Creative Oppression in Criminal, Volume 2, Bad Night
A sense of foreboding and oppression permeates page three of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal: Volume 2, Bad Night. This mood is accomplished through a variety of visual and literary techniques. Through these techniques, this page showcases the anxiety ubiquitous to the creative process.
Allusion provides a framework for the claustrophobic mood. The title of the comic strip being drawn by the protagonist, Jacob, is an anglicization of Franz Kafka, the famous 20th-century author. Franz Kafka wrote about such recurring situations as alienation and bureaucratic authoritarianism. The name Frank Kafka therefore sets the stage for trepidation.
Franz Kafka's September 23, 1912 diary entry reads,
This story..I wrote at one sitting...from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs out from under the desk, they had got so stiff from sitting. The fearful strain and joy, how the story developed before me, as if I were advancing over water. Several times during this night I heaved my own weight on my back. How everything can be said, how for everything, for the strangest fancies, there waits a great fire in which they perish and rise up again.... At two I looked at the clock for the last time. As the maid walked through the anteroom for the first time I wrote the last sentence. Turning out the light and the light of day. The slight pains around my heart. The weariness that disappeared in the middle of the night. The trembling entrance into my sisters' room. Reading aloud. Before that, stretching in the presence of the maid and saying, “I've been writing until now.” The appearance of the undisturbed bed, as though it had just been brought in. The conviction verified that with my novel-writing I am in the shameful lowlands of writing. Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul (1).
In "Bad Night," the reader is privy to Jacob's thoughts on the creative process. He says, “I try to always leave a strip in progress, but close to being done.... That way, the next morning you have something to start right in on. Because that last panel calls out to you...like an unfinished sentence” (2). In conjunction with Franz Kafka's ceaseless writing style, this adds to the oppression of the page.
A sense of imminent expectation pervades the page through auditory cues. Gerry's phone call is presaged by the “BRRNGG BRRNGG” of the first panel. This sound effect is an example of onomatopoeia. Not only is it the sound of the telephone, but it is also a homonym for “bring.” The phone demands Jacob's comic strip. Bring it now, it seems to say-BRING BRING! Gerry's subsequent mention of deadlines cements the imperative. The deadline looms. The clock looms. Jacob works under a virtual sword of Damocles.
The page is an example of mise-en-abîme: the literary term for a story within a story. Through the use of this recursive technique, thematic parallels are revealed. Archetypes within Frank Kafka P.I. continue in the framing story, and continue into real life. The expectations placed upon Frank, Franz, and Jacob are expectations similarly placed upon Brubaker and Phillips. The story transcends the fictional and becomes autobiographical.
The panels of framing story and mise-en-abîme alike demarcate oppression. In Frank Kafka P.I., the panels are identical in size, and march along the page in mechanical, precise formation. They are a visual reminder of the constancy of Franz Kafka's writing. In contrast, the panels of the framing story vary in width, reminiscent of an irregular heartbeat. Although the story progresses, it does so in fits and starts. This represents Jacob's method of intentionally leaving something unfinished so he is compelled to get back to it. The narrowing panels also serve to increase the sense of claustrophobia.
Two graphic styles are used on this page. Frank Kafka P.I. is drawn in a cartoony, Dick Tracy fashion. The lettering has a bold, authoritarian cast to it. The consistently-shaped word balloons are drawn with heavy black lines. While Jacob works away with this institutionalized drawing style, he himself is portrayed in a different mode.
Where Frank is drawn with oppressive regularity, Jacob is drawn in a technique more in line with contemporary realism. Frank shares Dick Tracy's trademark sneers and scowls, and Jacob is drawn in taciturn resignation. The realistic hue is no less oppressive, however. Lighting is used to deepen the foreboding of the page. Jacob is presented to the reader in chiaroscuro. Shadows close in on Jacob. If he ever wants to see the light, he must remain at his drafting table. By being shrouded in darkness, in shadows cast from an indiscernible light source, the drawings are claustrophobic. Jacob hides in his insular dark office just as Frank Kafka P.I.'s Remy D. hides in a janitor's closet.
Word balloons are treated differently in the framing story. Gone are the regularity and precision of the Frank Kafka P.I. strip. Instead, the only vocalization, that of Gerry, is presented in a jagged, rough-hewn word balloon. The edges are sharp, and appear to prickle Jacob, distracting him from the work he has been doing. When Gerry hangs up, Jacob is taken out of his groove and leaves the room. The unfinished panel of his comic strip necessitates his eventual return. He, like Kafka, Brubaker, and Phillips, is a slave to his work.
In just one page of exposition on the creative process, Brubaker and Phillips elicit profound feelings of foreboding, claustrophobia, and oppression. They do this through such techniques as onomatopoeia, literary and visual allusion, layout, drawing styles, and recursion. That they accomplish so much in so few words is masterful.
