Why pictures?

That’s something that I have been thinking about throughout this reading.

I was especially thinking of it while reading American Splendor. There are stories where all you see is images of Pekar directly addressing the reader. His face may change a little, and he gestures, but there isn’t really any action. Why not just make that an essay? It’s not like he was drawing the figures himself—he was giving the artists mockups with stick figures.

I suspect some of it is that some people are just more visual in their thinking. They see it a certain way, and they can just write what they think, but then the reader may not get it right. Or, to try and create the correct image, you need to add extra words that will overwhelm the meaning and the feeling, all of which you can avoid by just showing.

Some of it may simply be that it’s what the material dictates. I will write about this more later, but often when you are creating you are not in complete control. Sure, you can force yourself upon the material, but it won’t feel right, and you won’t produce anything very good if you take away the story’s ability to grow organically.

I notice this more with plots and characters, but the medium is also a factor. There have been things that could only be short stories or only be screenplays, and there was one essay that did not work at all and then it worked as a poem. There is poetry and there is song, no matter how blurry the lines get.

Also, lately, it is impossible to deny how much power the pictures can have. I say this as someone who loves words. Some phrases have just echoed through me and words have insistently repeated until I would get the point. It’s not that there is no power without pictures, but maybe some messages need a specific power, or maybe it is some messengers.

I just finished Watchmen. I can’t exactly say I like it. The most likable characters are pretty frustrating, and a lot of them just aren’t likable. There is also a worldview there that I find repellent. I don’t even know if it’s in any way reflective of Alan Moore’s real views, or just something he created because it was necessary for some of the character’s voices. Despite finding a lot to admire in the material between chapters, and totally seeing ways in which it is brilliant, I don’t see myself reading anything else of his, or reading Watchmen again.

That being said, I do keep going back to one specific page. It is the last regular page of Chapter 11, before the interview with Veidt, where, if I did not already hate him, that would seal the deal. It is when the event occurs. I don't know how much of how the page is executed is from Moore, or from artist Dave Gibbons.

There are no major characters featured on this page. There are people you have seen before, but their roles have been pretty small, mainly serving as background. You see the spreading horror, and all of the color, which has been brilliant (color by John Higgins), has drained, and as everything ends and all of the little references to Hiroshima pay off, there is this moment of grace as a kid turns to the man he doesn’t really know, but who has been a presence in his life. He turns to him for shelter, and the man tries to provide it, and then there is just a white, empty square.

I cried reading it the first time. I have teared up going back and looking at it again, and I am crying a little writing about it now. It’s not that what preceded wasn’t important—especially the pages right before—but that page is a masterpiece, and if I ever decide to buy my own copy of Watchmen (this is from the library), it will be for that page.

It doesn’t always happen, but that is something pictures can do.