Estupefacto

Within my first day in Argentina I bought $40 worth of comics. When I told my friend Anna, she replied "If you hadn't purchased any comics within 48 hours of your arrival in ANY place, I'd be worried. If there is one thing that you most definitely are, it's a comics hoarder." I plan to die buried underneath all my comics, so I obviously need to start buying now.

I walked down Corrientes, a street known for its abundance of bookstores. Librería Diogenes on Corrientes and Callao is my absolute favorite because they have a large selection of discount comics. Obviously, these comics aren't the best quality. Some are printed on newsprint while others are bound with cheap paper covers. I've read three of the seven comics, so far. My favorite is Estupefacto by Lucas Varela.

Carlos Trillo begins the prologue to Estupefacto by saying "We call someone crazy if they don't think like the rest of us. And Varela doesn't think like me. Or like anyone else, it seems." Varela has a morbid sense of humor and a litany of amoral, repulsive characters. Paolo Pinoccio, a lecherous wooden marienette, takes great pleasure in tricking other fairy tale characters. Most often, he dies and goes to hell, always managing to escape through some intricate plot. Estupefacto features a number of short comics. "Ese Placer de Morir" tells the story of a rabbit who dies, goes to heaven, comes back to earth when saved by doctors, kills himself so he can return to heaven, and ends up in hell. "Scatter: Un Amor de Mono," probably one of the more ridiculous comics, deals with a relationship and eventual marriage between Elvis and a satanic monkey. These stories are as ridiculous as they are terrifying. Varlela's true strength lies in his artwork. All of his stories have a dominant color pallette. "Scatter" is drawn in orange, red, and white, while "El placer de morir" uses blue and purple. The color scheme give a distinct feeling to each comic, allowing Varela to give the impression that each comic happens in a different world.

Paolo Pinoccio

Lolypop


Illustration from Varela's Blog

Interpreting Owly: Part I

Owly makes me manic. I want to laugh, cry, and scream all at the same time. How does Owly elicit this insane reaction? Its overwhelming cuteness.

Owly deals with the trials and tribulations of flightless owl and his many forest friends. Each book has a similar plot involving a challenge, resolution, and tears. Oh, goodness, the tears. These optical emissions change the book from a cute story to an epic adventure of overwhelming proportions. They increase the level of drama by a thousand. Just look:

From Owly: A Time to Be Brave

But in all seriousness, I love Owly comics. The stories are cute, but it’s the pictorial dialogue that most interests me. All speech is communicated through pictures (see above panels). This unique style left me with a question: what is the process that a reader goes through to comprehend pictorial dialogue? I could probably write a hundred pages about this topic and not finish analyzing it. I will probably come back to this idea later, but for now I am just going to explain how I understand Owly.

When I read comics, I view words and images separately, and my attention moves between the two. Because Owly and his crew communicate in images, I don’t need to jump back and forth between text and drawings. Instead, the process becomes much more complicated. I must extract all meaning by interpreting symbols, actions, and emotions, drawing on context and prior events. An exclamation mark could indicate happiness or be a warning. Sometimes, the characters speak in intricate symbols that take a few seconds to decode. In one such scene, Owly is talking to a distressed Wormy. The first speech bubble shows an arrow pointing out an open door, followed by an exclamation point. The subsequent speech bubble shows a smiling sun equaling (with an equal sign) a smiling, happy Wormy. Now how does one interpret that image? Is it “Let’s go outside! It’ll make you feel happy!” or “If we head out the door, the bright sun will make you feel less scared!” The process of viewing makes each individual’s reading experience unique. We each find a way of translating the pictures based off how we interpret these combinations of images.

In future posts, I plan to discuss how children (the intended readers) read Owly, and the various theories on comic books and child development.