Living The Comic Life

Having finished Gonzo: A Graphic Biography of Hunter S. Thompson I feel that I'm starting to truly embrace the power of comics. Graphic novels bring two things that I love together: visual art and words. While reading this one, I was on the look out for any patterns or interesting things within the comic itself. The story was good, quite interesting, and quite different. I definitely learned about this guy, whom I had never heard of before, and realized how important he was in the world of journalism. Although I liked the story, I want to dedicate this blog post solely to the pure visual representation aspects that I liked.


First of all, I noticed how important space is in this comic. I know that in general, space in graphic novels is the equivalent to time in film. However, when I went through this graphic biography, at times I felt as if what I was reading and observing was an animation. For example, if you look at this page at the right, you can almost feel and see what is going on in the panels as if it were a screen. I could visualize it right there, and even identified some possible film techniques and all. Close up, zoom out, two shot cut, over the shoulder shot. Even a pan between those two panels at the bottom of the page. I just found it very pleasing to create an animation with my imagination right off from a comic book page. It kind of created a synesthesia sort of magic for me. 

The next thing I noticed was the way that when he talked about delicate subjects or an occurrence that was traumatic to him, there is a specific format in which the information is presented. His method of portraying the importance, or mark that the event left him is by taking the aesthetics of the vignette to a more minimalistic level. As you can see in the example below, the composition of this panel is simple. Black background, white words, text written in small blocks at two corners of the page. This can symbolize how dark the event was, and how shocked it left him. It transmitted chills to me when I read it, and as I stared at the visual elements, I felt as if it was cold and very dark.

Finally, I just want to point out how important juxtapositions are in graphic novels. In the two pages that I am including below, it's evident how there is a comparison between two reactions that Thompson has when Sandy leaves him. Two characteristics of his life put right next to each other: drugs and alcohol. There is a juxtaposition even with the same panels. Like the first one of both pages, it's him sitting in front of the typewriter but there's some difference between the two. The third panel is the most juxtaposed as the cocaine and the booze are put there right next to each other. 

Atavistic: (adj.) related to something
ancient or ancestral.