Yim Kin Ming, Jacky (5301 5149)
The graphic novel is a comic adaptation extracted from the famous novel New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. The beginning of the story has been discussed in class and I am really interested in the special way of presentation and how the main character Quinn changes his life. The analysis would start with a brief summary of the story, followed by examining two different depiction styles within an excerpt.
The main character Quinn answers the phone call after days and eventually takes up the identity of the detective Paul Auster. The excerpt selected starts from the time when Quinn goes to the address given and meets his client Peter Stillman. Peter seems like an autistic person and was a victim because of his frenzied father. At the scene, he tells the story through his monologue without a stop.
To begin with, it is an ordinary comic depiction on Quinn’s way to meet Peter (page 12-14) and we can look into the details on how the author sets up the stage and portrays the figures. It is obvious that there is a detailed and complex portrayal of the city. This indeed emphasizes the realistic scene in the story and could gain readers’ trust and involvement. Besides, the bubbles help to differentiate speech from thoughts clearly. For instance, there is even an ingenious use of thought bubble on page 13 that the author makes use of an empty bubble to represent Quinn’s dazed mind when waiting for Peter in the living room. Furthermore, the author uses 4 panels on page 14 to create readers' first impression of Peter. The first panel has occupied two-third of the page and we could see the motion lines particularly emphasize the floating steps and fluctuated body moment of Peter. It is also worth noticing that there is no any word or conversation involved, but audience could easily perceive a general image of the character.
The second part of analysis is focused on page 15 where the author changes his way of story-telling to a monologue with different characteristics. The page is divided into 9 evenly distributed panels and each of them gives a single monologue. The standardized frames and lack of dialogue hence promote an unusual and haunting effect to present the depressed personality of the character. When it comes to the depiction of images, the close-up on Peter further delineates his vacuous eyes and haggard facial expression to deepen his mental condition. Also, the panels are interlinked by the zoom-in technique on the mouth to the throat and this probably illustrates the character is trying to present his innermost ideas hardly. Moreover, the word style varies from the previous part that both capital and small letters are used in the monologue, which symbolizes that the speech is different from normal conversation and is not spontaneously spoken by the person. In fact, the above arrangement is adopted until page 22 and I think this has been effectively moulded the character and built up a mystery atmosphere.
In my view, the graphic novel is well-constructed and attractive to audiences that it makes use of words and static images as communicating devices to tell the detective story. Although images are motionless, the author adopts various techniques to put forth the stage setting and character portrayal. At the moment, I could not come up with an answer of whether the novel, comic or movie is better, but I really appreciate the author’s communicative and persuasive presentation with limited number of images. Therefore, I would sincerely recommend this graphic novel to everyone.
The main character Quinn answers the phone call after days and eventually takes up the identity of the detective Paul Auster. The excerpt selected starts from the time when Quinn goes to the address given and meets his client Peter Stillman. Peter seems like an autistic person and was a victim because of his frenzied father. At the scene, he tells the story through his monologue without a stop.
To begin with, it is an ordinary comic depiction on Quinn’s way to meet Peter (page 12-14) and we can look into the details on how the author sets up the stage and portrays the figures. It is obvious that there is a detailed and complex portrayal of the city. This indeed emphasizes the realistic scene in the story and could gain readers’ trust and involvement. Besides, the bubbles help to differentiate speech from thoughts clearly. For instance, there is even an ingenious use of thought bubble on page 13 that the author makes use of an empty bubble to represent Quinn’s dazed mind when waiting for Peter in the living room. Furthermore, the author uses 4 panels on page 14 to create readers' first impression of Peter. The first panel has occupied two-third of the page and we could see the motion lines particularly emphasize the floating steps and fluctuated body moment of Peter. It is also worth noticing that there is no any word or conversation involved, but audience could easily perceive a general image of the character.
The second part of analysis is focused on page 15 where the author changes his way of story-telling to a monologue with different characteristics. The page is divided into 9 evenly distributed panels and each of them gives a single monologue. The standardized frames and lack of dialogue hence promote an unusual and haunting effect to present the depressed personality of the character. When it comes to the depiction of images, the close-up on Peter further delineates his vacuous eyes and haggard facial expression to deepen his mental condition. Also, the panels are interlinked by the zoom-in technique on the mouth to the throat and this probably illustrates the character is trying to present his innermost ideas hardly. Moreover, the word style varies from the previous part that both capital and small letters are used in the monologue, which symbolizes that the speech is different from normal conversation and is not spontaneously spoken by the person. In fact, the above arrangement is adopted until page 22 and I think this has been effectively moulded the character and built up a mystery atmosphere.
In my view, the graphic novel is well-constructed and attractive to audiences that it makes use of words and static images as communicating devices to tell the detective story. Although images are motionless, the author adopts various techniques to put forth the stage setting and character portrayal. At the moment, I could not come up with an answer of whether the novel, comic or movie is better, but I really appreciate the author’s communicative and persuasive presentation with limited number of images. Therefore, I would sincerely recommend this graphic novel to everyone.
Reference
Karasik, P., & Mazzucchelli, D. (1994). Paul Auster’s City of Glass. New York: Avon Books.
Karasik, P., & Mazzucchelli, D. (1994). Paul Auster’s City of Glass. New York: Avon Books.