Didn’t we say, in class, that the better graphic novels avoid illustrations that depict their corresponding texts word-by-word? Many of the adaptations in Working failed to provide for that expectation. In fact, they merely appeared to be picture books whose images exactly followed their texts. I felt that I could have read many of the stories in Working without looking at the images because they constantly used the word-specific combination. “Nick Salerno, Garbageman” is a good example. The pictures in “Nick Salerno, Garbageman” either exactly follow the text or don’t even relate to the text in a significant way! I found “Nick Salerno, Garbageman” to be one of the blandest stories in Working. Although I thought that many of the “graphic nonfiction short stories” (a term that I’m going to use for this blog post) in Working failed as sequential art, I did think that the stories adapted by Danny Fingeroth, drawn by Bob Hall, and lettered by Janice Chiang to be the best for sequential storytelling. These stories include “Rip Torn (Actor).” They fulfilled my strongest expectation of graphic novels because their stories did not completely depend on word-specific combinations.

“Rip Torn (Actor)” is filled with subtle representations of its text. In the third panel on page 95, Rip Torn is shown speaking into a microphone in front of a window, behind which a crowd of people stare at him. Although that panel appears to be following the text “There must have been forty people in the control booth. There are usually about five,” this panel helps the reader to understand the following line: “I didn’t get the job. They came to look at the freak.” The drawings of the people behind the window’s faces emphasize the excitement that the people are experiencing, the same excitement that many people would feel when they are attending a showcase of a freak. They are jam-packed in the control booth, crowded against each other as they try to get a better look at the “freak.” The third panel on page 96 presents the first pieces of Rip’s conversation with the producer. The smoke from the producer’s cigar is purposefully drawn to be in Rip’s face, demonstrating the producer’s higher status encouraging his rudeness. The producer’s chin is also raised, allowing the reader to feel annoyed by the producer and to increase his/her support for Rip in his bet. The second panel on page 97 wonderfully portrays the bewilderment on the party attendees’ faces, something that text would weakly convey by itself. (In fact, a single word of text isn’t even used in that panel.) In the third panel on the same page, the background of the crowd staring at Rip and the Producer helps the reader to see Rip’s predicament that is represented by the first block of text “...and Nobody would speak to me the rest of the night.” The crowd behind Rip looks at him as if he were an outcast who had performed a terrible deed, and the second panel, in which people’s facial expressions can be seen, now has a different meaning: The people in the crowd weren’t bewildered.. They were scared for and of Rip. In the third panel, the artist very skillfully draws the pictorial representation of the text “The guy very angrily gave me a dollar.” Not only does the artist employ a tempered facial expression, he also shows the producer handing the money to Rip with his back turned to him. The combination of the facial expression and the position of the producer’s body exaggerates the producer’s disgust for Rip. The last panel on page 97 is an illustration of Rip’s Pyrrhic victory that strongly depicts the first block of text “I had committed some social gaffe.” Although he is surrounded by people, Rip’s head is bowed and he is isolated by everyone around him. He is seen staring at the dollar that he has won, and he is surrounded by what he lost. The reader doesn’t need to be literally told what has happened to Rip after he won the bet. He is allowed to use both the text and the picture to glean a suitable interpretation.

Although I said that I found many of the stories in Working to fail as sequential art, I still found them to be interesting. They were compelling looks at people’s lives, and I don’t believe that I can ever receive more realistic tellings. However, I honestly don’t see how stories like “Nick Salerno, Garbageman” and “Nick Landsay” had the right to be made into “graphic nonfiction short stories.” I know that many graphic novels have illustrations that follow their texts word-by-word, but are word-specific combinations the majority of their word-and-picture combinations? Do other graphic novels depend so much on their texts? “Rip Torn (Actor)” and “Steve Hamilton (Baseball Player),” the other story by Danny Fingeroth, Bob Hall, and Janice Chiang, are very skilled representations of how a graphic novel should work by decreasing their pictures’ dependency on texts to an appropriate amount.