Gemma Bovery's Verticality

I really enjoyed Gemma Bovery (it seemed oddly invigorating after Jimmy Corrigan), and while I was caught up in the overall story (so much so that I’ve already finished), I did try to notice along the way how Posy Simmonds would strive for the little peaks at the end of each page (something that obviously was dictated by the original newspaper limits).

I think artistically Simmonds was forced to go “vertical” and in the end adapted quite well. While many of our readings this term have concentrated on how our eyes moved from left to right on a mainly square page, Gemma Bovery was the first to force our eyes up and down over a much longer vertical surface.

I’ll take one aspect of this which I found particularly captivating – the “stacked” level of artwork that would appear during the course of the novel, as can be seen in pages 6, 17, 28, 49, and 70, among others. We talked a bit in class about how it was often difficult to tell whether to read, then look at the artwork, or vice versa, or a bit of both, and in the end, I chose to do the last, reading a paragraph at a time before looking for the appropriate picture. It may violate our sense of how comics work (paging Scott McCloud), but I think in the end, Simmonds really manages to establish her own interesting stake in the larger graphic novel world.

And the vertical artwork seems to get stronger as we go on. Page 6 is really the simplest (just a series of panels illustrating each detail of the left-hand text), but in page 10, we’re already seeing some playfulness, as the photos appear to tumble out of Joubert’s hand. In 17, objects are beginning to overlap, and on page 28, there’s a subtle change to the artwork, as gray wash gives way to the black ink of the bottom right corner.

Page 70 is the best of these, in my opinion. Here Simmonds manages to convey a “crown” of sorts above the main character (no gray wash here either), a black-inked Francophile daydream sprouting upward as a tree. Everything works here, and by placing this in the upper left, Simmonds has really highlighted this montage. Our eyes fall upon it as we first turn to the page, and as we read through the text, we are drawn back piece by piece to the artwork, our eyes moving from the main character to the second level, and lastly to the nest and baby at the top. We return to the bottom, and see Herve's reaction to all this - his "deer caught in the headlights" look of shock. This is one of my favorite pieces of art from the book and not coincidentally, it signals the beginning of the end of Gemma’s fortunes.

Voyez-vous lundi!

POV in Gemma Bovery

Granted, I'm only half way through Gemma Bovery, but I just wanted to throw out a question regarding Simmonds' unconventional use of point of view in telling the story. For a graphic novel, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of prose here. These sections the reader has no problem taking as originating from Joubert's point of view. He is telling Gemma's story based on information that he has gleaned from Charlie, Gemma's diaries, or his own first hand experience.

More troubling are the "comic" portions of the novel. Here the reader is presented with a wealth of information that Joubert could not have possibly known. Do these scenes arise from Joubert's imagination or a completely seperate consciousness? For example, on page 13 Joubert wonders what Charlie is remembering about the Christmas that followed his first meeting with Gemma. Then we get a full page of Charlie's converstion with his ex-wife Judi. Joubert later surmises that Charlie's relationship with Judi must be "civilized" (20), but this assumption belies the information that we're given in the comic portions of this page. Was Joubert merely being sarcastic or are the drawn panels conveying a truth to which he's not privy?

On a related note, later in the first half of the book, it appears as if Joubert is conducting the action of the narrartive (giving some insight into why he feels responsible for Gemma's death), as he commands Gemma to turn into Herve's driveway. It does, just as the skies thunder (48). Accorsing to her diary a few pages later, however, the thunder happens once Gemma is already inside Herve's house. This information would seem to rob Joubert of his role as "writer" of the narrative.

Quick Question...

I would like to preface this by admitting that yes, I am a bit of a geek for Barry Manilow. That being said, I was more than a little perplexed by the tape found in Amy's car: "Tropical Nights" by Barry Manilow, an album that I didn't even know existed! However, after doing some research, I discovered that Manilow does not even have a song with this title, let alone an entire album. After breathing a sigh of relief that I was not missing an integral part of Manilow's extensive canon, I began to wonder why Chris Ware made this error. It would be foolish of me to say that it was unintentional, because I think we all know that nothing in "Jimmy Corrigan" is unintentional. I really have no answer to this question, and was wondering if any of you had any thoughts about this.

Posy Simmonds interviews galore

There's a recent Posy Simmonds interview in the Telegraph that you should read. It is occasioned by the recent publication of her latest graphic novel, Tamara Drewe, which was serialized in the Guardian last year.

Simmonds was also the subject of a lengthy cover-story interview in the latest issue of The Comics Journal. You can read an excerpt from that interview here.

Corrigan as the antithesis of Superman

So I wrote a paper earlier on Superman in Corrigan so I decided to give an excerpt here:

