Iconic versus Realistic Art in “Exit Wounds”

I was struck by Rutu Modan’s quirky, fresh, and bendy artwork from the first time I ran across a scanned page of “Exit Wounds” on the internet about a year ago.  Modan’s artwork is quite reminiscent of Herge’s Tintin series, which is known as the Ligne Claire or Clear Lines style, in how she combines meticulously detailed backgrounds with simplified human figures and flat coloring, all in a lovely uniform line that skirts the edge between mechanical and organic.

(A panel of Herge’s Tintin from “Tintin and the Temple of the Sun”.  More about Ligne Claire can be found on the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire)

Unlike Herge, however, Modan’s lines have a particular rubbery quality that’s not quite gestural but still subtly slant even her most detailed drawings away from strict realism.  Modan also can take advantage of modern computer coloring techniques to further distinguish her scenes settings and moods by tinting her inked lines a variety of different colors.  She also alternates panels with detailed background scenes with panels of characters against a single flat color that place a heightened focus on the moment caught within the borders.

A beautiful example of her techniques can be found in the cafeteria scene on pages 72 to 73.  Large panels on both pages establish the setting of the cafeteria through carefully but softy rendered drawings of the ceiling, stovetop, countertop, and dining customers.  Her expression, however, Her treatment of the objects in the scene like the ketchup bottle and forks and knives, express a distinctly iconic ketchup bottle or knife and fork rather than a realistically drawn one.  The waitress manages to break free of this detailed background three times on these two pages, building up to her sudden outburst on page 73.  “There is no Yossi! Yossi’s dead!” she shouts at an unseen demanding customer, her word bubble bursting through the panel’s frame.   Modan frames the woman with a brilliant primary yellow that’s boldness visually reinforces the fury of her expression, even though her expression is made up of only a few lines.  The waitress herself showcases this balance between the more realistically rendered wrinkles on her clothing and the symbolic lines of anger on her face.  She, like nearly all of Modan’s characters, also shares Tintin’s simple dot eyes, a highly non-literal and iconic simplification of the face that sometimes jibes with their realistic setting.

Modan’s choices in streamlining her human figures this way demonstrate Scott McCloud’s theory of how iconic styles of drawing affect closure for the reader.  McCloud argues that:

Since cartoons already exist as concepts for the reader, they tend to flow easily through the conceptual territory between panels.  Ideas flowing into one another seamlessly.   But realistic images have a bumpier ride.  Theirs is a primarily visual existence which doesn’t pass easily into the realm of ideas… (Understanding Comics, 90)

Seen through McCloud’s theory, Modan’s uniquely cartoonish approach to her characters, particularly their facial features, works to overcome the boundaries that her realistic scenes and settings might through up for the reader.   Unlike Herge’s characters inTintin, Modan’s character’s don’t have a very rigid “model” that their appearance adheres to; their forms bend and stretch in slight and unexpected ways, sometimes resembling photos that have been drawn over in felt-tip pen.  For an example of this rubbery-ness, look at how Modan drawns Numi talking on the phone on page 105.  In the six pink and uniform panels the young woman herself is never drawn quite the same way once: her hair moves and changes, her hands move and distort cartoonishly, and most importantly, the simplified features of her face adjust to the angle of her head as if they were drawn photorealistically.   The iconographic qualities of Modan’s artwork here make these little variations understandable to us by enhancing our sense of closure between panels.  Her balancing of realism with cartoonish line transforms the sequence from what could have been “a series of still pictures,” as McCloud puts it, into a fluid and energetic depiction of Numi’s restlessness and excitement throughout her phone conversation.