Wow. What a different comic book. I've absolutely loved reading this so far. Dave Eggers wrote on the back that this book is approaching "oeuvre", which is basically a fancy word for a work of art. I found it peculiar that he had to say that, because I would think most comic books should fall under the form. But at the same time, reading the comic I understand what he means. This feels much more like a piece of an artistic expression than just a simple comic book. What are you thoughts on that? Is this a work of art, alike to something you'd see in a Museum, or is this simply another graphic novel? Why or why not?
I love the playful style Lynda uses in this novel (it feels more appropriate to call her Lynda instead of Barry... I don't know why, just roll with it). It's all very crude as Chelsea said in her post. I for one really like it. A lot of it feels all over the place, especially when we see the different title pages and all the different backgrounds. What do you think is the significance of all the different title pages? How does she use the different images, words, and scribbles on each of those pages to represent these demons?
Speaking of the art, each of the pages is pretty sparse (intro aside (man those pages were crazy)). But each "demon" has a distinct color. Why do you think that is? How do the colors speak to what's going on in the chapter, or to the demons? I'm positive these colors didn't come about by chance. Why does she use them?
Lastly, her storytelling style is very intriguing. She almost has two different stories going along. We have the story told in the boxes, and the story told through the images. Obviously these two intertwine to tell one great big story, but she also sometimes seems to have different things going on in both. Do you think one trumps the other? How do they work together?
While I do agree that this comic does have a unique style to it, I wouldn't say that is belongs in a museum. It's just my personal opinion, but if found some of the art style to be too childish. I even believe that this is the kind of animation that Nickelodeon would have back in the 90s. Yet it does capture my inner child if it's doing this. A part of me is saying that it's not just a simple comic, while another is saying that it is.
ReplyDeleteThe use of color plays an important role in this comic. McCloud explained in Understanding Comics that color is used to express emotions within the events. Barry uses this same tactic in chapter pages. One of the chapters is titled Today's Demon: Hate, and the background is shaded in a violent read color. This gives the read a heads up that the following chapter is going to be about anger of anger related. When Barry uses color for the chapter pages, they express what will happen in the chapters, whether it is sad, angry, or happy. This is the type of technique that some of the greatest artists use to express themselves.
I don’t if I could call it art that could be seen in a museum but I want to say that it so much more than a graphic novel. Perhaps it falls into some middle ground in which it goes beyond simply being another comic about someone’s life but is drawn in such a way that it doesn’t alienate the reader with the idea of being profound. I think it is a symbol of how a story can be told in so many different way rather than the conventional ones we always use. While graphic novels may be considered a relatively new forms of memoir it is something that is rapidly growing. Barry’s comic, however, tell it outside of just the normal drawings and text but with collages and different art works that I think it unique and opens new ideas for others.
ReplyDeleteThe titles pages look like they hold a lot of personal images from Lynda’s past or at least recreations from the different periods in her life that she is covering. The images especially those that are pictures of real people and objects bring about a deep sense of reality and gives us a glimpse of what she remembers vividly from back then.
Colors have a deep connection with human emotions. There are the obvious ones – green for envy, red for anger, yellow for happiness – but likely the colors chosen for the different demons reflects how she feels about the aspects those demons embody. We may not know that is what she intended for them but I think they speak strongly of an emotional connection.
They work well together. It gives a wide dynamic of memories and retrospective thoughts on those memories. It’s a very truthful way of telling the story as there is what we remember and what we think of it now in the present. No memory is perfect and our minds always reimagine the things it keeps so using both the text and the images gives the memory as best as it can along with the new information. I’m glad she was honest about the fact that she is no entirely sure of what is true or is not and her way of handling it is fantastic.
I don’t really understand the museum thing. Could you put this book in a museum? …yes. You can put anything in a museum. Nothing is any more or less “worthy”. We figured that out in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp put a urinal in a museum. I also don’t understand what makes something ‘more than a graphic novel’. What does that mean exactly? (Not a rhetorical question)
ReplyDeleteI thought the Title Pages were far and away the most interesting thing about the book. I’m curious to hear from the high art/low art people what they think about these. It’s essentially a scrapbook page, right? Like the process is exactly the same and the” intention” is exactly the same (she’s chronicling life events using physical collage). So does that automatically make One Hundred Demons ‘low art’? Is scrapbooking high art? Should we put my mom’s scrapbooks in a museum?
