Theme in Variations: How Many Ways Can a Kat Get Their Bean Creased and We Laugh?

 With this week's reading, I've come to find another comic that I find humorous and like. That comic is George Herriman's Krazy Kat. This comic has a pretty straightforward plot and structure that focuses around a few central characters including Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse, and Offisa Pupp.

The interactions between these three characters is very... unique, shall we say. Krazy Kat is cat in love with the mouse, Ignatz. Offisa Pupp is a dog in love with Krazy Kat. Ignatz, out of the three, seems to be the most normal one in our standards as he holds no emotions for either one of them. Instead he finds joy and satisfaction through chucking a brick at Krazy Kat's head at least once a day.

This hobby of Ignatz's is what Herriman makes the most of his strips about. It's very much in line with Schultz's football gag in the Peanuts with Lucy and Charlie Brown. However, this one definitely should be said to have come first. Both effectively keep this gag fresh through variations on the same joke.

And what do I mean by variations?

Well, a different build up that leads to the same punchline. Let's take a look at the comic below, for example.

In this comic, we have a court case that details the grand scheme of Ignatz Mouse managing to not only "crease the bean" of Krazy Kat, but of Krazy Katbird and Krazy Katfish. Through Herriman devising an unlikely case with an even unlikelier solution, we get a creative and funny comic that contains the brick gag.

In another one, shown below, we have Krazy hopping onto a fence to start caterwauling a nighttime melody. Throughout their singing, many objects are thrown to silence this artiste who sings for their muse. With each thrown object, Krazy ducks and dodges before finally being bonked in the back of the head by a brick. Finally achieving their goal, Krazy can sleep knowing that they've encountered Ignatz. This variation on the brick gag displays the odd love of Krazy Kat, who only finds it acceptable to be hit by bricks as if their tokens of affection by Ignatz. This view gives this particular take on the brick gag a new type of comedy that the previous one doesn't have.

There seems to be a trend with the brick gag, right? Whether it's the two comics above or ones where Ignatz and his mouse friends play a game of hot potato (brick) until it manages to hit Krazy Kat, the outcome is always the same.

Well, until it isn't.

George Herriman had a couple of variations that could really throw one for a loop. Like this comic for example. The same scenario occurs, with it plain and straight to the point: Ignatz Mouse hits Krazy Kat with a brick--

Hold on, I seem to be suffering from a thrown wrench in the gears.

Krazy Kat is the one who creased Ignatz's bean? And is also claiming to be that Mouse too? This variation could really make your head spin, especially since no context is given for how this situation arose. Even the witnessing characters and narrator have no explanation, giving it a meta comedy as it breaks the fourth wall to express the oddity of this situation.

If that isn't a unique variation on a common theme, then I don't know what is. However, there is one comic that may take the cake in variations on the brick gag. If this one claimed second, no one would dare claim first. The most surprising part is that it isn't focused on Ignatz throwing a brick, but in fact that he hit Krazy with something other than a brick!

In the comic below, Herriman takes a variation that makes the comic feel completely unrelated by showing the progress of Ignatz dumping bricks for rocks after a price raise in the brick industry. Herriman really went over the top here in making this variation.

Creativity knows no bounds in George Herriman's imagination and it shows within these comics. The fact that he can make all of these different versions of one singular joke and take them in very drastic directions he takes them really shows this. None of them feel the same and it may even take you a moment to realize that you've read the same joke for five comic strips now.

The Individual versus the Whole -- Töpffer's Romantic Rebellion and the Comedy of Manners

    This past week, we started to learn about early comics including those of Hogarth with A Rake's Progress and Töpffer's Mr Jabot. With Hogarth, it reads more like narrative paintings that just tie together to tell a story over time. However, when it comes to Töpffer and his pieces, they are truly that of a comic format. It was the first to revolutionize art and storytelling into one piece, tied with a bow. It made use of dividing lines to make panels and told a narrated story with dialogue, unlike precursors like Hogarth.

