Word: tableaus
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...commonly associated with European comix. Each of the book's 18 chapters depicts a nameless salaryman on a different stroll through the city and countryside. The first chapter sets the formula for ones following. The man pops out to take a break from moving into a new house. Amidst tableaus of sunning housecats, tall trees and fish swimming under bridges the man happens upon a bird watcher. They look at birds together. By the time the man returns home a dog has appeared from under the house. Rather than build drama from outsized events, Taniguchi instead dramatizes the small moments...
Drawing "Leviathan" with a palate of pale green, black and white, Harder loves to see things rendered, in both senses of the word. Beautifully designed sequences show tentacles flying, wood splintering and people flailing desperately in the churning sea. Between the scenes of oceanic chaos come surprising and strange tableaus, as when the whale somehow transgresses the bounds of the earth and floats in outer space. You don't read "Leviathan" so much as give in to its visceral sensation. Harder depicts the angry cetacean as, among other things, a metaphor for our fears of nature. But, while quite fascinating...
Combining the tableaus and stunning organization of Japanese prints with the narrative and expression of Japanese theater, Patrick Atangan's comix feel alive with Japanese high culture. When he's not showing off carefully arranged landscapes, Atangan gives us highly dynamic action sequences. Even when two characters are talking he charges the scene with visual energy. He does this by careful attention to exiting color patterns and vibrant "camera" angles, but mostly he creates action with the hands. When the fisherman and his wife are reunited we see only a close-up of their hands, with their distinctively chubby, curled...
Though the term "graphic novel" originated with Will Eisner's "A Contract with God" in 1978, the first actual novel told in pictures appeared over 50 years earlier. A Belgian wood engraver named Frans Masereel created "Passionate Journey," subtitled "A Novel in 165 Woodcuts" in 1926. Through wordless tableaus it tells the story of a man's journeys across classes, cultures, depravations and indulgences. Politicized by the horrors of the First World War, Masereel uses the book, told in the universal language of pure images, partly as an anti-establishment, pro-democratic political parable. Now, nearly 75 years later, Masereel...
Little moments and anecdotes interspersed throughout contribute realism to the overarching theme. One of the novel’s memorable tableaus occurs on a trip to church, where everything manages to go wrong and yet be beautifully right. The priest delivers an archaic sermon filled with melodramatic images of good versus evil, when the altar boy accidentally steps in front of three powerful electric fans, sending the Communion wafers in his hands flying. As Hank recounts: “Poor old Harvey! Good old Mr. Finks! In St. George’s Church, Garrison Road, Owings Mills, Maryland that Sunday...