cover art – Doc Fantasy Reads

Sandman Issue 20: Masks and Facades

Continuing my re-read of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman which I started here, as I’m focusing on portraits I’m skipping most of Volume 3 Dream Country and heading straight to the last issue, issue 20: Façade. “Façade” is fascinating from the portrait perspective and I believe the cover art for volume 3 is a representation of this issue.

“Façade” features Urania “Rania” Blackwell, DC Universe’s Elemental Girl and her inability to cope with living in her post-superhuman existence. Following her retirement, Rania is completely isolated, her only point of contact are phone calls to the agency to inquire the status of her disability cheque.

Rania has the ability to transmutate into anything… except transmutating flesh is difficult. She gained these powers through contact with “the orb of Ra”, a process that leaves her looking alien and monstrous. As a result, each time Rania enters the public sphere she must create a version of her face, to cover her disfigurement. Unable to transmutate flesh (the smell of rotting meat lasts for weeks), Rania creates silicon faces instead. These silicon faces harden and fall off in a day, but Rania keeps them. Throughout the issue we see blurred images of masks hung around Rania’s apartment. From this perspective, they look like Greek theatre masks.

While there is one photograph of Rania before she gains super powers, the masks themselves operate as a series of self-portraits. If portraits are meant to convey the essence of a person, presenting them as a mask subverts that objective, as a mask is meant to hide the true identity, transform a person, and allow them to play a role. And yet, as Rania notes herself, the masks are a part of her identity as well, telling the figure Death that: “I couldn’t throw them away. They’re part of me.”

Death response to this assessment of human identity is striking, as she offers her own:

You people always hold onto old identities, old faces and masks, long after they’ve served their purpose.
But you’ve got to learn to throw things away eventually.
Gaiman, The Sandman “Façade”

Is Death right? Do we dwell on the portraits of our past too much? Do we dream of days gone by, or dwell on our past miseries? I can’t help but think of pop psychology. How often do we locate the source and meaning of our current actions from events that happened in our past. How often do we react in a way because of a past identity, a past hurt or trauma? Can we ever move past it to form a new persona, or is it always built off layers of shattered masks, a series of silicon portraits continously created and discarded but never completely thrown away?

Too many deep questions for a Thursday afternoon. I’m off to take a nap. Until next time, take care!

From Out of the Vault (A Poem Inspired by the Cover of Piers Anthony’s A Spell for Chameleon)

This one is a weird one, so feel free to judge and criticize my artistic efforts.

Cover of A Spell of Chameleon by Piers Anthony

When I was 14, my English teacher set us the assignment of picking a picture or illustration and writing a poem about it. Fresh-faced 14-year-old me had just picked up Piers Anthony’s A Spell for Chameleon (1997; Xanth book 1), and – without reading the book – I came up with the idea that the cover looked like a young boy coming up with a tall-tale excuse to a stern headmaster. (Just goes to show that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.)

In any case, below is my original poem. Despite its purple prose, it made me reflect on the nature of Fantasy fiction covers; on whether the cover portrays the most important scene or part of the book (rarely), or whether the cover matches the narrative at all! Are there any covers out there that made you pause and start imagining the books content? And were you disappointed or not with the way the narrative actually went? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

The promised poem:

A Child’s Dream

The principle crouched,

His face a mask of flurry,

As the boy stood there confidently,

Explaining his tardiness.

“So you see, sir,

I was right outside that door,

When my mind went allure.

The beauty of the plants and the golden light,

Was quite enchanting indeed, not to mention bright.

So I strayed of the path

To follow the sounds of a singing bird.

But what beheld my eyes,

Was fascinating, indeed.

Never such a sight was seen.

There stood groups of unicorns, a herd!

Now, I have heard before,

That if you capture one,

Then it would obey with all loyalty.

It would save the trouble, you see,

For me to walk everyday to school,

And I won’t be late anymore.

And so I crept up towards a strong looking one,

But in my haste, I forgot their pace.

And on a minor detail, that their ears do not fail.

When I realized that, God, my face turned pale.

The unicorns charged at me, with all speed

When I was swept up in mighty claws,

I soared into the air… in the clutches of a dragon!

But my fear slipped away,

When it dawned on me,

That it was your distant cousin

He was rather polite, using words such as ‘may’

He left me off, yonder…in the bushes.

When I saw before me,

A small centaur…a baby.

