Author’s Intent in Asterios Polyp & Songs of Experience

One of my favorite parts about Asterios Polyp (and graphic novels for that matter) is how everything seems to be placed with purpose, and therefore, much of the author’s intent came across as more deliberate to me. For instance, comparing Asterios Polyp to Songs of Experience by William Blake, I found Asterios easier to interpret. For example, one of the panel progressions discussed in class was the all yellow fire that blazed and took over Asterios’ apartment complex. Comparing panel by panel, the fire increases in size to a completely yellow panel that is larger in size, depicting the growing scale of the fire. The gutter space is deliberate, and the use of color is straightforward. I felt like I understood Mazzuchelli’s intent. However, as we analyzed with The Sick Rose, some of Blake’s work is ambiguous and I wondered if I was doing too much work as a reader to try to put meaning in his images. Overall, I enjoy graphic novels the most out of all the content we have analyzed thus far because I felt closer to the author and found myself reading the cues of the gutters, the panel size, and the colors like a code.