In this research task, I had to review the titular comic, and answer the following questions:
How does the style and narrative treat the real-life story? As funny, serious, or a combination of the two?
The story, a real-crime biographic, has a serious and sinister narrative. Despite that, the style is not overtly dark, gothic or suspenseful. I didn’t consider the style funny, but there has been a choice to make the style of the story extremely clean, almost clinical. I think this is a clever choice as it makes the recount matter-of-fact.
How is the story structured? How does it begin and end, and from whose perspective is it told?
The story is told in the third person, but not as a personal recount. It reads more like a newspaper story.
It begins with a great caption in the first panel that hooks the ready straight away. I had to re-read the comic a few times as I found the transition from panel eight to nine (where they are brought in for questioning) extremely jarring and abrupt. It does make me wonder if the storyteller might be someone connected with the case, like a police officer.
I found it interesting for the final panel to account for a hypothetical future given the other panels were very much focused on the facts of the encounter. I think that this final panel adds a brief sense of pathos into what is largely a dispassionate recollection.
How does the style and composition of the pictures affect the atmosphere of the story?
The style allows for a gentle simplification of the events, removing any aspect of graphic details that you might find in a murder case. the simplified style also allows for the use of more cartoony elements to aid the storytelling like perspiration marks and textual sound effects. While not funny, there are certain panels that could be described as light-hearted.
The simple use of a minimal colour palette allows space to tell the story, which I liked a lot.
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