“Getting Ideas for Writing Arguments about Graphic Fiction” by Felipe Del Rosario

Questions & Answers:

ELEMENTS OF FICTION: Does the graphic fiction feature a central character or a set of characters? How does this character or set of characters provide a focal lens for the story?

The graphic fiction features a set of characters but sometimes the story shown is around one character. You can see the difference depending on how many times a character appears in the graphic fiction. This character provides a focal lens for the because of the dialogues he has with the other characters or his actions. Also, most of the time, the character is affected by the problem of the story and its himself who must solve it.

VISUAL ELEMENTS: How do the visual elements of the graphic work together to create the story’s meaning? What are the most important graphic elements being used by the artist to convey the story?

The visual elements work together to create the story’s meaning by creating symbols and metaphors. Some lines or doodles can symbolize things moving. Some visual elements are panels, gutters, captions, dialogue balloons, thought balloons and sound effects. The panels help you go through the story scene by scene. The captions give you a background of the scene. The dialogue balloons and thought balloons makes you understand what the characters thoughts are and even the story’s message. The most important graphic element is the captions and the dialogue balloons because without them it would be difficult to understand the correct message which the author is conveying.   

NARRATIVE AND GRAPHIC JUMPS: How does the graphic fiction rely on the readers ability to provide narrative information that is not presented by the words or images on the page? Does the work contain few or many narrative and visual gaps?

The graphic fiction relies a lot on the readers imagination or interpretation to create narrative information that isn’t explicit by making assumptions of what happened between panels. This is better called “jumping the gutter”. A gutter is the blank space between panels. The work not usually have many visual gaps because if it had, it would rely too much on the readers imagination and can lead to not understand the meaning of the graphic work.

GRAPHIC STYLE: 1. How would you describe the style of the graphic work? What seems to be the artist’s signature style?

I would describe the style of a graphic work by the drawings of the illustrations in the panel. I would describe the author’s drawing to describe the style. For me, an artist’s signature style would be a repetitive characteristic of his drawings in different graphic works.

2. How does the style match the story being told? Is the style a good match for the themes and concepts being conveyed by the narrative?

The style matches the story being told because of the colors, shades, darkness, and the smoothness of the drawings. For example, if a story is a scary story, the drawings are going to be dark and with a lot of shades. If a story is a funny story, the drawings would be animated. The style is a good match for the themes and concepts being conveyed because it gives the graphic work and idea of what the mood of the narrative is.