Author: sostrow
As someone who’s always loved to read novels, but rarely if ever picked up a comic until now, I’ve been asking myself about the form of comics and graphic narratives all semester. I do think there’s something they can do that novels can’t, but I can best explain it through a literary lens. When I..
I loved reading Watchmen in part because of its complexity. Witnessing the way every detail layered onto or complicated the previous one made for an enthralling read. And one way that Moore and Gibbons accomplished this level of complexity, I think, is by showing the reader more perspectives than we’re quite equipped to handle. The..
This was my favorite panel from the first issue of Batman. It caught me a bit off guard when I first saw it, because it is so clearly a commentary on breaking out of the panel, or breaking the fourth wall. In the context of the story, Batman is saving a businessman from certain death..
Sarah Ostrow, Rachel Cooley, Kate Gwydir
Frequently throughout Goodbye, Tatsumi will introduce a certain panel early on in a story only to bring back a near-identical panel later on. One of the clearest examples of this is, I believe, in “Life is So Sad.” The first panel in the first row of page 158 shows the main character, Akemi, walking past the..
I adore the palette of this first volume of Adèle Blanc-Sec. It’s a totally instinctual response, but I thought I would try to lay it out a bit more critically to try and see what it is about color that attracts me to Tardi’s work here. Above are two of my favorite panels from the..
This panel (second panel, first row, page 31 of our first X-Men PDF) stood out to me when I first read it, and continues to stand out to me today. It’s working in two different ways. First, it’s certainly a strong statement about the suffering of people who feel like they have to hide some..
In one of Jackie Ormes’ comic strips that we’re reading this week, Torchy Brown runs through a panel completely naked. The caption above it suggests that such a thing was not at all common in 1937, when the strip in question was published. Although I can’t say– based on the limited context that we get–..
One page that interests me from The Mysterious Underground Men comes a little over halfway through the action, on page 87. Here, we see John and Mimio arriving just in time to prevent Mr. Ham Egg from escaping to the surface of the Earth. One small, curious thing about the first panel in the first row..