2/17/2024 0 Comments R crumb a short history of america![]() When we get to page 3, we have a sense from context clues that roughly a decade is passing between each panel. Robert Crumb, “A Short History of America,” panels 5 and 6, 1979 Fortunately, the hill is still visible, grounding us in the original scene. Meanwhile, the fence has aged, shrunk, and died. By panel 6, it has matured into a healthy full-grown tree. I am excited when a new character is introduced in panel 4: a sapling. The main road has been well worn in panel 5, but repaired by panel 6. Structures multiply: we see a reservoir, places of business, warehouses, railroad tracks (now plural), larger carriages, a relatively fancy brick building, and wires galore. ![]() On this page, information accretes slowly but surely. A signpost hints there are towns nearby, with quantifiable distances. The home has become a homestead, judging from panels 4 and 5. In the second page, as details accumulate, the main characters appear to be the sloping hill, the modified house (complete with handsome picket fence), and the road (branching into both a walkway and crossroad, and eventually expanding its width). Robert Crumb, “A Short History of America,” panel 3, 1979 The hill remains in the scene (though altered), as well as the train track, but years must have passed, because we also see a house, shed, and cart (signifying “farm”), as well as a dirt road (signifying “town”), telegraph wires, and a man with horse and buggy. In the third panel, a few birds glide in the sky, recalling the first panel. Because of the train’s presence, we infer that these first two panels take place in the early-to-mid-nineteenth century. The wild animals are gone, a visual shorthand for the encroachment of humans. Instantly, we take in the hill and felled trees, along with the introduction of the railroad track, upon which chugs a small train, billowing steam as it disappears into the distance. ![]() Our eyes adjust quickly to repetition and become acutely sensitive to any deviation, however small. We deduce that the second panel shows this same setting not long after, because of a key continuity: the trees, placed in the same position inside the two panels, haven’t grown much. We can safely assume this is America, but when? It could be yesterday, or thousands of years ago. We start with the title hovering above a pastoral scene, nature as yet unspoiled: trees, deer, birds, and a gently sloping hill. The comic is bookended by two pieces of nondiegetic text. Robert Crumb, “A Short History of America,” panel 2, 1979 Here the background is not simply a component of the story one might say it is entirely the story. In some ways, this short piece encapsulates the very art form of comics: one panel becomes panels, becomes a page, becomes pages, becomes story. Every line, every mark in this comic imparts not only texture, but vital narrative information. It is a small miracle of concision and grace, consisting of a mere twelve panels that span across four pages (of three horizontal panels each) and roughly a hundred and fifty years of history. Robert Crumb’s 1979 “A Short History of America” upends all of the above. Moreover, sometimes drawing the background would only clutter the composition and distract the reader from the emotional core of the narrative, and so the background might judiciously disappear altogether, having outlived its graphic usefulness, until the next shift in scene. After all, once this setting/background has seeped into the reader’s brain, the reader can and will fill in the gaps. One widely used cartoonist’s trick is to draw/establish the setting clearly and then assiduously avoid having to redraw it in subsequent panels, or at least diminish the number of background details as the sequence progresses. Most comics focus on the actions of a figure, and the narrative develops by following that figure as it moves through its environment, or as it is commonly referred to by cartoonists, who have the often tedious, time-consuming task of actually drawing it, the background. Robert Crumb, “A Short History of America,” panel 1, 1979
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |