Laika was an illuminating read in terms of storytelling because Abadzis really went all out with his arrangement of the panel on the page and the elasticity he gave to panel borders in size, shape and line. This almost expressionistic treatment of the iconic components of the comic’s form, the panel and word balloons, broke the 2-D plane of the paper as well as the image and created for the viewer a strong sense of time, space, movement, and sound within the space that was manipulated in a way that is not elicited through static panels.
One way that Abadzis broke the 2-D plane of the paper was through the use of overlapping panels. Using cinematic language, one could argue that this overlapping of frames creates a sense of continuity in time between panels. Where the gutter would typically create a sense of discretion between panels, overlapping them has the effect of emphasizing that the frames occurred simultaneously. For example, on page 100 when the entire kennel of dogs is beseeching Yelena to take them home with her—there is an overlapping panel of Yelena’s reaction over Krudyavka’s reaction.
The technique of overlapping panels is also used in conjunction with the inset panel, which is a panel smaller in size than the others and placed on top of two adjacent panels thereby connecting them. These inset panels and generally, the smaller size panels, function as close-ups, but in certain places where it follows this formula of connecting two discreet panels, it shows the P.O.V. of one the characters involved at a critical moment in which the P.O.V. also exposes the character’s motivation. For example, on page 87, Yelena is convincing herself to act against her empathetic instincts while looking at Albina through her cage. Two regular-size panels in the middle tier show her talking to Albina, but linking them is a P.O.V. frame of the way Yelena sees Albina. In this connecting inset panel, Albina is not confined the bars of her cage which would indicate how Yelena sees Albina. To this end, the predetermined form of the panel helps the story with characterization through P.O.V.
There are also some more obvious ways of eliciting the sense of time through panel size and shape. A perfect example of the “filmstrip panel,” which is coincidentally the size and shape of a film strip, is on page 61. Here Abadzis takes one instant in time and breaks it down into frames which isolate the actions and reactions of the market lady enticing the two strays with a piece of meat. By putting multiple perspectives of one instant on a time continuum, it has the effect of slowing time down, or in other words, creating suspense.
A clever use of panels to produce the effect of sound was in the frames that showed an extended period of silence between characters after a verbal exchange. This happens time and again throughout the novel, for example, when Sergei first announces the approval of the satellite program and walks onto the balcony. After the two men’s exchange, their figures remain in a composition that not only creates space for the heaviness of the character’s internal perception of events, but the silence, which is also a sound, asks the reader to linger longer on that wordless panel, to give pause.
Another fascinating play on the iconic characters of panel and word balloon is how Abadzis uses the word balloon as a separate entity from the panel. Word balloons that behave like panels do, and are free to speak from multiple panels. When they do this, they are joining together the time and place of multiple panels, giving the same impression of time continuity with Abadzis’s similar use of overlapping panels. One unique instant is on page 160, when all the various scientists are doing checks before sealing the compartment. Abadzis gives his word balloons perspective in space—there are word balloons we cannot read, or effectively, cannot hear, because they retreat into three-dimensional space above their speaker.
Abadzis also manages to make the page a representation of the physical space in the story, a bit like McCloud sits on, holds up, and interacts with his panel frames and word balloons. There is a kind of reflexivity going on formally here. One of my favorite uses of this spatial inference to physical reality is after Krudyavka has been placed in his dog cabin. Starting on page 173 and through 179, Krudyavka occupies the physical compartment at the bottom corner of the page. There are two instances where characters are traveling in an elevator. Instead of showing us the interior, Abadzis uses x-ray vision to show us the elevator shaft. This also turns the other panels of the page into representations of a sideways blue print of the building they are traveling in.
Finally, I want to make mention of how the design of panels in the page space also create a sense of movement. On p. 82-83 when Krudyavka is sent into the centrifuge contraption for the first time, the panels are horizontally flat to allow for a visual sense of this horizontal movement. The thin, horizontal boxes stacked on top of each other create a sense of speed. In a prime example of panel organization leading to sense of movement, on page 40-41, Krudyavka travels through the air over a the side of a bridge, when he’s disposed of by his reckless owner. Here it was interesting that the step-like location of each progressive panel is almost directly related to the direction of movement taking place on screen. This work is very special in the way in which it not only shows us movement and directionality through the use of motion lines within a frame, but using the placement of the frame itself.
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