I'd like to take a look at Hergé's use of text in Tin Tin. While both the drawings and the text play an important role in understanding the plot and the comic as a whole, Hergé's text heavy style seems counter-intuitive after reading comics such as Krazy Kat, and Gasoline Alley. Even in Little Nemo, despite the words adding to the story, the pictures are the main focus.
In Tin Tin, however, I feel like it is the opposite: I focused on reading the text more than looking at the each of the panels' images. What's interesting is that even in places that doesn't usually require speech, such as Tin tin's dog, Snowy, Hergé chooses to give him speech.
The humour, plot line, and suspense are all tied to the text. At times, I found myself ignoring the drawings and just reading the text in order to find out what happened next. Other times, there was too much text and I found myself skimming through it. In this specific case, I think it was Hergé's intention to make the detective a wordy man.
There are also times when Hergé
used images instead of words to explain what was happening:
Here, the image of bowling works much better than words. Thus, I concede I'm a little confused as to the relationship between the words and the images he chooses-- not that there must be one that is more concrete on the other, but I found that I often chose which one to look at rather than looking at both in juxtaposition/comparison. To me, it wasn't so much a combination of text and image as it was a text vs. image tension.
Did anyone else feel similarly?
In Tin Tin, however, I feel like it is the opposite: I focused on reading the text more than looking at the each of the panels' images. What's interesting is that even in places that doesn't usually require speech, such as Tin tin's dog, Snowy, Hergé chooses to give him speech.
The humour, plot line, and suspense are all tied to the text. At times, I found myself ignoring the drawings and just reading the text in order to find out what happened next. Other times, there was too much text and I found myself skimming through it. In this specific case, I think it was Hergé's intention to make the detective a wordy man.
There are also times when Hergé
used images instead of words to explain what was happening:
Here, the image of bowling works much better than words. Thus, I concede I'm a little confused as to the relationship between the words and the images he chooses-- not that there must be one that is more concrete on the other, but I found that I often chose which one to look at rather than looking at both in juxtaposition/comparison. To me, it wasn't so much a combination of text and image as it was a text vs. image tension.
Did anyone else feel similarly?
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ReplyDeleteAdrienne- I do agree with you. Maybe was because I had other homework to do, and I only had time to focus on one aspect of the story, or maybe it was because I am an English student and I have been trained to dig deep into text, but I too felt I focused more on Tintin's literary content than on the imagery.
ReplyDeleteA reason Tintin is so text heavy over the other comics that we have read may be because the story is so plot driven. So much is happening to Tintin and Snowy during their adventures therefore we need all this text to keep us updated. We need to know the logistics and the details of Tintin's current scenario so that we feel as in control and confident as Tintin. By providing us with so much dialogue and so many facts about the characters and the scene, the reader feels like a partner working alongside Tintin, not just an observer.
Interesting take. While I do agree that the text was imperative in comprehending deeper meaning in the story, I also felt as though much of the story could be understood by just looking at the images. You mentioned that you ended up looking at either the text or images as opposed to both and I felt similarly as I read through Tintin, especially after I had sort of figured out the style of Herge's storytelling. I do think, however, although there was "tension" between the text and the images, the reason that Tintin is so renowned is the comic's ability to balance them back and forth between sections where it is text heavy as opposed to image heavy.
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