    Within his two stories, he uses them to give light-hearted and funny narratives of specific characters in their daily lives of their time period. Also unlike Hogarth's very frank views on specific things with a black versus white approach, Töpffer implements "Comedy of Manners" to poke fun and question certain things, especially social classes.

    Being that he lived during the Romantic Era, this makes sense as he wants to show off uniquity and individuality. He also has these views in full display through his characters Mr Jabot and as they are characterized to go against the norms of society and became all the more lifelike compared to the monotonous societal characters behind them.

    It seems impossible for Mr Jabot to not clash with others as that is his main role. He has the dream of being a proper aristocrat and has become a social ladder climber, one of the items that Töpffer pokes fun with in the "Comedy of Manners."

    Mr Jabot, in the series, manages to get invited to a Reception and his entire time there could be considered a huge clash of these conflicting characters -- Jabot versus Aristocracy.

    Everything that he does, there has to be an assumed air about him as he goes about his motions. Everything he does, it has to be proper to what he knows real aristocracy to be like. Like, in the comic scene below: Mr Jabot assumes it proper to give his greetings before resuming to his attitude, holding an air of elegance and dignity to himself.

   

     Viewers who read this know it as a thing that legitimately happens, but seeing Mr Jabot do it in this fashion makes it seem almost silly. And in posing it like this, the question arises that "hey, this is silly. Why are we doing this?"

    Breaking away from conformity and thinking individually, what a romantic notion!

    It also gives a light poking towards social climbers, like Mr Jabot, for their silly regards to thinking that it was best to be high class within the same reasons that Töpffer slyly inputs his Romantic thinking for his "Comedy of Manners."

    However, just after he goes through these dignified motions, Mr Jabot clashes terribly with the aristocracy -- literally!

    In the series of comic scenes below, a gallopade has formed while the band plays. Mr Jabot has annoyed the bassist of the group, who sneakily tries for revenge against him. Afterwards, he manages to slip and fall, causing the gallopade topple to and on him. The train of people all dancing together shows the conformity and order within dancing throughout this scene. Had people been dancing individually in pairs, then this gallopade of people would not have dogpiled on top of Mr Jabot.

 

  Nor would they later drag him around after he got stuck on a candelabra. Which, the candelabra scene I feel shows a break in his character of trying to break into upper-class society. Although he puts on airs to seem dignified, he has moments where his lower-class ideology shows.

    What upper-classman is going to fix a candelabra himself instead of calling over a servant or waiter working at the Reception to do it for him instead? It's unscientific for them to do so!

    This clash of responses between classes is another show of "Comedy of Manners." Mr Jabot may be playing aristocrat, but he won't ever be one or see himself truly as one, which lightly pokes at those types of people in real life who read this. It's a light-hearted wake up call to those specific readers.

    It also is another display of Romantic ideology as he does this solely to make sure a young woman isn't bothered by its smell of the melted wax. Doing this individually versus someone else doing it for him shows sincerity and kindness on his part more so than his counterparts who do none of these things within the story.

    All of these events that happen are through that sneaky bassist's desire for revenge against Mr Jabot's previous statements. He doesn't fit in with the high class as he keeps crashing into them and he has angered the lower class, leaving him even more stuck as an outlier character in this story. I feel this may have been a slight show to how people may have viewed social climbers in real life at their time. The climber tries to fit in within the high society, but he never truly joins it, and by leaving the others of lower classes behind, he angers them through his betrayal and new airs.

    This week's reading with Töpffer's Mr Jabot I think had to be my favorite as it was very comedic. Using the "Comedy of Manners" and implementing characters of Romantic ideals, he mad a revolutionary move in the direction to the modern-day comic. It also would have had a great impact in how society changed and viewed the way things were done in that time through light satirization and helping push forward the idea of "self" instead of "hive."

     In today's blog post, I'd like to talk about timing and rhythm within comics. What makes good pacing for reading and keeps the reader from speeding through or losing interest when reading their comics? How do comic artists even make rhythm and timing when they're just drawing pictures?

    Well, through panel length, transitions, and layout, of course!

    How this is utilized also varies from the form of the comic; manga, web comics, comics, and graphic novels all have different forms and so the way these panels are sometimes used is vastly different. However, it's all the same base formula.

    In this past week for class, I dissected Schultz' Peanuts comic. The ones where Lucy yoinks the football from Charlie Brown juuust before he kicks it. These comics I feel are good examples of timing and rhythm. 

    Let's take a look at one of these comic strips

    With every one of these annual football comic strips, Schultz keeps a rhythm through the same format for it: Lucy calls Charlie Brown over, Charlie Brown says that Lucy must think he's stupid, she talks him into trying to kick the football, he goes for it, misses it, then she states a loophole from her previous deal with Charlie Brown.

    This is just how the comic rhythm is formed through words and transitions between the images in the panels. With the use of keep the same format of speech as well as actions, the rhythm is continuous and expected of viewers every year.

    But let's look deeper into it, shall we?

    I mentioned panel length and layout, too, didn't I? There's also a bit of a "hidden BOSS" that ties into layout as another aspect for timing and rhythm, too. It's a big one I feel helps tie in all of the other parts, but we'll get into that in a minute.

    If we look at the panels above, they each have varying sizes, yes? The first one is wide while the other one is about a third that size. And then the next three are about the same size while the last one on the second row is slightly bigger than the first three.

    Why is that?

    Well, to keep the pacing!

    Your eye is being forced by Schultz to scan all the way across the panel as you absorb everything within the space. The smaller the panel, the less there is to see, which means you read it faster. The larger the panel, the more there is to see, which means you read it slower.

    Through this method, the comedic impact from certain parts or the philosophical impacts in other parts will hit the viewer harder as they have a longer space to digest such information. It also gives the story timing in a "literal" sense. If Charlie Brown and Lucy were consistently side-by-side, there would be no sense of space and distance between the two, so some of the timing it has for Charlie to run across the grass, building up speed, going to kick the football, and giving Lucy enough time to yank that ball away -- it would be nonexistent. It wouldn't be possible to happen and nothing would make sense.

    Only through lengthening panels and making that sense of space and time can we have such scenes.

    Now, onto layout and our hidden BOSS. The typical layout can be easily replayed through the chain of events of how these comics work. It's really just a formulaic layout that Schultz implements every time. It starts with Lucy calling Charlie Brown over as she holds the football and ends with Charlie Brown laying dizzily on his back as she delivers the devastating punchline.

    But the key point to this layout that gives that rhythm and timing an extra oomph is where Schultz places the characters. They say in art the more important the figure the more central it's placed. In the case of comics, it usually means that panel will end up read quicker.

    If we look at the same comic as I posted earlier, we can see the way Schultz has placed these characters. For some of the panels, like the third panel in the second row, we have Lucy dead center of the panel. With this, we breeze right through this one-beat moment.

    But can we say the same to the two previous ones? We breeze through them too; they have short panel lengths but two characters that aren't centered. How can this be?

    Well, very easily, actually.

    They're evenly spaced within the panel, dividing the box into thirds!

    They seem as if they're not evenly centered, but in this case they are as the box is now divided to fit these two as centered as possible.

    It's when they have a more extreme space between them that they are no longer centered and the pacing is now lengthened to more than one beat. This is very much visible with the final panel on the second row. Lucy and Charlie Brown are right on the edges of the panel, showing that there is at least one beat between them and they each also represent one beat themselves, thus giving the panel three beats.

    With the extreme space between them, as we read Lucy's text, we are now given "space" to digest these things before we hit Charlie Brown and move onto the next panel.

    These same rules can apply to horizontal lines or diagonal lines. Within the last three panels, we get the sense of speed of Charlie Brown busting his back onto the ground by the fact that his line intersects with Lucy's. Then there's the extreme distance Charlie Brown has from the top of the panel in the immediate right box which gives us the space to "feel" the painful impact Charlie Brown has when he collides with the earth. Then we have the quickish moment where Lucy delivers the punchline.

