What works, what doesn't?

I'm going to make a habit of grabbing random comics and writing about them as I read them, both to see what works and what doesn't. Today I'll be examining Derik A. Badman's "Maroon", which has strong and weak points.

Note that his numbers mismatch mine. There seems to be a missing installment -- the second -- but the first page does link to the third, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Perhaps Badman thought better of the second installment after some time? The de facto second does mention that it was edited in November.

The first page.

I really like this page. The goal here is to get a sense of the space our protagonist is apparently marooned on, and we do that. The panels where we don't see him at all are particularly effective -- the sensation of following so far behind him when he is, in fact, the only viable human subject, is an interesting one. I'm also interested in the character himself. How did he get where he is? Why is he so calm?

I also like the limited color set. Badman has limited himself to a blue-white and a yellow-brown spectrum, along with, of course, the black outlines. Constraints show an artist in control. That works.

Second page.

This isn't as good as the first page. I like the sense of the passage of time, and the first and last panels (the sea, and the sky) are interesting ways of setting the tone. No matter what else we're looking at on the page, we're seeing them too, and Badman is clearly conscious of that. But I'm curious about that manacle. First, it's interesting, which works. But second, there's an inconsistency. I couldn't see that on the first page. Why couldn't I? That doesn't work for me.

Third.

Here we have a document of change. We understand from the start -- due to the panel which all the other panels are incorporated into, depicting the sunset, as well as from the changing light on his face -- that what's happening is him watching and responding to a sunset -- probably his second or third on the island, judging from the facial hair. We see his expression change from a sort of skeptical hostility to bemusement and finally to a smile. Makes sense.

But why does he turn away at the end? Is he done watching the sunset? Is it over at that point? Or is the camera just rotating around him? I think I know the answer, but I'm not sure. It could be more clear.

The little strip of green is perhaps a premature breaking of the rules, but a very nice surprise.

Fourth.

Good body language. Nice little story. Why aren't we seeing the manacle? We've only actually seen it once and I'm beginning to wonder if we hallucinated it. Question: What are the plops?

Fifth.

I love the white rocks! I'm glad to see the manacle does, in fact, exist, and the fact that he's going to the trouble of removing it speaks to how bored the guy is. Why isn't he hungry? Does he find food to eat between panels?

Sixth.

The first panel doesn't really do it for me. I'm not sure why we need borders, and with or without borders why the bird doesn't seem to coexist with the clouds. Is it that the bird is closer, but the artist wants to show us the clouds?

In any case, we see the first dialogue. It's interesting, and though there is very little new information here, it does at least validate our questions. (This is important, especially in a previously silent comic -- silent comics tend to have a logic of their own, and my assumptions about this comic's world working like the real world have only now been validated.) The use of the word "misstep" is effective -- perhaps he accidentally stepped into the manacle.

Gray is introduced into the art here, although there's an argument that it already existed in the negotiation between white and black elements. It's well-used on the bird, but those gray clouds in the background just don't do it for me. If we're expanding the visual rules, we should show why it's important to do so -- rather than just tossing a cloud in there, seemingly for the hell of it.

Seventh.

So it turns out the rain cloud wasn't so inconsequential after all -- although I maintain that it was ugly. Good sense of motion here, nice use of color.

Eighth.

Badman wisely keeps the colors during this outing, though it would be tempting to mix something new in given the opportunity. The joke is a good one -- even in dreams, our unfortunate leading man seems destined to suffer.

Ninth.

This one doesn't really do it for me. The parallel of thought bubbles and clouds is a bit obvious for there to be much in pointing it out, though Badman does successfully communicate the airy playfulness of his thoughts -- this is pie in the sky fantasy. Toward the end, though, I begin to ask myself why we can't see him. Is he engaging in something unseemly? I know I would, in those circumstances.

Tenth.

