For my final project, I want to do an essay about Are you listening? by Tillie Walden. It is about two girls who are running away from their own separate past traumas. Combine it with a surreal road trip, a magical cat, and West Texas, and you have the premise of the book.
Even though the story and plot can be very confusing at times with twists and turns in their journey that may not make sense at first glance, it is important to note that the main theme of the book is human connection.
I first fell in love with the book with the amazing art style and colours, but as I reread parts and looked back at scenes, I am certain that the book’s plot is irrelevant to the story and that the main focus should be on the two characters. Almost nothing is known about them as individuals but the way they interact and develop a relationship from strangers to friends is worth delving into and looking further.
The story is supposed to be about their trauma and why they are running away from their hometown in the first place, but Walden only briefly touches upon each of these issues, almost like we, the readers, are as much as strangers as they are to each other. This lack of information is consistent throughout the entire book and in the end, when they part from each other to go on their own journey, as what was planned before they met each other, it is bittersweet. It feels like there could be something more to their relationship and yet, there isn’t. They shed tears for each other but leave with hopes for the other. Sometimes human connections aren’t linear. Sometimes we meet people in life, leave, and then see each other again.
For my essay, I want to delve further into how Tillie Walden uses technical skills to create a comic book that is rich in action, but also emotion in the panels. The environment defines much of the mood and tone of the scene and she uses colours to her advantage, sucking out warm tones in times of despair and using bright colours to highlight emotionally positive or exciting events. She uses panels in a large variety, often switching them up in shapes or with a lack of to move the story along.
I think that this will be an interesting reread and analysis where I hope to find more gems Walden has buried in the pages.
I haven’t read the comic, but from the pages you’ve attached I can see the colours are stunning. It makes me wonder, does this palette stay consistent throughout the story? If not, how does that play into the structure of the story? Are there certain colours ascribed to specific symbols or emotions? These are just some things you could consider exploring in your analysis.
For your essay it would be worth thinking about whether the storyline was meant to be ambiguous from an emotional or thematic standpoint. Does the confusion line up with emotional moments? Seeing you’ve mentioned the story discusses trauma and the messiness of human relationships, I feel that could have been a choice on Walden’s part?
Looks like a wonderful comic to analyze, I’d love to read your essay! Lots of luck liz!
Wow, this looks like such an interesting looking book to choose to analyze, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and reading the book myself! You mentioned that Walden plays with the ratio and rhythm of panels throughout the story, and I was wondering if Walden applies a similar technique to the dialogue and speech bubbles. Specifically, the relationship which text and images share, and how that is used to create meaning. Additionally, looking at the amount of dialogue and speech bubbles and how that is used to either speed up or slow down time throughout the story may be an interesting avenue for you to explore. However, as I have not (yet!) read the comic you’re analyzing, it may not be relevant.
I’ve never read this comic before, but basing by the way you’ve described it, it seems like a very interesting book to analyze about. I really like your ideas on how to discuss the author’s use of colour to set the mood and story. One thing that I would maybe like to see is how the author uses also uses composition along with colour since you’ve also mentioned panel sizes. Could you maybe talk about how composition can also be used to portray the sense of sadness, happiness, or other emotions? Or how composition along with panel sizes can impact the pacing of the story? Maybe these are a few ideas that you can consider.
Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing on what you can come up with
I look forward to reading what you have to say about this book. I would be interested to know how long this story took Walden to complete since all the pages are full colour.
This sounds wonderful Liz. I’m really looking forward to you articulating the effect that her drawing style has on the language of action in the book. I don’t have many critiques or suggestions, but I’m fascinated by the concept of the reader being in as much of a child-like mindset of the characters. I’m curious to see if you’ll delve into the effectiveness of the lack of information, and how it might place the reader into a state of uncertainty and impermanence similar to the characters.
It’s interesting to me because I personally prefer black and white comics over coloured, I find colours to be distracting in a comic format, but don’t really mind them in the panels that you’ve shown.
Maybe because the coloured hero comic I’ve read are all action based and thus made them even more complicated when in full colour?