    This hidden BOSS helps to tie together layout, panel length, and transitions. The layout of the characters controls the panel length and the transitions helps shows the interactions and actions of the characters as they talk.

    Utilizing all of these within his comic, Schultz manages to make good rhythm and timing. The moments that need to happen fast are fast and the moments that should be drawn out are drawn out. And they're done well and within reasonable means. 

"Calvin & Hobbes" -- Bill Watterson's Use of Visual Style to Create Themes and Ideas

    In Bill Watterson's comic Calvin & Hobbes, he uses visual language to help emphasize his stories and themes. There are many things that attribute to visual language including linework and color, character construction, and aesthetics. The use of these can make a comic all that more powerful and impactful when a viewer sees and reads it.

    Linework and color are some of the bigger voices in a comic's visual language -- it's the first thing you see on the cover of the comic and this alone gives a big hint to the viewer what type of comic they're about to read. For Calvin & Hobbes, the linework is usually pretty simple but energetic, which is fitting as Calvin is an energetic and imaginative child. Keeping the linework simple also helps ensure that the art doesn't overtake the themes or messages Watterson wants to impart within the comic. Color-wise, it's usually kept with simple saturated colors, giving it a fun and inviting feel to it.

    Because viewers are used to this style, Watterson can make changes to the linework and colors to help emphasize other points. Like in the comic below: Watterson right off the bat in the first panel uses a more detailed and realistic style to showcase a dead bird, also leaving it colorless. Leaving it colorless shows its lifelessness, but even in death it still has a beauty to it -- which Calvin comments on within the third panel. Contrasting to this, Calvin and Hobbes are still in their style and are colored, signifying their life and the simplicity of a child first encountering death. Watterson leaves no room for a background until the final panel as well, featuring just the two sitting under a tree as birds fly by. These figures -- save the tree -- are all colored as it seems that the two are now reflecting life and the precious beauty of it. The use of color or lack thereof help settle the philosophical thoughts of life and death that Watterson had left with them in his words in the middle eight panels.

    Within Calvin & Hobbes, there is also character construction. For me, I for some reason kept interpreting it as character types (as in archetypes), but it is really more about art style, or how Watterson draws the characters in the comic. In the comic below, this has a good example. This is the usual character construction for Calvin and Susie, typical kids hanging out outside. For Hobbes, we can see that he is switching back-and-forth between his personified form and doll-form. When we get to see the world through Calvin’s imaginative eyes, then Hobbes comes to life and he is a real tiger; however, when we see through outsider’s eyes (in this case -- Susie’s), then Hobbes loses this form and takes his true form, a doll.

    Finally, there’s also the use of aesthetics within Watterson’s comics. Usually, he leaves it as just a comic-y, cartoon-y style. Sometimes, though, Watterson uses other styles and aesthetics to help propel certain stories. As in the comic below, Watterson uses a change in character construction and aesthetics to help create the tone or atmosphere around this story. It’s very clear and plain that the aesthetics this strip is going for is from the Twilight Zone. Watterson uses a greyscale, sepia toned color scheme to give a 1960s TV appearance. Through this aesthetic, we can envision Calvin in the TV world. The way his character is constructed, with the same mannerisms as his original design, however there are a few tweaks that have been made that help propel the feeling of horror or anxiety. His eyes are now more rounded and shorter than they usually are, and his smile stretches just a bit too wide than it should. The other characters’ faces also help form these feelings. Along with this, in the last panel, Watterson chose to color the scene. To me, this suggests the idea that we are now in Calvin’s mind and that perhaps he’s “broken out” of the “TV” and has entered the world with us. It’s almost as if Calvin’s world has been inverted completely through these aesthetics, even the borders surrounding the panels are black instead of white!

    Through the use of linework and color, character construction, and aesthetics, Bill Watterson implements visual language to explore and show ideas and themes in Calvin & Hobbes. It will leave readers happy to read when looking at the usual forms for the comic and then with the visual language in comics like the ones I’ve shown, the viewers will feel a full range of emotions, but for sure they will be very glad to have read such a well-made comic from the writing side to that artistic side.