Comic Analysis: Critical Analysis of the ‘Drama’ by Raina Telgemeier
Comics is a part of a genre that is not only difficult to define, but also tricky to describe. Comics, as noted, must not include or incorporate text, and differ with single cartoons through the production of a more sophisticated pattern through the spatially sequential arrangement. Drama as a comical device is a graphical novel that presents some art work in the form of drawings and meant to convey a particular message.
Since inception, the comic has made it possible to have some sense of persuasion and also helps by way of motivating people to take certain actions. Hosterman holds that comics fit in the form of visual rhetoric. The novel is short, full of fun and is a fast read. Besides its insight content, the book is seemingly full of behind the scenes pieces of work.
The basic building blocks of this comic are simply panels which can be described as frames that are arranged in certain sequence. Normally, the panels assume a rectangular shape and serve as indicators where one can start from and end their narrative. This narrative is so captivating that it draws crews into some thought of utopia, production if the moon over Mississippi.
A young girl in her tender age is depicted walking in between two boys, while a love symbol floats slightly above her head. She develops romances and later comes to experience some blown up misunderstandings which sometimes get blown out of proportion. The entire production awakens to a serious crisis that threatens to take it down the drains.
As we set in the novel, drama is intriguing and as a matter of fact, readers are grabbed right from the beginning when the lady character in the name of Callie presents some sense of humour, the sense of immediacy quickly comes to the fore, a perfect depiction of what a seventh grader would do in their world. Touched by the charms of love, Callie seems to have thrown herself into her very first passion, theatre. In her determination to meet her goal of delivering the Moon over Mississippi, she meets two brothers who are twins, Jesse and Justin. Apparently, the twins are portrayed to be exact opposites of one another.
Character-wise, Justin is depicted as a person who is a little bit above with his emotions. This is both portrayed in the pictures and on the speech balloons. In the novel, the character of Justin is clearly a flamboyant fellow who simply feels well above the rest. The book comes to indicate that Justin is gay, a fact that is later confirmed in the book. Nonetheless, on the latter stages of the book, Jesse also turns out to be gay.
Notably, the novel presents a lot of suspense that would easily be coined to form rhetorical questions; some things that the book cannot really answer should the questions really surface. Some of these questions include what the parents of the two twins would say or how they would react should they learn of their gay characters and why the two twins would turn out to be gays at that tender age.
Art style
The approach of this drama is probably one of the most challenging aspects of comic styles as there are only few available guidelines that shape the types of drawings. To adequately understand comics such as this, measures have been put in place to help in offering a guide to the different forms of abstractions in the cartooning art and a demonstration on how the different aspects give meaning to the aforesaid.
Text and image
Not every comic carries with it text, but still, quite a number of them do. Texts in comics have helped in communicating dialogue, sound effects, narration, clarification, image and commentary among other artistic considerations. Then again, context is another imperative aspect of comic since it is often tricky telling what piece of text does on a given page without having a clear determination how the entities relate, that is, how the text relates to the image it so accompanies. For instance, in the drama, texts have been used to show specific words spoken by individual characters.
There are indications of text boxes in many narrations and these often indicate a third party panel who often expresses themselves about their feelings and sentiments for instance, Callie tells Jesses that it’s his turn in a turn taking role they are engaged in. The sign text is another instance of a text image. Besides, there is the use of speech balloons, which is also an indicator of a third panel.
While comics do not only offer format visual teaching literacy, they also give affordance that may be necessary in many other approaches that may not be necessarily available in many other approaches. The visual rhetoric has over the recent past been useful in providing professional communication. With the coming of multimodality in terms of composition, visual rhetoric has seen an increase in tits mandates and thus roles.
Comic as a distinctive medium is one that bears its roots from Mexican and the Egyptian hieroglyphics in the 18th century gag cartoons by the Britons. The pictorial precursors capped in the United States in the year 1894 as a result of the appearance of one Yellow Kid, and the emergence of a comical newspaper. Subsequently, there followed the emergence of a new comic book that served as an entertainment medium in the US in the 1930s. While by definition, development and history of the entertainment medium have extensively been explored elsewhere and the comics themselves have virtually studied every genre ranging from horror and crimes to journalism comics. Notably, the American comics are still widely regarded as superhero comics (Stern 29).
The first superhero to have been formed was the Callie in the year 1938. This superhero, with his brightly coloured long trouser with an amazing power plus dedication to helping the needy and forming an imperative component of the medium regarded as an emblem of comical medium that is associated with the adolescent power caprices of muscular men in tight attires. The connection between superheroes and comics can draw references either as genres or medium. In the 20th century, comics were the only medium that was found to depict fantastical adventures of superheroes. This could not be achieved through books, radio shows nor would televisions series deliver the anticipated superhuman feats as would the comics with equal magnitude and mantra, conviction, impact and authority (Alvermann, et. Al 2000).
Since inception, comics have found a natural presence and thus become a cultural phenomenon that has reached far afar comics into radio, television, games and collectable cards among other forms of merchandize. As a matter of symbiotic reciprocity, comics and superheroes have led to each other’s success. The superheroes in the comic series sparked some sense of demand for the same comics. The aforesaid demands created the need to have the original superhero materials redrawn for the sole purpose of the comical medium. In today’s world, the superhero character is a highly esteemed and recognizable icon that has a vast array of connotations that also tend to echo several decades of worthy interaction between popular culture and politics (Hutchinson 89).
The material tends to give an elaborate account of well-choreographed, but overly familiar and cursory account of the ethical character of Callie as having changed over a span of time. This is attributed to the demands of the dynamics of social values and the regulatory as well as industrial contexts. The character of Callie is to safeguard the hopeless, helpless and oppressed. She in her own way, fights with the natural calls of love and rejection.
A number of thematic styles have been employed in the character of Callie that apparently portrays hidden meanings. For instance, the Callie’s image that presents her carrying walking between boys is in a sense, a sure indication that she is undergoing transition.
As a good comic writer, it is recommended that one avoids the single-sided ideological arguments and readings, and instead, draw out from moments of much hermeneutic instability that tend to bespeak a broader historical and cultural contradictions. The readings should not in any way prove difficult to analyse and summarise among readers. Instead, the readings should at all-time have the ability to bear some value for complicated rather than simple and straight forward texts. In many respects, philosophy structure of a comic work is known to strike most readers, and these can include popular and academic comics. The comics vary from artificial or unnecessary and distracting materials. These are approaches that should remain bifurcated entirely in the comic should the desire to have the comic deliver its objective is to be realized (Alvermann & Margaret 17).
Precisely, comics as a cultural icon or something that cannot be overstated. Superheroes are distinctively a hero-character that is a direct result of many cultural, historical and social influences. In the most recent medium of Captain America, Jason Dittmer for instance, sees the genre as perhaps the best example of superheroes the United States ever had. The recent depiction of the political relevance of Captain America can draw its reference to the so called “Tea Party Incident”, that is somewhat portrayed in bad light. The protesters were depicted as racists and violent individuals who are synonymous to political extremists. Besides, Marvel was accused of transforming the patriotic Americans into some super villains. In this regard, the superhero tag holds some potent ideological power and symbolic power of the United States.
The comic books have often been passed over as mere escapist forms of entertainment and have often offered some rich troops for a number of problematic concerns that deal with a societal identity.
Works Cited
Alvermann, Donna E., and Margaret C. Hagood. "Critical media literacy: Research, theory, and practice in “New Times”." The Journal of educational research 93.3 (2000): 193-205.
Hutchinson, Katharine H. "An experiment in the use of comics as instructional material." The Journal of Educational Sociology (1949): 236-245.
Stern, Barbara B. "Literary criticism and consumer research: overview and illustrative analysis." Journal of Consumer research (1989): 322-334.
