Week Eleven

Asterios Polyp is another example of how the comic book works as an effective medium for biographies. Pictures are infinitely more descriptive than words. It reminded me of Blankets where the artist used symbols to show different aspects of his inner thoughts.

The pictures are a really telling way to show the relationship between Asterios and Hana. When they are in unison, their drawing styles merge. At the faculty party in the beginning of the story, Asterios and Hana begin to talk to each other and the blue and pink lines begin to melt together. When the two are fighting, the differences are stark. When Asterios first tells Hana about the video camera in their bedroom, his lines are straight and ordered and blue. Her lines are wild and alive and pink. It feels as though the two styles can never compromise into one piece.

Each character has their own speech bubble style as well. Asterios talks in all squares. The font is geometric and crisp. On the other hand, Hana’s script is curved and flowing in round speech bubbles. Meanwhile, Asterios’ mother talks all in cursive.

You can feel how Asterios dominates Hana. He takes up most of the space in the scene. His speech bubbles are bigger. When he first visits Hana’s studio, a spotlight literally moves to shine on him. The only time that Hana dominates is when they fight about Willy Chimera. For the first time, Asterios is taken aback.

The ending was interesting. Everything just ended. I assume they died. I thought that I would be dissatisfied with an asteroid killing everyone off but I wasn’t. They reconciled and that’s all that mattered to me.