The bulk of the paper is spent looking at V's televised speech in Chapter 3 and 4 of Book II of V for Vendetta and Rorshach's origin story in Chapter 6 of Watchmen (The Abyss Gazes Also).
You: That's so cool Andy! But what are you gonna say about graphic novels?
Great question, the You. Well, when most Englishy people look at Englishy things they talk about the conventions that writers use to construct meaning. This is why you learn about similes, metaphors, alliteration, juxtaposition--it's a writer playing with parts of your brain to make you think what they want you to think. Or at least point you in a certain direction. And that's great and there's all kinds of things you can do with words on a page.
BUT! Graphic novels have PICTURES and WORDS on a page! And people who know about pictures also know all kinds of things about how picture-makers make meaning (line, form, color, perspective).
But! Graphic novels have WORDS and PICTURES on a page!
So it's not just word-meaning making and picture-meaning making smashed together and independent of each other. Graphic novels have unique tricks and conventions that neither writing nor drawing can do on their own.
FUUUSSSSSIIIOOOONNNNNN!!!
You: That's so cool Andy! But what are those things that graphic novels can do that nobody else can?
Glad you asked, the You. This really smart guy named Scott McCloud wrote a book called Understanding Comics that you should totally read and I'm about to take his ideas and regurgitate them to you in a much less effective way.
Here's
1. Cartoons!
So, cartoons are actually separate from comics. Cartooning is a kind of drawing (that just about all comics use). Comics are more about what you do with those drawings. McCloud calls cartooning AMPLIFICATION THROUGH SIMPLIFICATION! Cartoons take away information that isn't necessary for the point you're trying to make in a drawing so the meaning is a lot easier to gather.
If I want to draw an angry cartoon man, I don't need ears. Ears have nothing to do with anger. I just draw a circle with two dots, an upside down 'U', and a 'V' above the dots. That makes it really easy for you to figure out what I'm trying to show you--there's very little ambiguity.
And because that meaning is so clear, the drawing/ cartoon becomes more ICONIC! It has more specific communicative ability. You aren't thinking about who this guy is because there isn't really any extraneous information about him. You're thinking about what he is.
And here's the really cool part. McCloud says that because there is so little to know about this iconic character's identity, it acts as a VACUUM that sucks YOUR identity and awareness into you it. You can't help but identify with that character and put yourself in that situation.
You: WHY?! Why is that true??!
It's complicated. But what McCloud says is that your face is like a mask. A mask that you can't see. But you can control it and you still know what you look like when you do stuff with your face. McCloud argues that whenever you use your face you are keeping a simplified representation of your own face in your mind. To keep tabs on yourself. You create iconic representations of everything that is a part of your awareness and identity. This includes your face and other things that you consider a part of you: your clothes, objects that you hold, even the car that you drive become a part of you and have this iconic representation.
So when you see a cartoon version of something, it is represented in the way that you think about things that are a part of yourself. THAT'S why comics draw you in.
Crazy, right?
This is getting long so instead of moving on to other stuff that comics can do, let's talk about Rorshach and his awesome mask.
Ever seen a picture of Rorshach from Watchmen? He's the one with the black and white splotchy face in the trenchcoat.
The reason that is Rorshach's mask has everything to do with cartooning. And it's the same reason that Rorshach is everyone's favorite character. Or should be. Or it's the same reason that he's my favorite character.
Before Rorshach was Rorschach he was a scrawny 16-year-old hooligan with no parents named Walter Kovacs who got a job as a manual worker in the garment industry. 6 years later there's an order for this dress that has special fluids that cause the pattern to change with heat and pressure. It looks all "ink-blotty" all the time. Kovacs thought it was beautiful "black and white moving. Changing shape...but not mixing. No gray". The lady who ordered it thought it was hideous so Kovacs takes it home and cuts it up so it doesn't look like a dress anymore and forgets about it. 2 years later Kovacs finds out that the woman who ordered the dress was raped, tortured, and killed outside her apartment while over forty of her neighbors looked on and did nothing. It is at this point that Kovacs returns to the fabric and uses it to create "a face that I could bear to look at in the mirror".
BIG QUESTION: WHY IS THIS THE FACE THAT KOVACS CAN BEAR TO LOOK AT?!
The simple answer is that it is an abstraction--it is an icon that represents everything Rorshach stands for. How can we describe Rorshach's "crime-fighting style"? Draconian and Retributive Justice sum it up fairly well. For Rorshach, there is only right and wrong. No "gray" areas of morality. And when someone does wrong it is his compulsion to violently attack that wrong doer--to inflict that pain back on to them. The degree of his punishment is irrelevant because for Rorshach there are no degrees of crime. If you do wrong, he kills you.
So, like his mask, like a Rorshach test, like Rorshach's way of seeing, his actions are symmetrical and black and white. Cut and dry. This is the idea, the ethos, that Rorschach finds beautiful and uses as his mask that allows him to look at himself. He is unlike 'the people' who he is repulsed by who do nothing to stop injustice and are passive. They stand for nothing. They are just faces that reflect the human qualities of cowardice, hypocrisy, and passivity. Rorshach is an idea.
And that's why you root for Rorshach. His voice opens the entire book and you identify with that blank, abstracted face because it acts as the lens you use to view the Watchmen world. It's Rorshach's journal that provides his inner-narrative and gives you another tool to see the world from Rorshach's view. We learn to see the world the way Rorshach sees it, we are given visual, iconic cues. We also "think" the way Rorshach thinks through reading his inner monologue.
It's not just a face. A face with details that you would associate with someone else. It's an abstracted face. The way you imagine your own face but taken to the extreme. To identify with Rorshach is to almost give up human-nature all together and embody an unwavering ideal--justice in a primitive, violent sense. But, given everything else that goes on in Watchmen, which has a lot to do with good intentions going horribly horribly wrong and everything wrapped in moral ambiguity and uncertainty, Rorshach starts to make a whole lot of sense.
That's part ONE!
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