I have to begin this with an apology for the lateness.
1. A title card is a lead in to an episode which usually tells a person a little bit about the story that they are about to receive. Small uses this technique throughout his story either to break up the action or to provide insight into the way each part of the story will play out. What do you feel his intent in using the title cards is? Do you think that his application was effective?
2. Small uses a relatively realistic style of drawing to portray himself and the other characters throughout the story. If Scott McCloud is to be believed, this should make it more difficult to place yourself in the character's positions. Do you find this to be true? If not, explain your experience.
3. Pages 61 and 62 show small slipping into a paper and into what seems to be a stomach. What do you feel is the significance of this? What do you feel the stomach is meant to represent? What is the significance of the characters residing in the stomach?
Stitches
ReplyDelete1. Title cards are used often because they sort of slow a piece down. There are things beyond what a graphic novel is able to show. With a title card, more lead up can be given to fully understand an upcoming scene. I feel that using a title card was effective because it paved the way for the story without making the reader wander beyond the lines laid out for it.
2. I find it really easy to put myself in Small’s shoes. It’s drawn realistically which makes the story believable, but it’s beyond what a character looks like that allows a reader to be placed in a character’s shoes. It depends on personality and situations. Small had such a complicated childhood and his use of imagination and “escapes in hid mind” is what I recognized as something I do myself.
3. Small always seems to daydream. That is how he makes it through his family. He has a strict mother who seems to have little care for him unless to control him. His parent’s wouldn’t even take him to get medical attention because they are a little low on money. The only way he feels that he will be able to be free is in his mind and drawings. He phases into his drawing because in the world of paper, he can be anything and do anything. I feel like the stomach represents what could have been in his life. Like maybe if he was born from another mother, would he be much happier. I really love this character’s development. He seems so grown-up in such a scary place. With a family that lacks real communication to constantly being judged and restricted of saying and doing what he wants no matter what it is, his trips into his mind are key for stability.
Talking about the realistic style:
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure if I’d call it realistic, because it seems cartoonish to me. However, I do think that the adult figures in the narrative are a great deal less cartoonish than our main character, which makes them feel all the more intimidating— the “other” of the story. It heightens the divide between the child and the adults as if they occupy completely different spaces, which speaks a lot to the narrative content of neglect and silence.
I think that the style of art has little to no bearing on the degree that I could relate to Small, though, and I suppose this is because of the visual execution of scenery in panels. The entire work, I feel, is seen through the eyes of a child, with very little text to overlay. In a way, Small’s perspective is the camera lens that we the viewers are watching through, and the setup without much text makes us feel either like an intimate observer or even a participant living through the same scenes. We as readers bear a lot of the responsibility of making sense of a lot of the scenes and bearing the reaction. Think about it: when his mother stares into the panel saying that taking him to get his mass looked at is expensive and therefore a selfish request, do we see Small’s face? It is our face, and our reaction. (http://thebookshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/stitches001.jpg)
1. I think it also should be noted that the title pages move us forward in time - seasons, places and sometimes many years.
ReplyDelete2. I am not present in Small's story. This is definitely his story about his life and about his weird relationship with his mother. This is also his memory of what happened with his cancer and we aren't told if he was able to verify it from his father or mother. It doesn't seem like those relationships were ever healed. Small doesn't seem particularly interested in telling the story, he is telling us his truth and how he remembers it.
3. I think this is a reference to Alice and Wonderland and Small is traveling down a rabbit hole rather than a stomach. I see now how it definitely looks like a stomach, but on my read I saw him escaping into a different world.