The Graphic Novel

Congrats to Asterios Polyp! Winning the L.A. Times Book Prize for Graphic Novels, as announced two days ago, it appears Asterios Polyp is starting to leave quite an impression in the world of graphic novels. But to me, this is something much bigger. The L.A. Times, for the first time ever, is giving out awards to graphic novels. The genre has slowly been gaining acceptance, but this is pretty big. Take a look around, and the signs seem to indicate that graphic novels are becoming more and more of a legitimate genre. And that, to me, has been the problem. Sure, people can accept graphic novels as a genre, but how legitimate was their perception? There have long been stigmas associated with graphic novels, such as that they are just comics on steroids, but there are now highly esteemed awards being cast out to graphic novels.

After the L.A. Times Book Review recently created a category for graphic novels, this proves yet another step in the right direction for graphic novels to be viewed as legitimate

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So, I had my Semantic Web class outside today, where I found a couple of four leaf clovers, and one super-mutant (it should join the X-Men) 4.5 leaf clover. On the way back to my apartment from this class (we had it near Karl's Icecream), I put these clovers into my breast pocket, where I then hoped that none of them would lose any of their leaves.

This eventually got me to think: does a four leaf clover stop being a four leaf clover if it loses a leaf? Is the "essence of shoeness" for a four leaf clover that it necessarily must have to have 4 leaves constantly, or is it enough that it, at one point in time, had four leaves?

This connection with Asterios Polyp then got me thinking about some comics in the same way: is something like the Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck a comic because of its general form? Was it always a comic, even if that terminology had not yet been developed, or did it become a comic when that terminology came to be? In short, what is the essence of comicness?

What is with the cover of Asterios Polyp? I know we finished this book in class a while ago but the cover flap, or dust jacket, or whatever it is called, remains a constant annoyance in my life. I much prefer the book with the dust jacket removed so you can see the dual “before and after” Asterios engraved on the back and front covers. Without the dust jacket you can also see the line of symmetry dividing the book into its purple side and cardboard side further reflecting the theme of duality it the novel.

Cut uneven and about a half inch too short on the top and bottom, the dust jacket is just annoying and impractical. It constantly bugs me, it gave me a paper cut once, and frankly it’s called a dust jacket and it really doesn’t protect the book from dust because it is too short. So why did they make it that way?

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In class Professor Whalen asked , “How Asterios Polyp has been influenced by the other comic books” Well as I flip around the comic, I notice many similarities, now I don’t know how much of it is influence, coincidence or comic norm.

First I have to say that Asterios Polyp, like Contract with God has a heavy sense of some greater divine power, that seems to influence the character’s life choices. For instance, the lightening scene at the end of a Contract with God, were God smites Fremme for defying him and turning against him, well Asterios has similar random attack by some otherworldly element. In the beginning of this comic, his house sets on fire as if it was an act of God. Then at the end when everything seems to be going well, in his and Hana’s relationship, huge comet is seconds from destroying them. It’s as if Asterios is stuck in a giant Greek tragedy, no matter his journey, he is meant by fate to die. Not only that both comics seem to be heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian religions, Contract with God has aspects of the Torah and Asterios quotes or references St. Francis of Assisi frequently.

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Asterios Polyp is a work that is, in itself, a critique of other artistic means that pokes its nose into many different fields. The main character is an architect (using that term lightly) that has never designed a building that has ever been built. Yet this man offers all sorts of opinions on the works of others (most notably Hana's) and expects himself to be taken seriously.

I would not dare to step outside my realm of psychology and critique the findings of an accomplished Sociologist, even though the two fields are about as related as architecture and sculpture. In spite of this, Asterios Polyp (a man who procalims that anything not useful is mere decoration) steps over the line and tells an artist the meaning that she is trying to convey with her work.

This seems more than just galling to me, I understand that he loves this woman and is trying to involve himself in her life, but attempting to take over her career (and even her conversations at one point) does not seem to be the best way to express this.