I think the background colors are a subliminal way to signal a shift in time/space for the reader as you move to the next demon. And yeah she probably picked colors that “mean” different things. But that’s about it really.
As for the text, I think Barry is using pretty standard comic-strip techniques. I personally don’t find this method very interesting visually, but in the end she’s doing a lot of the same things that I talked about with Fun Home. She’s juxtaposing these two story threads (narration and dialogue) as way to demonstrate a deeper point of view about the events she’s describing.
I think that while I can understand how this book might be seen as "oeuvre," I personally have a different opinion. While I found Barry's methods to be intriguing and innovative, and certainly original and unique, I found the artwork rather difficult to follow and, if anything, distracting. It's slightly grotesque and chaotic. So, while you might find something like this in a museum, and while it could be considered art due to the fact that it is both literature and art, I personally wouldn't consider it to be aesthetically pleasing.
ReplyDeleteThe title pages are significant in that they give us a little overview of what will happen in the following chapter. It kind of reminds me of the overture before an opera or ballet. The different images, words, and scribbles on the title pages are each representative of the demons, usually by name and association. These brief panels demonstrate how Barry sees the demons of her past.
I think the colors represent a different demon in order to keep them separate, but I honestly can't find any specific reason as to what each color represents. Maybe it's just Barry's way of keeping track of certain chapters? Many of the colors are very similar.
In my personal opinion, I think the imagery is just a bit too much and distracts from the story as a whole. Unlike Fun Home, in which images were not necessary but rather complimented the accompanying text, the use of imagery in One Hundred Demons is incredibly distracting.
Although I think the book is decent, I'm not sure it quite moves into the realm of "museum" worthy. That being said, art is completely subjective; what one of us might see as being bold and thought-provoking, another might see as being childish and seemingly unfinished. I don't know if I have the proper authority to make a broad declaration of where Barry's work falls in the greater scheme of things, but I do think it's a serviceable bit of graphic fiction that does some unique things very well.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that the catch-as-catch-can personality of the book makes it an interesting and unique read, but I can also see where it might actually put off some people as well. Playing fast and loose with art style and narrative structure can be a refreshing breaking of traditional formats, but it can also cause the narrative to get muddled. Fortunately, Barry seems to have enough control here not to set things completely off-course, despite the loose style.
In terms of the color, I think it's a way of developing a primal reaction from the reader. Colors are extremely evocative, and we all apply our own thoughts and feelings to them. Of course, there are the broadly "accepted" associations to make (blue = sad, red = anger, etc.), but that doesn't necessarily hold true for everyone (I might suggest that red could also symbolize passion, for example). In this particular instance, the use of colors forms its own narrative within the plot itself; it becomes part of the language of the book.
Not sure how I feel about the story at-large just yet. I certainly appreciate the willingness to break form, but in terms of the story that is actually being told, I'm just not getting into it that much. Perhaps that's a side-effect of having this come directly after reading Fun Home, which was a book I really dug.
I understand what Eggers means by the book approaching the “oeuvre”. The pictures he paints is quite different from what we have seen thus far. I would like to think the same thing as you, that most comic books should fall under the form but since his artistic creations are different, I see why he makes that statement. I agree that it is more artistic. I feel as if there is more symbolism within the drawings than what we have seen previously. I don’t think it’s necessarily art that you would see in a museum but I could definitely see it in an art show of some sort due to the symbolism and different artistic abilities. As McCloud states the broad definition of “art”, I believe that someone may disagree with my opinion with it not being suitable for a museum. I enjoy the “crude-ness” involved in the novel and feel as if Barry is able to pull this off within her novel. The title pages are significant because they give background to what will be coming up next. Instead of having an over-arching title that is the novel title, she titles each chapter to give us background just like any other novel gives us titles for chapters instead of the typical “Chapter1, chapter 2, etc.” The different images, words and scribbles are simply the demons that were in her past. When I view the demons of my past, I look at it as chaos or scribbles in time that has helped build me to be the person I am today!
ReplyDeleteI agree that this feels much more like artistic impression than a standard comic book, and I think she makes that clear in the introduction. Barry discusses reading a book by a 16th century Japanese monk that gave her the idea for this novel. She decides to use this text to explore her own demons, though she freely admits that the line between fiction and reality in this text is quite blurred. Regardless, I think she is still exploring her own demons in this, even if she's fudging the truth.
ReplyDeleteThe amalgamation of different elements on each page was an interesting method of exploring these demons. I wrote in Chelsea's post about this, so I won't write too much more, but the cluttered assortment of images and text makes sense when you consider how demons make us feel. We all have demons in one form or another, and they often make us feel overwhelmed by the emotions, memories, and imagery associated with them. As such, we sometimes see the world exactly the way it is in these pages.
I honestly hadn't paid much attention to the fact that each demon, as well as its chapter, has a different color. But I agree that this isn't by chance. I think it's more of Barry playing on the things we associate with both demons and with our memories. Color is a very important part of how we remember things; a certain color can easily dredge up an old memory, just like a smell or sound can. As such, it makes sense to assign a color to each demon.
I caught on to the duality of the plot fairly quickly, and found it to be very similar to Fun Home, although it wasn't quite as extreme. But like Fun Home, this duality works well because it accentuates both the similarities and the differences between the text and the artwork. My inclination is that Barry is telling the primary story through the text boxes and playing with the meaning of her words through the artwork.
I agree this story is different from the other text we have read in its form, but I would also say all the stories we’ve read are works of art. This is especially true if we’re going off of McCloud’s definition. Sebastian mentioned that that you could indeed find work similar to this in museums, but museums do contain a verity of different artworks.
ReplyDeleteThe title pages worked to set the tone and even highlighted certain scenes and aspects that are to come. This works to help the reader identify elements that the author may have deemed important. This is definitely the most colorful and unique of the books we have read. That being said, it is also the most chaotic and rough artwork we have studied as well. Not that this is a bad thing, but the artwork and pictures seem to play a bigger role than the writing.
The use of colors serves a multitude of purposes. It could simple be set in place to separate the chapters or demons from one another, which works to bring some structure to this chaotic book. It also sets the tone of the story. For instance, the chapter/demon entitled “Hate” is blood red, which sets an obvious mood for the subject matter.
I am not a fan of the artwork, but I like her text. It seems almost like she is just taking notes on her life, considering the pages are legal pad papers. I do not believe it would be part of a museum or gallery, but it is not just "another graphic novel" either. It falls somewhere in between. As far as the colors go, she perhaps attributes some color or characteristic about her life to each of the demons she has faced. It is like the advertising technique where blue is strength and red is power, but she turns it into a more artistic and literary feature. The combination of text and image in this novel seems to be different than the other novels we have read so far. The text, for me at least, dominates each cell. I am drawn in more to the words than the image. But as I said before, I like the text but not the artwork.
ReplyDeleteI loved this graphic novel and it was so much fun to read. I especially loved the art involved and felt it looked more like a scrap book than anything else. Being a painter myself I really appreciated the art involved in creating this book.
ReplyDeleteI think she uses the title pages as a break to set up the next story just as traditional books use chapter headings. She uses images on each of these pages that refer in some way to the demon she is going to tell us about. I also liked her playful style and found the whole book enjoyable.
I think she uses color to distinguish between the demons and also help introduce us to their character in the same way the images relate to them. For instance, the demon "Hate," has the color red to characterize it which seems appropriate. I agree that none of the artistic choices were accidental and there is meaning found in every color and image she chose.
I agree that the story telling is also very entertaining and I do not think that either the story told in the boxes or the story in the images trump each other but instead both work together to tell a whole story. I was quite entertained by her stories and found them very humorous, like when she called her ex-boyfriend a demon and then realized later that he reminded her of her mother. It was pretty funny.
The dialogue at the top of the panels relay the narrators thoughts while the story communicates the thoughts and experiences of her childhood. She talks about the questions of autobiography and fiction, I would say her narration dialogue contains more truth, because after all memories are not really truth in a sense. They are rather our perspective of a situation.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a correlation between the panel colors and thr monsters she chose. Her first chapter is head lice and the color is pink. This is because the chapter is about her first true love "the professor". He was one of the only men to accept her for who she was and treat her as an equal. Perhaps the most interesting chapter was "resilience" thr color was a pale green. Throughout the story there is a definite absense of a father figure. To my knowledge we only see his lower torso in one frame clutching a cigarette. This chapter had been alluding to some event between Lynda and her father but she talks about not remembering and never forgetting at the same time. Thid pale hazy green is a perfect allusion to this idea.