Author Archive

Esther Claudio analyses the mise en page of one of the pages from Craig Thompson’s “Goodbye, Chunky Rice” (2003). She studies how the vertical and horizontal reading itineraries negotiate description, narration, chronology and sequentiality through the juxtaposition of dialogue and observation.

In this contribution, Esther Claudio analyses Winshluss’s nihilistic and sarcastic style in Angoulême-winning Pinocchio. Most of this comic is told by means of pictures without the help of words. This type of “mute” narration, the pantomime, serves to demonstrate the viability of imagery in the service of narrative but also the author’s mastery to control the reading experience throughout the work.

In this contribution, Esther Claudio analyses three examples from Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, whose apparent simplicity problematises the stereotypes related to Western and Eastern cultures and to Iranian Muslim women. The contradictions which shape the author-narrator’s reality are conveyed with an ironic and subtle style which Claudio decodes through a close reading of the three illustrations.

In Seagle’s and Kristiansen’s It’s a bird, Superman is used as a means to exorcise one of Seagle’s greatest personal fears: Huntington’s disease. By examining the figure of the hero and the day in his childhood in which Superman and the disease became intertwined, the author attempts to overcome trauma. In this post Esther Claudio looks at how both discourses intermingle and finally lead to the creator’s catharsis.

Esther Claudio looks at a cut-out from Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, unveiling how “the thing itself” opens a space to question prejudices regarding works with paper as “child’s play”. Claudio dives into the media-specificity of this piece, and interrogates how Ware’s cut-out defies our horizons of expectations.

Esther Claudio takes a look at a page from Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, exploring how the pages call for the reader to travel the many paths and alleys that Spiegelman has built for him/her. Claudio explains how non-linear reading processes created by ergodic texts take the shape of “a paranoid reading”, putting the puzzle pieces of trauma together.