I found it extremely interesting that, based off of what we studied in class, Gus Arriola’s Gordo was widely different across issues, something we haven’t quite seen yet. There is a set of recurring characters, but the focus seems to shift across whose story is being told, and further some issues did not feature these characters at all (or maybe the same characters but fairly different in appearance) and served as a general commentary. The panels were various shapes and sizes, some with borders within them. The panels are often visually representative the story and reflect the images outside of the panels as well. This can be seen in the issue about giving the dog a bath within bubble panels over a background of bubbles, the checkers comic with symmetrical square panels over a checkered pattern, and the cat and mouse issue in hexagonal patterns reflecting the chicken wire imagery. In the same vein, the color scheme was also really interesting, but still varies across the issues. Sometimes, the comic is monochromatic, either drawn in two shades or with a muted background and only the characters are in color. Other times, the colors are highly unrealistic, vibrant and abstract. Gordo features unique experimentation in its widely varied issues.
What other comics are this different across issues? What’s the point of switching it up so often?
In terms of variance between perspective and stories being told, I wondering if it has to do with how much the comic relies on a particular character. For example, Calvin and Hobbes focuses on mainly that, Calvin and Hobbes. Despite there being other characters, the boy and his tiger take the spotlight. I think this is because the comic relies heavily on Calvin’s character and his back and forth with Hobbes. Hobbes only exists in Calvin’s world, after all, so the reader for the most part takes part in this fantasy. Another example is Garfield. Garfield has such a distinct personality and presence in Davis’s comics that he has become a brand/icon. Sure Oddie and John take part in this universe, but there’s no questioning that Garfield is about Garfield and his antics. I didn’t see this trend as much in Gordo. His characters don’t seem to carry the comic as, from what we’ve seen so far, they aren’t very distinct from one another. Each character can be sarcastic, can deliver the punchline, and can be involved a funny situation or environment. Thus, there is more switching between perspectives and experimenting with the world Arriola created. This is not an insult to comic, as I think it relies on wit, clever structure and style!
Many of the Gordo comics reminded me of things we have seen before in Krazy Kat. In many instances, there were variations within the shapes of panels, especially in the one where Kat got painted white. While the shape of the panels remained rectangular, the colors within the panels created other borders. Also with Krazy Kat we see the influence of dialect on the speech of the characters, much like in Gordo where many words are written with an inflection of an accent. I think by switching the style up between comics, it keeps the reader ‘on their toes’ and will not get bored with the structure like with the SuspenStories. Those followed the same format and got very repetitive quickly, where as with Gordo and Krazy Kat, the changes in style between comics keeps it fresh.
Like you and other commenters have implied, I think that this variety really works in Arriola’s favor. It makes for such rich exploration of so many things. However, he also does show consistency in some cases. The nine-panel comics with the highly stylized panel borders all seemed to appear in the Boston Sunday Post, which suggests he was aiming for a consistent layout in that particular paper. I loved those comics because even though the format remained the same, the way he used the panel borders allowed for endless creativity. So in that sense, the form allowed him to express the wide variety of ideas that he wanted to say. This example also suggests that comic artists sometimes accept restrictions or create restrictions for themselves based on the mode of publication that was available to them at any given moment, which certainly seems to be the case for many artists.