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Whether intentionally or not, it seems that many of the comics we have looked at over the course of the semester have had major themes of symmetry and duality. The "Fearful Symmetry" chapter in Watchmen has been discussed repeatedly, and recently we have examined two comics that represent themes of duality through visual symmetry, albeit in a much less complex manner than Gibbon's entirely symmetrical panel compositions.

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The graphic novel currently being discussed in class is Asterios Polyp.[1] While we discussed the idea of duality, I want to look at Asterios’ duality in conjunction with color. There is a chapter in the novel that is preceded by a page showing one philosopher’s view of what humans should have looked like, circular with four arms, four legs, and two faces, one male and one female.

The chapter then shows the duality in human life in terms of male and female. While Asterios is looking for the “counterpart” to himself through the years, the author uses the colors of red and blue to portray the duality of the sexes. Asterios is always blue, while the women in his life that he interacts with on an emotional level are constantly portrayed in red.

Asterios' Early Partners

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References

When I look at the world around me I am generally hard pressed to find purple. Not that it isn't there - my toes nails are currently purple, there are purple flowers on the skirt of a girl sitting across the room, and the grapes I am eating are purple. There just seems to be a lot less purple than other colors, especially natural purple. In our class the last couple comics we are looked at (Watchmen, Moonshadow, Asterios Polyp) have been very partial to purple. Why is it that purple is arguably rare in the real world but seemingly abundant in the world of comics? What is it about purple and comics?

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Asterios Polyp is the graphic novel that we are reading right now during class. In the last class we briefly talked about the point of duality present in the novel and how it moves the story along. The story starts with an apartment building on fire and it burns everything that Asterios owns. This is the beginning of the duality. The chapters are divided into pre and post apartment fire. Before the fire started Asterios is a professor working at Ithaca, a prestigious university located in New York City. He is smart and well off as a faculty member that is only recognized because he works on building plans. His life is very ordered and everything around him falls into place. After the fire burns up everything, he moves out to Apogee, leaving his old life behind. He works there as a mechanic and rents a room in his boss’s house with his family. He is dirty all the time and nothing is organized the way he would organize it.

This also represents two extremes of his life and how far he is willing to move from his center of balance to an extreme way of living.

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Though we talked about it briefly in class, the reoccurring statements and imagery of St. Francis of Assisi swatting bugs continues to bother me, so I decided to look through the book for instances of this, and what it could possibly mean. All in all, throughout the book St. Francis is alluded to five times, twice as the particular quote, once when talking about religion, and twice with through human interaction with insects. What particularly interests me is the last two – the inclusion of such small animals has to be a conscious choice, so why make it? What is so important about St. Francis, or any of us, swatting mosquitoes or flies? I decided that it’s important because it acts as a gauge for Asterios’ development as a character throughout the course of the novel.
A little background – St. Francis of Assisi was the patron saint of animals. He, according to some stories, preached sermons to the birds and the beasts. He believed that it was man’s duty to protect nature as creatures of God.

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In the course of reading Asterios Polyp I noticed that whenever Asterios is drawn his face is shown in profile.

Now while this might be the artistic choice, I began to do some background reading to see if this phenomenon was an allusion to something. Since the work talks a lot about Greek mythology I began to do extensive searches on Wikipedia regarding any mythological gods that only looked one way, and I found one. Janus is the only god of mythology that I could find whose head was an important feature.

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I had a private geek out moment today during our class discussion when someone referenced Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead in relation to David Mazzucchelli's graphic novel Asterios Polyp. The Fountainhead is one of my favorite books (and one I have read many times) and Asterios has been my favorite graphic novel we have read so far in class; while reading Asterios I was drawing parallels to The Fountainhead left and right!

The most obvious parallel, of course, is the modernist architect protagonist in each text: Howard Roark in The Fountainhead and Asterios Polyp. Each of these men have similar views on architecture, that is that purely aesthetic ornamentation is silly and trite. They both focus on clean, simple, shapes and lines within their work, and both men are undeniably genius. Morally and characteristically, however, Asterios and Howard have less in common. There is something deeper and more thematic than the profession and brilliance of Asterios that screams AYN RAND to me.

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