Month: February 2022

The process of tracing and annotating allows me to dive into the images and recognize the details that got ignored when I was reading the comics at a normal pace. For instance, it allows me to realize the effort Bechdel put into depicting all the details of surroundings in her room: the clothes in the closet, the curtain beside the desk, or even the labels on the cupboard boxes, all of which contribute to enhance a sense of realism. The details also reflect lots of unobvious contrasts: like the different dressing styles of mother and daughter which are reflective of their diverging personalities. For Stitches, it made me notice that the author employed different shades of grey intentionally to emphasize his feelings of depression through the use of shadows on certain areas. Through shadows, he’s actually creating different lighting effects that help to establish the atmosphere.

Initially, I was struggling to organize my ideas into an ABT structure because all the patterns I was planning to analyze point to one general conclusion, so it may easily become an essay with three parallel body paragraphs. So I spent some time reorganizing my thoughts, trying to find if there exists a progressive argument that allows me to gradually dive deeper into my analysis instead of presenting a general rule in the opening paragraph and using all the other paragraphs to prove it. Eventually, I decided to have two body paragraphs, one on visuals and the other on texts, but I will save my concluding remarks to the end which enables me to gradually unfold my arguments.

The title of my essay is “the hidden storyteller”, which resonates well with the focus of the course “secret language of comics.” The process of slowing down and reading one page for several times significantly enhanced my understanding of the comics, and it was during the process of writing about them and comparing the two comics that I was able to notice the patterns I ignored. For instance, after I decided to focus on the representation of emotions in both comics, I began to notice the various ways employed by the two authors that are reflective of how they dealt with emotions. Especially for Fun Home, it was through comparing it with Stitches that I realized how emotionally detached it is. It feels like a documentary of the past, and the narrator is trying to explain it, interpret it, and reflect on it by analyzing herself. On the other hand, Stitches is sentimental, passionate, the emotions are powerful.

My thesis was: Allison Bechdel and David Small analyze their parents’ life and visually portray their views of their parents but the reality of these situations is very unclear because it is all one perspective. Therefore, some stories are never fully understood, no matter how hard one digs and asks. No one can really understand another persons life without actually living it.

This assignment was pretty tough. I think that I made it hard on myself by choosing pages that were difficult to find similarities in. The tracing portion of this assignment was interesting because I did tend to think more about what is happening on the picture, relying more on what I saw rather than what I was being told. I was able to understand both texts better because of this. Coming up with an ABT thesis was a long process for me and the structure of the paper wasn’t relatively hard. I will say that it was rather confusing trying to combine everything and making it make sense.

I think that through this process I do understand the advantages of using a comic can have. I also began to see them as being more than just a superhero thing. Fun Home and Stitches were easier to understand the more I began to synthesize the pages. I realized that I was really only reading to know what they were talking about. I think that I began to see more of the resemblances and differences of these texts, such as how they both dealt with stubborn parents, death, and hardships of sexuality, but are very different people.

The process of writing and compiling my tracing pages assignment, A Bad Dad, was demanding. It had been a while since I last traced anything for any reason, nonetheless a comic book page that I was going to critically analyze. But frankly, I found that I enjoyed that particular holdover from arts and crafts. The actual process of tracing was peaceful, and I didn’t mind annotating as we have been thinking about the comics format for several weeks now. My troubles arose from structuring a thesis and an essay. The ABT thesis format was new to me, and I am not sure I crafted the strongest thesis. Although I don’t think my topic is terrible, I think if I had tackled this project sooner I might have been able to do better. I attempted to grapple with the moral compositions of the fathers in Stitches and Fun Home, arguing that on both the pages I selected to analyze, they were acknowledging their own shortcoming, though Bruce Bechdel does so more implicitly as he struggles to fully acknowledge the life he has lead. I think this project has made me appreciate the subtleties of comics, and I look forward to engaging with more interesting books this semester.

Tracing Stitches and Fun Home

My essay’s thesis: Both David Small and Alison Bechdel reveal the homosexual nature of their mother and father respectively in a sudden manner and do so through different artistic and literary means, but utilizing these two aspects of their pages, and pairing it with the medium of comics allows for both authors to convey their greater message; therefore, by analyzing the common patterns in both pages, it can be surmised that Small and Bechdel do all of this to share with readers the shock that both authors experienced with the reveal of their parents’ secret homosexuality.

Before writing my essay, the actual tracing of the pages was an important step. I used to trace images from the internet quite often as a kid and this truly brought me back. Tracing the pages allowed me to notice details about the different panels, but more importantly, gave me time to ruminate on the hidden messages on each page. Ideas such as the commonality in the shock of each authors’ reveal and why each author felt the need to do so came to me while I traced each page.

Writing in the ABT format was new and quite frankly tough. It forced me to carefully choose my pages and the subsequent characteristics of each page. I felt my essay made a leap (which is why I repeatedly include words such as “surmise,” “can,” and “likely,”) as the larger message that I claim the authors are making are purely my interpretations of the evidence provided on each page.

But I feel that I am not in the wrong for making an ideological leap. The focus of this essay was focusing on the “secret language” that Bechdel and Small are attempting to communicate in. Only the authors know the answers to why they made the climactic reveal so shocking, but it is the job of analytical readers to make realistic claims that are heavily implied by what we see on the page.

Assignment link