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The letter 'v' is a scarab beetle, iridescent green & unyielding.

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Awash in varying monochromatic schemes mostly unrelated to environment, the pages of V for Vendetta tell a visceral tale through the marriage of many mediums...and a wee bit of alliteration.

(Moore & Lloyd 126-27)

Granted this serially-issued comic, now bound as a graphic novel, is technically one medium. And in fact, according to the book's jacket, it "stands as one of the highest achievements" of this medium; please note: this is the point in my sentence where I'd really like to give you the specific So & So's name who made this elevated claim ... alas, the comment marches namelessly (maybe a bit like V) across the back of the book and I'm forced to leave it.

Back to the idea of medium. I think it's important to break down the many ways that a reader reads a graphic novel like V for Vendetta; because, with so many things happening on a page, each reader is bound to read their very own personal version of V. Here's a short list to get us started:

  • Words
    • Narration
    • Dialogue
    • Sound Cues
      • Onomatopoeia 
      • Song Lyrics
  • Images
    • Order
    • Size
    • Color
  • Space
    • Gutters between panels
    • Negative space within panels
Let's start with the last because it seems the most simple *insert klaxon alarm here, because it ain't simple*. Scott McCloud, in his book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, spends an entire chapter exploring the space between panels—the gutters—and the crucial role that this space plays for the reader. These white bars of emptiness are unbound areas within the comic's narrative where a reader connects the action of the adjacent panels. Gutters allow for necessary transitions that move the story along at the author's intended pace. 

In the two page spread from V for Vendetta at the top of this blog, there are some classic examples of gutter space. While the panel size and distribution is quite regular, the panel focus moves the reader around the crowded cabaret room. We are at a table, then standing at the bar, we jump to a few close-ups of different people, and then we're staring down at a table as though we've been hung from the ceiling. 

All these transitions make sense because the gutter between each panel allows us as readers to fill in the missing information. Occasionally, the gutter is breached by either action or text, as seen on the bottom of page 126 (Moore & Lloyd). In this particular instance I think a lack of space led to the internal monologue stretching across panels, but frequently the gutter will be bridged as a means of jarring the reader. Based on McCloud's explanation, gutters help to organize the visual/verbal narrative of a graphic novel. 

But there's soooOOOOO MUCH MORE!!! And that so much more is color. 

If the medium IS the message, then what is the message V for Vendetta leaves with the reader? McCloud says that it's "a mistake to see comics as a mere hybrid of the graphic arts and prose fiction" and V is the perfect vaccine to this mistake. Readers watch the insidious hold of a totalitarian regime begin to crumble at the hands of a faceless man. Singular acts of destruction have a visual resonance like the ripple effect of the dominos between chapters. While the intermingled images and words are forceful, it is the way color imbues and connects them which really gives V its teeth. 

David Lloyd washes the spreads in V for Vendetta with a significant amount of green. But it's the bruised green of an injured body, fading out to sickly yellows and lavenders that tend towards rust. Second to this palette, Lloyd employs blues with both yellow and orange, or with varying greens. Rarer are his lavender or dusty pink spreads as in "Chapter 9 Vicissitude" which runs from pages 143-47. These colors appear in subplots which have uneasy sexual undertones relating to violation, pedophilia, incest, and power. As with gutters, color cues are one way readers connect unspoken information, not just panel to panel, but across the entire narrative arc.

The bruised green palette of V for Vendetta culminates with a single, perfectly balanced black panel. Streetlights stand sentry as one person strides toward a future no one controls. The absence of color in this panel, after the previous barrage, focuses the reader on the message: "We've things to do...people to see" (Moore 263).

*Side note: I really enjoyed the dimension of color in this graphic novel, in part because of my color-grapheme synesthesia. The letter 'v' really is the vibrant green of a scarab beetle, and is as unyielding as the sound it makes: a turbulent puff of air shaped by lips and teeth, by skin and bone.

Works Cited
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. HarperCollins, 1993.

Moore, Alan. V for Vendetta. Illustrated by David Lloyd. DC Comics, 2005.














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