The Art of the Mind

The comics in Crime SuspenStories that we read all end with the villain falling into the hands of justice, even if the justice isn’t served by the law. While this doesn’t sound particularly groundbreaking, what I did find innovative was how art and text were used to reflect the inner turmoil and psychology of the characters. Particularly in “Poison,” we see the effects the poison has on the mind of Mr. Boles in the middle panels on page 85 with how two of Elsa’s heads and four bottles of poison float around him and then in the next panel in the way the background is warped and has a greenish hue. Especially on the right panel at the top of the page we feel his urgency as the yellow spirals of his anxiety close in on him. Another comic that uses art to clue the reader into the state of mind the character is “Dead-Ringer.” In this comic on page 48, the panel is close up on the protagonist’s face with the numbers from a clock circling him as he uses chloroform on the millionaire. Here we can understand how paranoid he feels as he worries whether he will get away with his crime in time. The sharp shadows on his face also serve to heighten the sense of drama and urgency. Another example where art is used to visually depict the conflict happening inside a character is in “The Corpse in the Crematorium” when on page 67 Jane is surrounded by the words like “sorry!” and “no Al Gregory!” everywhere. In this panel the text breaks free from text bubbles to show how overwhelmed Jane feels with fear and worry for Al Gregory.