Comic Books: A Narrative Analysis

Within this paper there are three major areas that I will focus on: narration and the narrators, the visual elements of the comic, specifically the use of color, and the presentation and handling of social issues, including gender and sexuality. This paper will aim to consider and analyze these areas within the comic through the critical approach of narratology, with some assistance from the cognitive approach. First, let’s talk about our narrator. For most of the comic, our narrator is Suzie. She is the first one to talk directly to the audience, giving us “our basic phrase to let readers know that a story begins now” (Kukkonen, 2013) when in the second page she metaphorically turns to the audience and says “Let me start at the start” (Appendix …show more content…
The author changes their style and makes a comic book unique for each story and character they are involved with and Sex Criminals is no exception. Color is an integral part of this but do comic books “use colors, as they use functions, in a patterned way?” (Da Silva, 2007). Da Silva argument is based around fairytales but I think that the sentiment is the same for comic books, because what is the story of time-stopping orgasms than a fairy tale? She explains that “the folktale prefers clear, ultrapure colors”, which can be seen in the colors repeatedly attached to particular characters (Da Silva, 2007). Each character has a palette that is significant to them, Suzie is red and pink and Jon is a compliment to her, often in blue or yellow. When they each appear singularly on the cover of the comic, these are the colors they are swathed in. The “bad guys” appear in all white, in a nice turn from the normal all-black attire of the villains but this could be because, and I may be stretching here, the villains don’t see themselves as bad guys at all, they think they are doing what is right and just and good, thus the white costumes. When anyone is in “The Quiet”, what Suzie refers to the pause in time caused by her orgasm, the colors swirl and mix but everything is bright and happy, euphoric almost (Appendix G). This is the same for everyone, with some variations based on the particularities of location but these bright colors signify something benign or the feeling of safety and peace attached to The Quiet. Now are these colors really the same for all who experience The Quiet or because we are being told this story by Suzie this is how she particularly sees it? Suzie sees The Quiet as a safe