The Space Between: Graphics and Gutters

A response focusing on Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and chapters from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Although Satrapi’s Persepolis is a graphic novel rather than a comic strip, readers can find a connection between what McCloud writes about in Understanding Comics and that which Satrapi presents on her pages. In Chapter 3, “The Blood in the Gutter,” McCloud writes of the importance of the gutter. He writes: “the gutter plays host to much of the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics! Here in the limbo of the gutter, human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (66). On page 84, McCloud furthers this thought and presents the following scenario:

McCloud makes the point that not all of these images are necessary in order for readers/viewers to understand what is going on in the story. He suggests that because “the art of comics is as subtractive an art as it is additive,” the same story can be told in fewer panels without sacrificing any meaning (85). McCloud then presents several shortened versions of this story on page 85. Satrapi makes use of this idea of shortening in Persepolis. Take the following example, found on page 68: 

This page serves as an example for what McCloud describes. In these moments above, Marji and her father are outside on the sidewalk. Even though readers/viewers do not witness the father/daughter duo return to their house, they may assume this is so. Within the frames from this single page, the characters move from outdoors to indoors to then inside a car. Readers/viewers do not see the lengthy car ride that they do in McCloud’s story on page 84, but rather see the condensed version such as McCloud’s on page 85. Because readers/viewers can connect the dots and merge the space between the gutters to a single scene or idea, they are aware of the change in setting within this example. If they weren’t, readers might wonder how Marji comes to be standing in front of a mirror with her mother between frames of conversation with her father. “Creators,” McCloud writes, “must regularly make assumptions about their readers’ experiences” (85). In making these assumptions, it is left to the imagination of the reader/viewers and the “magic and mystery” of the gutter (66).

Another key concept McCloud discusses is that of time. In chapter 4, “Time Frames,” he writes: “In learning to read comics we all learned to perceive time spatially, for in the world of comics, time and space are one and the same” (100). McCloud also comments on the presence of the silent panel and writes, “When the content of a silent panel offers no clues as to its duration, it can also produce a sense of timelessness” (100). This sense can be found in Persepolis as well.

Although there are some textual descriptions in this panel, there are no dialogue bubbles presents. Instead, readers/viewers are presented with one of the largest panels thus far in the graphic novel. The panel covers the entirety of the page and very much so includes this idea of space and time as one. The difference here, however, is that this panel does tell readers/viewers the duration of the family vacation: 3 weeks. Even so, this powerful, detailed image, in conjunction with the lack of dialogue, gives readers/viewers the feeling of timelessness that McCloud discusses. By using this image across one large panel (rather than breaking it up with gutters across smaller panels), this panel from Persepolis “linger[s] in the reader’s mind” (102).

The presence of time (and its length) is seen in many other panels of Persepolis. On page 73, the panel reads: “And then some days later…” Page 100 reads: “When I got back from school…” Both of these instances draw further attention to the presence of time and the importance it plays in a story such as Persepolis.

Also within this chapter, McCloud makes note of motion and its evolution throughout the history of comics. “As we’ve seen,” McCloud writes, “the interaction of time and comics generally leads us to one of two subjects: sound or motion” (116). Satrapi makes a very basic use of one of the types McCloud discusses — motion within panels. See the following images from Persepolis illustrating this concept: 

Finally, before concluding this response, I would like to point out just two illustrations I found of particular importance in Persepolis. While they do not relate as closely to what McCloud addresses, the selected images do relate to previous class readings. Take a look at the following illustrations: 

This first illustration symbolizes the “male gaze.” The female is centered in the panel, surrounded by males eyeing her with malicious anger. The female is in hiding, both in the story and in the painting, and she is impacted by this presence of an unbalanced power ratio. Similarly, the second and third illustrations symbolize this patio ratio between the superior (the teacher) and the inferior (Marji). Just as the men did in the first image, here too, the teacher looks down upon her students; this further highlights the levels of power at play. In the following panel, the teacher’s body looms over Marji’s; this difference in size is symbolic of the teacher’s all-powerful state.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993. 60-117.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon, 2003.