It was crying out loud,

Eyes filled with tears,

‘It must be lost,’ I said,

So I-”

‘Enough! Enough!’ The principle roared,

‘I could wisely guess what happened next.

It happened all too many times before.’

‘Now get to class!’

He said sternly,

Wiggling his ears with frustration,

‘And I’ll let it pass!’

On Master Craftsmen Jeff Smith (A Dissection of Bone Vol 1)

Jeff Smith’s Bone has all the ingredients for a good adventure: humour, romance, mystery; and a dragon, of course. Given all of these delightful qualities, I can’t believe I waited nearly 25 years to read it!!

Cover of Writing With Quiet Hands: How to Shape Your Writing to Resonate with Readers - by Paula Munier

But, in a way, I’m glad I waited until now to read Bone Vol 1 (published in 1995!). It accidentally gave me the opportunity to read Writing with Quiet Hands (2015) by Paula Munier first. Accidentally, because I did not think I’d be using her advice to examine and dissect someone’s else’s work. Munier, as a writer, editor, and literary agent, certainly approaches the art of writing – and selling your writing – from every angle possible. In one section she details the 3 levels of “story questions”:

the macro question – the *big question* that drives the plot
the meso questions – questions that drive every scene
the micro questions – questions that are scattered throughout sentences and paragraphs at every opportunity.

Reading Bone for the first time with Munier’s ideas on my mind, it becomes quickly obvious that Smith is a master of the micro questions. Every page has you asking questions, drawing you in to keep reading until you’ve found the answers. As a graphic novel, this is done on both the visual and verbal level.

Let’s take a look at the cover, for example:

Cover of Bone Volume 1: Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith

Although the adage “don’t judge a book by the cover” is often true, I don’t think this idea applies to graphic novels. Smith’s illustration does an admirable job of capturing the qualities of his protagonist. We immediately get the idea that the main character looks affable; the rounded features, the side smile, the hint of a blush, all give an overall impression of a “nice-guy” type. An innocent type. Not naive; But the type that looks like he’ll be taken advantage of because of his good-naturedness. And then you have these ominous eyes peering at the character from the shadows, barely visible except for the white of his eyes. So before you’ve even picked up the book to read, Smith has you asking “who is this guy, and is he going to be okay??”

At this point in the narrative (i.e. the cover), we know nothing about the character. We assume he’s the central protagonist. But we don’t know what he’s doing with a dusty old map or where he’s going. We don’t know what his name is, or any other identifiers about him (career, etc). We’re not even sure it’s a he; this is an (obviously biased) assumption made on our part, because we’re also not sure what he is. Is he meant to be human? Some alien or fantasy creature?

Think about that for a second. Despite knowing nothing about this character, Smith still has the audience wondering if the protagonist is going to be okay simply by looking at the cover. Is that not master craftsmanship?

Smith’s microquestions continue on every page. We jump in in media res, the first panel depicts three characters sweating in a desert. The first line reads: “still no sign of the townspeople,” followed by a second character’s response: “Hey! Ya hear that, Phoney? Th’ coast is clear!” From this brief exchange, the audience immediately wonders “who are these guys, and why are they running from the townspeople?” These questions lead to more questions as we learn that the three Bones (Phoney, Smiley, and Fone) are lost in the desert without water. They are ‘off the map’ in uncharted territories. (Literally, as they are caring around a map that no longer shows their location.) This information leads to questions about the world they’re in. Where are they? Why are parts of this world uncharted?

But before we can properly even ask these questions, the Bones are chased by a swarm of locusts (where did the locusts come from??), and get separated from one another. As we follow the journey of Fone Bone as he gets progressively more lost, more questions arise. Chiefly, where the heck is he?? And, as ominous eyes peer at him from the shadow, we continue to ask “is he going to be okay?”

These questions drive the story forward. As you’re never really sure what exactly is going on, or even the rules of the world that Fone Bone finds himself in, the reader is made to ask on every page “is Fone Bone safe?”. But while this macroquestion should have resulted in a tense, suspensful narrative, Bone volume 1 remains firmly in the realms of a fun adventure. With the rounded lines and almost cartoonish artwork, combined with dialogue that is punctuated by humour and emotion, Smith creates a story that is engaging and fun to read, but one that maintains a forward momentum on each page, drawing the reader to keep reading. I can’t wait to read the later volumes (already on my Christmas list) along with the recently announced televised adaptation.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the volume, but, a Special Request: Please don’t post spoilers of later volumes in the comments. I still need to read them myself!