Works Cited:
Kafka, Franz. Diaries. September 23, 1912 entry. http://vgcentral.org/kafka/diaries/Diary%201912.htm
Ed Brubaker (words) and Sean Phillips, Criminal: Volume 2, Bad Night (Marvel, 2009), page 3.
Allusion provides a framework for the claustrophobic mood. The title of the comic strip being drawn by the protagonist, Jacob, is an anglicization of Franz Kafka, the famous 20th-century author. Franz Kafka wrote about such recurring situations as alienation and bureaucratic authoritarianism. The name Frank Kafka therefore sets the stage for trepidation.
Franz Kafka's September 23, 1912 diary entry reads,
This story..I wrote at one sitting...from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs out from under the desk, they had got so stiff from sitting. The fearful strain and joy, how the story developed before me, as if I were advancing over water. Several times during this night I heaved my own weight on my back. How everything can be said, how for everything, for the strangest fancies, there waits a great fire in which they perish and rise up again.... At two I looked at the clock for the last time. As the maid walked through the anteroom for the first time I wrote the last sentence. Turning out the light and the light of day. The slight pains around my heart. The weariness that disappeared in the middle of the night. The trembling entrance into my sisters' room. Reading aloud. Before that, stretching in the presence of the maid and saying, “I've been writing until now.” The appearance of the undisturbed bed, as though it had just been brought in. The conviction verified that with my novel-writing I am in the shameful lowlands of writing. Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul (1).
In "Bad Night," the reader is privy to Jacob's thoughts on the creative process. He says, “I try to always leave a strip in progress, but close to being done.... That way, the next morning you have something to start right in on. Because that last panel calls out to you...like an unfinished sentence” (2). In conjunction with Franz Kafka's ceaseless writing style, this adds to the oppression of the page.
A sense of imminent expectation pervades the page through auditory cues. Gerry's phone call is presaged by the “BRRNGG BRRNGG” of the first panel. This sound effect is an example of onomatopoeia. Not only is it the sound of the telephone, but it is also a homonym for “bring.” The phone demands Jacob's comic strip. Bring it now, it seems to say-BRING BRING! Gerry's subsequent mention of deadlines cements the imperative. The deadline looms. The clock looms. Jacob works under a virtual sword of Damocles.
The page is an example of mise-en-abîme: the literary term for a story within a story. Through the use of this recursive technique, thematic parallels are revealed. Archetypes within Frank Kafka P.I. continue in the framing story, and continue into real life. The expectations placed upon Frank, Franz, and Jacob are expectations similarly placed upon Brubaker and Phillips. The story transcends the fictional and becomes autobiographical.
The panels of framing story and mise-en-abîme alike demarcate oppression. In Frank Kafka P.I., the panels are identical in size, and march along the page in mechanical, precise formation. They are a visual reminder of the constancy of Franz Kafka's writing. In contrast, the panels of the framing story vary in width, reminiscent of an irregular heartbeat. Although the story progresses, it does so in fits and starts. This represents Jacob's method of intentionally leaving something unfinished so he is compelled to get back to it. The narrowing panels also serve to increase the sense of claustrophobia.
Two graphic styles are used on this page. Frank Kafka P.I. is drawn in a cartoony, Dick Tracy fashion. The lettering has a bold, authoritarian cast to it. The consistently-shaped word balloons are drawn with heavy black lines. While Jacob works away with this institutionalized drawing style, he himself is portrayed in a different mode.
Where Frank is drawn with oppressive regularity, Jacob is drawn in a technique more in line with contemporary realism. Frank shares Dick Tracy's trademark sneers and scowls, and Jacob is drawn in taciturn resignation. The realistic hue is no less oppressive, however. Lighting is used to deepen the foreboding of the page. Jacob is presented to the reader in chiaroscuro. Shadows close in on Jacob. If he ever wants to see the light, he must remain at his drafting table. By being shrouded in darkness, in shadows cast from an indiscernible light source, the drawings are claustrophobic. Jacob hides in his insular dark office just as Frank Kafka P.I.'s Remy D. hides in a janitor's closet.
Word balloons are treated differently in the framing story. Gone are the regularity and precision of the Frank Kafka P.I. strip. Instead, the only vocalization, that of Gerry, is presented in a jagged, rough-hewn word balloon. The edges are sharp, and appear to prickle Jacob, distracting him from the work he has been doing. When Gerry hangs up, Jacob is taken out of his groove and leaves the room. The unfinished panel of his comic strip necessitates his eventual return. He, like Kafka, Brubaker, and Phillips, is a slave to his work.
In just one page of exposition on the creative process, Brubaker and Phillips elicit profound feelings of foreboding, claustrophobia, and oppression. They do this through such techniques as onomatopoeia, literary and visual allusion, layout, drawing styles, and recursion. That they accomplish so much in so few words is masterful.
Works Cited:
Kafka, Franz. Diaries. September 23, 1912 entry. http://vgcentral.org/kafka/diaries/Diary%201912.htm
Ed Brubaker (words) and Sean Phillips, Criminal: Volume 2, Bad Night (Marvel, 2009), page 3.