In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud theorizes that human beings are self-centered and try to see themselves in many objects. He uses examples such as the front of a car or an electrical outlet. Since reading this chapter, I have noticed how I naturally see faces in inanimate objects. My toothbrush holder has three openings and looks as if it is about to talk to me. Making the subjects in comic books look more cartoonish does help me identify with these characters more and allows me to put myself in their situations. I have found I have been able to identify with characters in cartoons or anime more easily than television shows with real actors. Aside from the fact that their features are less individual and defined than those of real humans, the cartoons’ facial expressions are more pronounced, drawing me into the pathos of the moment. Seeing such strong emotion prominently displayed makes it more accessible for me as a viewer to conjure up similar feelings and empathize with the character, rather than sympathizing from more of a distance. If I am emotionally invested in the characters and story, I extremely likely to finish reading or watching until the end.
“Blood in the Gutter” shows us that negative space is crucial to comics and many other forms of art. McCloud asserts that “the art of comics is as subtractive an art as it is additive” (85). Comics must strike a balance between negative and positive space so that readers are given enough information without having their senses overwhelmed or their creativity and imagination stifled. McCloud observes that comics from Japan have honored this balance studiously throughout the years. He states that the East understands that “elements omitted from a work of art are as much a part of that work as those included” (82).
While reading this chapter, I thought of writer and artist Austin Kleon’s work in his project, Newspaper Blackout Poems. Kleon read newspaper articles and blacked out most of the words with a Sharpie, leaving only a few behind to create poetry. One of his most well-known works from this collection states, “Creativity is subtraction.” He seems to echoes McCloud’s view of comics, the “subtractive art.” Beauty is found in Kleon’s work not just through the readable words, which are themselves entertaining and honest, but also through the fact that so many words were read and chosen to be excluded by the artist. They have now become invisible underneath the marker, allowing the visible words to take on new meaning and beauty. Similarly, comics must use the invisible - the gutters - to connect panels in a way that makes readers understand the panels’ meanings.
This use of positive and negative space factors into Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis. Satrapi usually uses panels; however, she employs a different tactic when she tells her readers of her uncle’s death. This tragedy was one of Satrapi’s first that she experienced first-hand. She loved her uncle and worried about his safety when he was imprisoned. She uses panels to show their conversation in the prison, but then when she announces, “That was my last meeting with my beloved Anoosh,” (70) the drawing of the newspaper declaring her uncle’s execution is surrounded by negative space without the use of a frame. Perhaps this image shows that her pain could not be contained within a panel, that this hurt bleeds out into the empty vastness of negative space and colors her perception between every action from now on. She then uses an entire page devoted to the image of her as a little girl floating in a black background with the words, “And so I was lost, without any bearings...What could be worse than that?” (71). There is no gutter to use in between images on this page; this one panel must take up the whole page because for this girl in this particular moment in time, there are no such things as transitions. Loss and emptiness is all there is. The abrupt start of the war is signified by creating a new chapter. Many sections of Satrapi’s story employ smooth transitions between panels using the gutter, but she uses the technique of dedicating a whole page to one panel for certain images that symbolize a change in her life and culture to which she wants readers to pay close attention.
Kleon, Austin. Creativity Is Subtraction. 2010. Goodreads. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.
Kleon, Austin. The Travelogue. 2010. 20X200 Artist Fund. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Random House, Inc., 2003. Print.
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