the repeating motif of the light blue ship. The diagram doesn’t focus on certain family members but serves as a reminder of perspective, there are many elements , the unseen past and the unknown future that influence the story but it is our perspective that provides significance to certain events and characters. This is a clear example of Ware’s application of time and memory. The concept of time is left to the readers’ interpretation and previous knowledge of history. Features of buildings and the use of greyscale show time changes but every life is shown simultaneously communicating how intrinsically they are all woven together.

Chris Ware’s work tries to emulate time flow in real life unlike mediums such as film which, according to philosopher Henri Bergson, is limited as it is, in a basic sense, a succession of fixed frames.

‘Condemned to itemize time image by image, instead of grasping it as a whole’ ³

We do not view time as a linear pattern and cannot recall memories clearly as if we were rewinding a film, time is relative it doesn’t move in equal segments or in straight lines. Comic books and graphic novels can escape the flaws of other mediums because of the ability to show different elements of time and story on the same page thus enabling simultaneous narratives.

Film poster for ‘Tokyo Story’(2008) Chris Ware

This is shown in Chris Ware’s  film poster for ‘Tokyo Story’ by Yasujiro Ozu. He shows three scenes where time has passed between to represent the entire film. This reflects how important events and occasions stand out in our memories. The image forces the reader to compare past and     present⁴ he exaggerates the wife’s absence in the last panel by keeping the rest of the image almost the same, time might not have passed at all apart from the wife is now missing. This gives greater meaning to the middle panel as the viewer is left questioning what has happened between the two normal seeming homely images. This reflects the human thought pattern the thinking back and remembering which helps readers connect sympathetically with the two characters visible.

References

                                  

1.       Ernesto Priego

2.       Chris Ware

3.       Henri Bergson

4.       Roberto Bartual

Bibliography                                            

Bartual, Roberto. (2012). TOWARDS A PANOPTICAL REPRESENTATION OF TIME AND MEMORY: CHRIS WARE, MARCEL PROUST AND HENRI BERGSON’S “PURE DURATION”. SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF COMIC ART (SJOCA). 1 (1), 51-54.

Bergson,Henri.  1959.La pensée et lemouvant.Paris:PressesUniversitairesdeFrance.

Priego,Ernesto. (2012). Shade: Raccord as Media-Specific Reverb.Available: http://blog.comicsgrid.com/2012/02/shade-raccord/. Last accessed 05th Oct 2014.

Ware,Chris (2000). Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth. New York: Pantheon Books.