Good pose on our newcomer. The slight sexual twinge I get on seeing her bare thighs is enough to remind me how our man must be feeling after at least a few days (and maybe more -- he was a prisoner, after all) of complete seperation from the opposite sex. His open shirt furthers the sexual nature of the narrative, and at the same time reminds me of how vulnerable he is -- even to his own hallucinations, which she obviously must be.

Does the ship exist? Probably not. Does she, in some form, in his past? Perhaps. Her clcothing is awfully outlandish, though.

The penultimate panel is interesting, but I'm not sure of its significance.

Eleventh.

Interesting. I like the transformation of the ship's sails into rowing humans, but I'm not sure the panels within panels technique is accomplishing what Badman likes here. My experience of the technique is a confusion of perspective -- I'm looking at the water from two angles simultaneously.

Twelfth.

So...this is a hallucination, right?

The shrinking panel is interesting -- the camera, which is generally considered the reader's point of view, is fixed in each iteration of the panel. Also, the border width does not change. However, the panels themselves do shrink. The effect is that we seem to stay sharply focused on the boat even as it shrinks into the distance. The 180 flip to a view of the protagonist establishes that we were seeing through his eyes and casts him in opposition to the boat -- which makes sense, since its inhabitants just tried to kill him.

Thirteenth.

So, apparently he's really losing it. My reading of this page is that he hallucinates a ship to shoot down the ship that just abandoned/shot at him, and that he's satisfied with the outcome of their encounter.

The doubled panels don't really work for me -- the borders, where they meet, are distracting and a bit ugly.

Fourteenth.

The barrel is fun to look at. It's nice to have our buddy the bird back. But the panel within a panel thing still isn't quite working for me -- I'm not sure what it's meant to accomplish, and it's a bit distracting. The arrangement of three discrete rows makes for a nice rhythm.

Fifteenth.

So maybe he didn't hallucinate the ships after all? I don't know anymore. That sure looks like their wreckage. Apparently the barrel floated in from the exploded boats, too.

The last bit is a strange move -- it's not really the sort of strategy we would expect given the comic so far. It's a dreamlike sensation to see this stuff.

Sixteenth.

This stuff looks an awful lot like his stuff. The single-panel layout enhances the feeling of mystery. The "next week" box is apparently a regular feature now, but it's still a little jarring.

Note the detail of the loosened lock; observant readers will use this detail to create closure, using logic and experience -- as well as memory -- to deduce how he went about opening the lock. This is effective.

Seventeenth.

Ironic choice of text. His circling the island is effective -- the rules of comics say that we read the panels in two rows from right to left, and again from left to right, but it's difficult not to simply follow him across the page. What settles the issue is his footprints, which double up in the final panel -- it's been a while, as we are reminded by the gaps in the text. The fact that we are tempted to read it in two ways helps us experience the repetitive nature of the act without us feeling that our time has been wasted by the artist.

The one problem here is the overlap of the first text sampling between the first and fourth panels, which tempts us to read further out of order. That wasn't a fantastic idea.

The detail of the preponderance of footsteps in the central panel effectively shows us that the protagonist has made this area into a little home base of sorts.

Eighteenth.

Better use of panels within panels -- not only does the arc of the foot feel good to read, but the last couple panels effectively, temporally disconnect the character from the final row by removing his feet from the ground.

Mystery!

Nineteenth.

Cute.

Twentieth.

Very interesting way to order the panels. I'm not sure what his leg is doing in the speech bubble, but I like that it's pointing the way in the next panel, which ultimately eliminates all other options and forces us to understand which panel is intended to be read last.

Twenty-first.

This page is difficult to understand if you haven't seen the previous pages first. Apparently, it's a dream about being chased by a bear. At the end, it seems, he realizes he's been backed into a corner -- but that could be more clear.

What's perfectly clear all the way through is the threat posed by the bear, thanks to the prominently placed panel in the upper right.

And that's where we leave off for now. As far as summative comments go, Maroon is an interesting series whose formal experiments work out very well in some cases, but occasionally miss the mark. This is a series I'll be keeping an eye on for a little while, regardless. We may revisit it for analysis here in the future.