Even though Jimmy is continually reminded about how unlike Superman he is, the part of him that believes in Superman and what he stands for is the only part of him that allows him to keep going on in his sad existence. Towards the end of Jimmy Corrigan Jimmy ends up donning a long sleeve t-shirt of Superman in order to sum up some courage in dealing with his father and his father’s family. The first instance of him wearing the shirt, however, shows Jimmy in one of his weakest positions: on the toilet. The page with Jimmy on the toilet (with a large Jimmy face with two men pulling on the mouth in the interface) shows the irony of his wearing the Superman shirt. While he is wearing the shirt he is curled up into almost fetal position with half of him undressed showing his own exposure as he fights to pass a bowel movement. Wearing the shirt gives an oxymoronic feel to Jimmy since he is continually portrayed as almost the opposite of Superman. The shirt also represents how much Jimmy wants to make a good impression to his adopted (half) sister, Amy. By wearing the shirt he is trying to gather his courage in order to face someone he has never met before and under the condition of his father getting sick. Two pages after the bathroom scene Jimmy meets Amy for the first time, the panels that are able to create the most authentic moment for Jimmy are the three vertical panels that show first his face, then a close-up of the t-shirt, and lastly his hurt foot. This moment is able to sum up exactly how Jimmy wants to be and how is completely incapable of being as strong as he wish he could be.
Near the end of the book there are two large snowy panels that show Jimmy standing on the street corner where the Superman had jumped and landed, in the second panel Jimmy stares at the position where the hero had been. These two panels are vitally important because they manage to tie together Jimmy’s sense of loss over the Superman, his father, and Amy. The blanket of snow that is falling down also represents a winter in Jimmy’s life where he no longer feels that he has anybody left to admire or fantasize about. Back in his office Jimmy then pictures himself in the position of Superman, on top of the building preparing to jump. After all he has gone through Jimmy can only see himself following in the sad steps of his hero. The mixture of the snow and his fantasizing about a similar death as Superman shows his unwillingness to continue to exist in a world where there are no supermen, where there are no heroes to look up to.
The second to last page also shows the snow scape, this time with Superman carrying little Jimmy away from the whole entire mess. This scene was very poignant because it represented Jimmy’s memories where Superman was the most important figure in his life. This scene could also be construed as Jimmy’s death, since the little Jimmy is being flown off to an unknown destination with his superhero in the middle of a blizzard. These last final panels represent the end of a very long and sad journey for Jimmy where he has nothing left to look forward to, especially when he meets his new co-worker and realizes that his life is working in a vicious cycle of new people coming in and out of his life that merely disappoint him. Superman, even though he has had bad experiences with him, remains his idol because he remains a type of constant ideals that are not vanquished despite the world around him.

Time Wares on...

Rather than doing a broad post I wanted to focus on pages 195-197. What interested me about these pages is the way in which Ware uses time. Panel 195.5 is a small panel containing a digital clock. This is the first of a series of clock panels. Not only does Ware use the clock to illustrate the slow passage of time, but there are a number of panels showing Jimmy lying on the bed not doing anything, indicating his boredom and the overall sense of time standing still. On page 197, nothing much really happens to advance the story. We see Jimmy sitting on the bed in 197.1, and then his reflection in the mirror in two identical panels (furthering the sense of repetition without progress) followed by 197.4, which is identical to panel 197.1. The entire page seems to be frozen; even the largest panel on the page, panel 197.9, showing the apartment building, gives an eerie sense of stasis. The panel, like most of the panels in the work, is composed in dark muted colors except for the bright yellow deer crossing sign. The deer crossing sign furthers the idea of stasis because it is a frozen image; a deer suspended in mid-jump. The deer is representative of Jimmy in this sequence as far as Jimmy is frozen in time and space in his father’s apartment; a place in which he clearly does not want to be, given that on page 195 he calls the airline and tries to change his flight. This sense of stasis follows throughout this graphic novel. Jimmy himself appears suspended in a child-like state, bound and dependant on his mother and socially stunted, unable to function in even the most basic social situation.

Jimmy Corrigan takes flight

As I was reading Jimmy Corrigan, I was struck with awe and amazement at nearly everything: the colors, storyline, artwork, symbols, tone, etc. Then, when I returned to the text a second time (although I still have yet to finish the last section), I was overwhelmed at how well Ware has woven all these elements together to produce an overall helpless and sympathetic effect on the reader. As there's so much to highlight, I wanted to pick one small element (that is not so small) - the birds - that we didn't have time to discuss in Tuesday's class.

Just as the interlude "smack[s]" the reader like a commercial out of Jimmy's accident with the mail truck, birds generally serve as an interlude between time and scene shifts, as well as show the passing of time. Even in this mail truck interlude, Jimmy sits in a park and records the birds singing. But what he records next - the sound of an airplane - perhaps gives us our first clue into what purpose the birds serve for the text. In this juxtaposition of birds and airplanes, the birds are the natural flight of the manmade device. The airplane is also what carries Jimmy to his father, what would seemingly carry Jimmy to his mother for Thanksgiving, and where Jimmy dreams of being a robot (perhaps addressing the robotic nature of his parental relationships and the synthetic element of the airplane all in one). In the latter panel where Jimmy is a robot, a bird sits behind him on the airplane seat and a peach tree hangs over him. In this manner, the artwork futhers the case that birds are the natural version of airplanes. Often as the reader is overwhelmed with scenes of the sterile city background, nature imposes upon the landscapes: dead branches stick out from many angles (take the uploaded image or 6.7 or all of 23 as examples) and plants appear indoors (in the airport in pots, the flowered pillow at Jimmy's father's place, in the hospital, etc). This idea of nature versus synthetic can be applied not only to the birds and airplanes, but to many elements in the Corrigans' relationships and the span of generations over a changing environment.

Of course, however, looking at the birds in comparison to airplanes only covers one aspect of "flight". The birds also parallel the superman motif in the text (an interlude in Jimmy's head in the hospital scene clearly demonstrates this) and show how the red color of the bird is also important (i.e. the mask). Again during this hospital interlude, the word "smack" appears when the bird hits the window, and the doctor chalks the noise up to, "Yeah...it's just some stupid bird." But where the bird is natural and the airplane is manmade, superman is obviously make-believe, and the leap of the superman from the building addresses how the imagination fails to mix with reality.

It's no accident either that Thanksgiving becomes Ware's focal point, and the turkey is covered often with the name Estelle, Jimmy's mother. It's also no accident that the bee (another representation of flight) appears on James' grandmother's deathbed. The connections that stem from the bird (and its flight) are amazingly detailed and serve the novel in meaningful and complex ways. For example, one can futher analyze the element of sounds (the bird's singing, the noise of the airplane, and the "smack") a step further, comparing the sound of the horse hoofs on the porch and up the stairs and the "slap" of the screen door with all the other sounds this novel makes.