Aaron Johnson, has made himself well known through his ongoing series of daily
comics featuring a main cartoon named W.T. Duck, a photographer. He began making comics just as a blog filler, but has largely grown in popularity. His comics are published daily in many newspapers as well as several websites including the yahoo news section which is where I first saw it. Johnson's personal website,
whattheduck.net, contains fan commentary as well as every wt duck comic he has ever published. Johnson also openly takes criticism and suggestions via twitter and email on his website which I found interesting. The fact that Johnson did begin his career as a blogger is important because we then know he is the type of person that likes to get his ideas out there for the world to see. We should remember that this is his motivation for creating the comics while we analyze them.
The comic above is the one I am choosing to analyze for for this second project. It is part of Aaron Johnsons WT Duck series and was published a few days before Halloween of this year. The scene has the photographer, wt duck, telling five monsters that he charges extra for Ugly. Frankenstien responds by yelling "That's Discrimination," followed by the next three monsters swearing. Lastly the invisible man says, "sweet." The reason this comic stood out to me was because I found the dialogue really funny. One thing that is important to notice about this comic though is that Johnson chooses to act against several standard mechanics that one would find in a standard comic strip. These include use of framing, location of quotes, and levels of detail.
Rhetorically, these mechanics contradict the subject matter within the comic strip and argue that
discrimination is never toward just one group and often has an effect on evrybody, regaurdless of the target.
If one looks at the WT Duck comic and then the comic above, they first appear very similar in style. They both include three frames, illustrated cartoons and dialougue bubbles. The key to the argument of Johnsons comic though is where he chosses to diferentiate his style from that of a more traditional comic. The first difference I noticed was Johnsons use of frames. In a traditional comic, you will see each frame present either a different
scene of timeframe. On the other hand, Johnsons three frames all apear to be responding to the same event at the same moment in time, and even appear to be located sequentially. For example the whiches broom crosses over from one frame to the next and the grey foreground is persistant throughout. These three frames now appear to be a tool for describing the organization of space, instead of time. I beieve this choice was made largely due to Johnsons desire to remain consistant in terms of
ethos almost all of his other comics are structured with the three frame style. However it is also important to look at why t
hen he choose to only portrey one scene to represent this situation. The comic can be divided into two elements. The photographer(duck), and the monsters all responding to him. They appear to be in a line waiting for his service and it is suggested that all but the
invisible man will be charged extra. The effect the three frames has on me is it devides the second element, the monsters, apart from each other who I would otherwise have in my mind grouped together as just all monsters. So, it is possible that Johnsons strategy was to use the frames to create a division in the charactors that the audience otherwise would not have picked up on, yet still keep the scene together as one whole. Nextly, Johnson furthur divides these three frames by making the backgrounds distinctly different colors. In a traditional comic, like the one above, you will normally only see one consistant background color. These colors not only make the divison in frames more visible, but also act to set a mood, distinct to each frame. For example, in the first frame, Orange is used, which is a bright, intense color, and could be assosiated with the intense reaction from the Frankenstien monster to the duck. The second frame is white which could suggest indifference and the last frame is purple and could represent sadness. These different moods are important because although all of the monsters appear to be reacting the same, it is possible that the backgrounds reflect their true emotions on the situation. This become particularly important with the invisible man in the back because although it appears he is getting what he wants, the fact that he is at the back of the line and in the purple depressing background could suggest that he is unhappy. If we go back to the topic of dicrimination and the re-examine this scenario with respect to background representing mood, this comic now appears to be showing that the invisible man, although not directly disciminated against, may in fact be just as unhappy as the some of the other monsters who are. It is important to recognize that the invisible man himself could easilly be referencing the novel "
Invisible Man."(Ralph Ellison) This book in particular expressed the social issues facing african americans during the early twentieth century and largely played to this idea of how being "invisible" was the only way to avoid discrimination.(Wikipedia)
Next I would like to focus on Johnsons choice of positioning for his
quotation bubbles. It you look at the second comic I posted, you can see that traditionally, quotations are read from top to bottom, left to right, and never cover the characters face. If you examine Johnsons comic, first you will see that the sequence of quotes starts at the bottom left instead of the top left. This naturally causes the audience to see the quote, "Thats Discrimination!" before the first quote in the conversation. This automaticly sets the topic of discussion and mindset of the audience to discrimination be
fore they even know whats going on in the rest of the situation. This could serve several puposes. For example, Johnson could be trying to make a point that this is how people act in society today, that people jump to conclusions before analyzing situations. Johnson could have also chosen to do this to bring the topic of discimination to the mindset of the audience first, before the comedy in the rest of the strip was able to take over. The second interesting choice Johnson makes in terms of the quotation positioning is that several of the quotes actually cover the faces of the charactors. When the face of a charactor is not shown, their identity becomes much less of a focal point. One could conclude that johnson chose to do this to represent the lack of importance that the actual identity of the discriminated against holds. The fact that the mosters face is covered represents that the duck dosnt really even care who they are, he instead just see's them swearing at him, and moves on. We an also assume this because when a charactor says something, but you cant see their face, it conveys a feeling that they are being ignored or not listened to. It is also important to note that this comic provides no sort of response on the part of the duck to what the monsters are saying, which could furthur argure the point that he doesnt really care. In terms of the rhetorical argument, I feel this adds to the discrimination scenario being created as people who are being discriminated against often feel like they dont have a voice. The people discriminating often don't care what there victims think or who they are, and often just continue doing it.
A third major difference between this WT Duck comic and most other comics is that there is an apparent difference in level of detail illustrated between charactors. This goes back to the two elements I discribed earlier. First we have the duck, who in reality dosnt really resemble a duck at all, and only includes details such as a bill and dots for eyes. The second element, the monsters in
contrast poses a relatively high level of detail all the way down to creases in clothing and skin. The effect this creates is a widened separation between the photographer, and discriminator from the monsters. The high level of detail in the monsters make them seem much more "real" in the eyes of the audience than the simplified duck, even though in reality ducks exist and monsters dont. Johnsons strategy was likely to make the monsters be the element in the comic in which the audience related, causing them, in a way, to feel the same "discrimination" which the monsters are going through. This apeals to the overall
Pathos of the comic, bringing out an emotional response from the audience with respect to the argument.
In the end, the majority of people who saw this comic just got a quick laugh and then moved on, so what then is the signifigance of these rhetorical strategies? Often time texts can influence our thoughts, feelings and attitudes without us being consiously aware. While we may not know exactly what Johnsons feelings are on certain topics, we can assume that his work is a direct reflection and with this comic in particular, we for sure know the topic of discrimination was what he wanted to draw to attention based on his particular mechanics he chose. \When the audience sees this comic, the topic of discrimination is brought up in their minds and then the rest of the comic acts as a medium to possibly redirect their thoughts on the issue.
