Analysis of panel/pages from the graphic novel 'Mother come home'.

 

 

Pages 019, 020 & 021

 

I picked three consecutive pages from ‘Mother come home’. These pages introduce the boy, Paul Hornschemeier and reveal that his mother is dead. The panels are simple with little movement or text and yet they still manage to tell us a lot. This simplicity is important as it makes us focus on the characters and the storyline. I personally like the large blocks of flat colour, they’re very effective in setting the tone. I found the bleeding of the speech balloons behind the gutter helps to slow down the pace. In the sixth frame a caption box placed over the speech balloon finishes the sentence for us, and yet keeping the speech balloon behind this box retains the flow of speech. The 7^th and 8^th frames are a jump to the future and so seem out of context at this point but I hadn’t noticed this the first time. I also think the composition was well executed. By keeping the fathers body cut we get a sense of the emotional distance between them. Cutting between close-ups and exterior shots is a bit confusing, until the story unfolds. I particularly like the final frame in this sequence. What is already a sad situation is emphasized by the cold atmosphere the artist creates with the dark sky and the snow. The grave is centred in the foreground with the father and son placed slightly off centre and close-up enough for us to connect with their emotion. It’s still a moving image though as father and son are united in their grief, oblivious to their surroundings and appearance.