V for Vendetta + McCloud

I found V for Vendetta by Alan Moore to be a particularly inspiring text. The use of paneling and character development throughout was fantastic I found. I would like to start off by using an example from the text so I can give you a clear idea of what it is that I find so breathatking about this novel and it's graphics. Beginning on page 162 when Evey is kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and thrown into a cell by "the government" for information regarding V and ending on page 167 when she finds herself in V's domain. The shadings on her naked chest revealing her starved appearence, her pain staking expressions, the dark shadings on her dress along with the sides of the walls revealing a certain darkness and manipulation possibly behind her kidnapping and finally ending on page 167 the page is entirely in shadow, even Evey is left in the shadows, and V simply states "Welcome Home", which chilled me right to the bone. This is an excellent example of how with the use of paneling, expression, and shading alone the author created an agent of suspense and "irk" if you will to his audience.

Yet the question remains, is the juxtaposition shown on these pages just as powerful and moving, or more so even, as watching the film? This question followed me throughout the text and I know when I saw that this was one of our many reading assignments how excited I was because of how moved I was by the film.

In Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud it is stated that through paneling you can create the same sense of emotion through paneling as you would in watching a film. I found this a great time to share my idea on how I feel Alan Moore was able to do this, for it seems like quite the feat. As I shared in the example I found particularly inspiring above, the expressions on Evey's face and the shadings throughout her body, along with the stress lines on her forehead and the bones that can be seen prodding out of her chest from starvation created the same sadness as watching the film and seeing Natalie Portman starve and hearing her screams of sorrow. The detail in this paneling creates so many different emotions throughout the entire text. It made it impossible to put the book down.

Another observation I made when reading V was that coloration of certain panels also helped in enacting different emotions in the author/illustrator's audience. The example I would like to use here is on page 96 and 97 when Evey is dancing with V underneath the disco ball and the entirety of the panels if filled with these pastel colors (blue, yellow, and red) and it brough a whole different sense of feeling to these pages. You could feel the bond between them growing, such as two highschoolers at a school dance. I found this to be another fine example but with different use of colors you can create a whole different emotion and appeal to your audience.

Not only did I find V for Vendetta a fascinating read, but I feel that it rather one ups the movie I watched of it previously. I would reccomend the comic to the movie to any art/film/graphic novel fantic. I will leave you a picture I found as a great representation of this blog. Thanks for reading.